Al Jazeera English deemed not a threat to the security of Burlington, Vermont

You can count in a basket of falafels the number of cable operators in America that carry Al Jazeera English, the most excellent news and documentary service launched in 2006 by the Arabic al-Jazeera. (Here's my profile of AJE from 2007.) One of those hardy few systems to carry AJE is Burlington Telecom, the broadband service provided to the citizens of Vermont's largest city (pop. 39,000), by its municipal government.

Vermonters are, we are told, a proud and independent lot. Still, it seemed inevitable that someone there would challenge the decision to add AJE to the unlimited bandwidth of Burlington Telecom when it launched two years ago. What was not inevitable was what wound up happening: The city council, by a 7-0 vote (with three abstentions), urged BT to keep AJE on its system. Earlier this week, BT complied, signing a new carriage deal with AJE.

Below, I've reprinted the resolution, which should be read by every city council member in the country that has to sign off on a cable TV charter. It's time that we demand our local monopolies serve the interests of the public by providing global news and information like the kind found on AJE.

I've heard various theories as to why AJE is not getting the kind of traction in America that it's getting in Israel and Germany and other countries. There is, of course, the brand name, which is one of the best known and most respected media brands everywhere else in the world but here. There's the widespread belief among cable operators that global news is a non-starter for American TV viewers (which is why you don't have BBC World on your system either).

But the biggest reason might be that AJE's marketing people have chosen not to grease the palms of those same operators. Most new cable channels that have come online in the past decade, including HGTV and Fox News Channel, paid to be on system lineups initially. The emir of Qatar has spent billions building his media empire from modest beginnings (he bought the defunct BBC Arabic service in the mid-1990s). What's a few million more to get it into American homes?

You may recall that AJE hired former "Nightline" correspondent Dave Marash as its Washington anchor, only to see him leave unhappily earlier this year. After giving a widely-publicized interview to E&P in which Marash said he could "no longer vouch" for AJE's "credibility and value," he tempered those sentiments a bit, telling the New York Times he though AJE's editorial content was "excellent, and I plan to be a lifetime viewer."

Apparently he's going to buy one of those global TV satellite dishes you need to watch AJE in 99.9 percent of the U.S. The reality is that almost no place in America can you switch on the TV and watch a 24-hour news channel that covers the world from a perspective other than American. And when you think about it, that's odd. Liberals listen to Rush Limbaugh. Yankee fans watch NESN. People who despise the Kansas City Star continue reading the Kansas City Star (we know this, because they keep writing us letters). So I don't see what is so wrong with a cable channel that tells us how the rest of the world looks at us.

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Recommendation Resolution re: Al Jazeera English on Burlington Telecom
Adopted by BTAC/BCAC at their joint June 24, 2008 meeting

WHEREAS the Telecommunications Advisory Committee (TAC) was created by Burlington City Council, which desired to include a measure of citizen input and oversight into the development and deployment of Burlington Telecom; and,

WHEREAS the Vermont Public Service Board required Burlington Telecom to form the Cable Advisory Council (CAC) to provide it with ongoing public input from Burlington residents of all walks of life on community needs and to serve as a vehicle for two-way communication with Burlington Telecom (BT); and,

WHEREAS the Mayor of the City of Burlington requested that the TAC and CAC make a recommendation of whether or not Al Jazeera English (AJE) should be retained or dropped from the BT cable channel lineup before BT takes any action; and

WHEREAS the Mayor of the City of Burlington requested that the public be heard on the matter of whether or not AJE should be retained or dropped from the BT cable channel lineup before BT takes any action; and,

WHEREAS our Committees have received both written and verbal comments from individuals residing inside and outside of Burlington; and

WHEREAS our Committees are unequivocally opposed to hateful and intolerant speech in whatever form; and

WHEREAS our Committees have heard assertions that AJE’s content is objectionable in that it supports terrorism, anti-Semitism and promotes the destruction of the State of Israel; and

WHEREAS the Committees believe that much of the testimony regarding AJE's objectionable content has been based on secondary sources, and that the Committees have seen no consistent or widespread agreement or evidence from respected sources to substantiate the aforementioned assertions; and,

WHEREAS our Committees understand that while AJE is owned and financially supported by the Emir of Qatar, an ally of the United States and a constitutional monarchy that applies Islamic law and is perceived by many as being restrictive of human rights, we cannot draw any conclusions as to whether or to what extent these particular characteristics have impact on the content of AJE or have any relationship to AJE carriage on BT; and,

WHEREAS our Committees have heard that many potential customers of BT will not subscribe to its services while AJE remains in the channel lineup, and, likewise, our Committees have also heard that many current customers of BT will unsubscribe if AJE were to be removed from the channel lineup or will only subscribe if it is offered, and that these conflicting assertions present an uncertain revenue effect upon BT, such uncertainly being underscored by the fact that requests from our Committees to BT for empirical information to measure revenue impacts in this regard have not been productive; and,

WHEREAS our Committees have heard from a significant number of subscribers and potential subscribers asking that BT expand the number of international news and information channels available on BT; and,

WHEREAS our Committees recognize that individuals have both the capacity and the right to watch what they want in their home; and,

WHEREAS BT subscribers currently have at their disposal technologies capable of blocking objectionable material; and,

WHEREAS our Committees believe that AJE provides a point of view not found in the coverage of national and international news of other channels; and,

WHEREAS our Committees firmly stand on the side of free expression, we have heard arguments supporting the contention that the removal of AJE is a First Amendment issue as well as arguments that it is not a First Amendment issue, nevertheless determining the answer to this question is outside the scope of the expertise of our Committees, particularly since BT is organizationally structured as a department of a municipality; and,

WHEREAS our Committees appreciate the overall tenor and thoughtfulness of those in our community who have chosen to make their voice heard on all sides of this issue; and,

WHEREAS upon consideration of all public testimony, our Committees have witnessed a compelling preponderance of subscribers and potential subscribers requesting that BT not drop AJE; and,

WHEREAS BT has in effect a Cable TV Channel Carriage Policy (the spirit and letter of which was approved by the TAC and CAC) that guides BT to make choices based on three principal objectives of (a) providing a wide variety of channels along with the greatest feasible degree of consumer choice, (b) remaining economically viable as a system operator in a climate of rapidly changing technology and consumer trends, and (c) being responsive to the needs of the communities it serves; and,

WHEREAS BT has not provided our Committee with requested contractual detail pertaining to its carriage of AJE thus preventing our Committees from considering contractual circumstances as part of our recommendation,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Telecommunications Advisory Committee and Cable Advisory Council in their advisory capacities jointly and unanimously recommend that Burlington Telecom maintain its carriage of Al Jazeera English.

Members voting unanimously for the Resolution:
Michael Burak (TAC/CAC)
Gregory EplerWood, Chair (TAC/CAC)
Jules Fishelman (CAC)
Timothy George (TAC)
David Jenemann (CAC)
Shakuntala Rao (CAC)
Jan Schultz (TAC/CAC)
Members absent:
Linda Deliduka (CAC)
Patrick Griffin (TAC/CAC)
Michael Wood-Lewis (TAC/CAC)

Comments

[SAS]

I am extremely excited and thrilled at this development and I consider it to be a victory for supporters of Al Jazeera such as myself who lobbied for the station to be kept on air in Burlington.

[Osama Obama]

Al Jazeera fits in quite well within the Burlington, VT community.

Well Done!