BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. After 9/11 and straight through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we've examined the role of the influential Arabic news service Al Jazeera. It's influential because it's seen as an unprecedented independent voice in the region, even as it's viewed as a pro-Arab version of Fox News by many in the West. Next Thursday, the PBS series Wide Angle takes the viewer inside Al Jazeera during the war in Iraq as it was condemned in turn by the United States, the United Kingdom and what was left of the government of Iraq. David Belton is the executive producer of the Wide Angle documentary called Exclusive to Al Jazeera, and he joins me by phone from London. David, welcome to the show!

DAVID BELTON: Thank you, Brooke, very much indeed! Nice to be with you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What kind of a reaction did you get? Were they eager for you to come in and be the fly on the wall?

DAVID BELTON: Yeah, they were. I mean there was a certain amount of wariness initially, just in terms of the perspective that they thought we might have about their broadcasting, but I think over the course of a week that I was there, we, we established a very good bond.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So Al Jazeera was all too aware of the complaints from its critics around the world that it had a pro-Arab slant.

DAVID BELTON:Well Al Jazeera's aware of critics from both sides. I mean they have just as many complaints from their Arab neighbors as they do from Western countries. In fact, there were -- when I was out there in, in February, they had no bureau in Jordan or Kuwait; they had been thrown out by both governments for what the Kuwaitis and the Jordanians believed was anti-Arab reporting.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Al Jazeera found itself embroiled in controversy over its decision to broadcast images of dead and wounded U.S. soldiers and then British soldiers.

DAVID BELTON: They weren't pretty, but what they showed, they showed consistently. At the BBC we have very strict guidelines about that kind of thing. Al Jazeera had a different set of guidelines. The question is: are we producing news that is getting closer to the truth by not showing those images or are Al Jazeera getting closer to the truth? Now we deliberately didn't answer that question. We very much left it for the viewer to make up their own mind.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You may not have asked it, but Ibrahim Hilal actually answered it.

IBRAHIM HILAL:What we are doing is just showing the reality! We didn't invent the bodies. We didn't made them in the graphics unit! These are the, the shots coming from the field! I know there are millions of shots we cannot get and will never get. But at least whatever we have, we have to show to the whole world -- this is a war.

DAVID BELTON: Yeah. I mean I think he says it extremely well. My only proviso on what he said is that Al Jazeera is a commercial broadcaster and there is absolutely no doubt that it wants to get exclusives, it wants to make the news. And I suspect -- like any commercial broadcaster -- that plays into the decision.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I know that once the war began we saw in your documentary that Al Jazeera's exclusive images didn't remain exclusive for long -- other networks, including Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV took its war footage without acknowledging that it was Al Jazeera's and plunked it on its own network. In fact, here we have a clip of Omar Beck, the chief of news gathering, calling Sky News to object. [CLIP PLAYS]

OMAR BECK: This one you're taking off the air! Nobody gave, gave you any clear guidance on this! No one! You have no right to do so! This is by far piracy! At least you should pick up the phone and call me. This is my material. I don't use your material. We are an international TV organization. We're not just a local -any-- any TV.

DAVID BELTON: Well I, I think that was one of the most important bits that we got in the entire film. Because I think it absolutely summed up a sense that they want to play in the big league and they have a right to be there. And it's no good some other news organization coming along and nicking stuff of theirs -- and stealing stuff of theirs I should say. And I think it's, it's a-- quite revealing for any audience to see just what the news game is all about.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:While you were in the process of putting your documentary together, did you find that your opinions toward Al Jazeera changed? What was your opinion when you started and when you ended?

DAVID BELTON: I suppose part of me arrived in Qatar with a little bit of skepticism about what I was likely to see, and I, I think one of the things that became clear was that despite the pressure they received from both Western governments and from the Iraqi government, they weren't prepared to budge! They were absolutely determined to stick to their essential editorial principles.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Well let's talk about some of the pressure that they came under from all sides in the war. The decision to air the images of the POWs had consequences in the United States -the New York Stock Exchange jettisoned the Al Jazeera correspondents and then their web site was sabotaged. And then finally the Iraqi government or at least the visible part that was left -- the stalwart minister of information -- said he wanted a couple of Al Jazeera reporters to leave, and Al Jazeera's response was to threaten to close down their entire Iraqi operation! They went sort of nose to nose with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi government backed down!

DAVID BELTON: They are good at that. They have plenty of experience of squaring up against governments and they've done it in the past and there was nothing that was going to stop them from doing it this time.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:On the other hand, just because you're courageous doesn't mean you're fair and balanced. All through the documentary Al Jazeera staff and management talk about their commitment to the job, but you also know that they're feeling a pull of personal loyalty. There's the example of Riyadh, the cameraman from Iraq who said -- and you'll hear in this clip -- he would have been willing to put down his camera and pick up a gun! [CLIP PLAYS]

RIDAYH: If they will destroy everything in Baghdad. I think I will fight. I'll forget the camera, [LAUGHS] and I'll fight -- Because it's my country!

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Obviously any Western reporter would say --you know, that is wildly inappropriate! If you're there as a reporter, you can't be there as a combatant!

DAVID BELTON: Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I think Riyadh was a bit of a one off, but I think you're right. What he was talking about specifically was if Baghdad was leveled, that would be the moment when he wasn't sure that he could do his job any more. You know, I, I certainly don't make excuses for that. It's not the way journalists should be. At the same time -- just as a human being --watching your city being destroyed -- I don't know! I don't know how I'd feel! I suppose we'd all like to, in our essays at journalism college or whatever be able to say how we'd be in that situation. Maybe he was being so candidly honest in a way that perhaps we're sort of obliged not to but perhaps might feel.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:On this program we've talked to a number of people over the last year and a half who have criticized Al Jazeera for being needlessly inflammatory in its promotional announcement and in its reports. This may be a news organization with the best intentions, but do you really think they are there yet or anywhere close to where they ought to be if they want to be considered in the same league with, say, the BBC or CNN and, and let's face it -- those organizations have come under fire recently as well.

DAVID BELTON: We all come under fire, don't we? And sometimes we get it wrong. And I'm not an official spokesman for Al Jazeera. What I can say is that in the four weeks that we followed them during the recent war in Iraq, we saw rigorous journalism. Yeah, the images that they put out at times were inflammatory -- often to Western eyes. I don't know -- how many times do we consider footage that we put out of injured Iraqi children on our channels in Britain or in America and consider that to be inflammatory. I sound like an official spokesman for Al Jazeera, and I, and I really don't mean to be. I'm just merely speaking with objectivity and impartiality (he says) -- having just seen them and the way they do their job.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: David, thanks a lot.

DAVID BELTON: Okay, Brooke. Nice to talk to you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:David Belton is the executive producer of the Wide Angle documentary Exclusive to Al Jazeera which airs on Thursday July 10th on PBS. [MUSIC]

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