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kind of impact it’s having on your lives. The only way you can do that is through the media, because the media provides a window on that world. And if those windows are shut by organizations that up till now provided international coverage, then people who are interested in the world have few places to go.” This isn’t something new, however. Burman spent most of his career before coming to Qatar working abroad. But that’s something he’s not sure would happen if he was starting out as a new journalist in 2009. “Part of it was I came of age in the 60s. It was a very intense period politically. I’ve always spent most of my life covering international stories. I was based in London where Brian Stewart and I did the Ethiopian famine, the release of Mandela, the Lebanese civil war, all of these intense stories,” he said. “I think in some ways it was easier for me. That period was an incredibly transformational period in the world. There were things happening in the world that were really really big, and I think it gave younger people like myself an opportunity to cover big stories in ways that wouldn’t necessarily happen today.”
purposes bringing the voice of the South, the voice of the developing world to international policy debates. I think the reality of the world and the reality I think of mainstream media is it’s always been western-centric. The majority of the world lives very far from these power centers, and is often excluded from the actual debates and decisions that affect the world.” Currently, the combined Arabic and English services at Al Jazeera have 69 news bureaus around the worldmore than both the BBC and CNN, with an estimated 150 million households tuning in worldwide in over 100 countries. Their latest projects are attempts to expand into North America, opening a new bureau in Canada. “I think when you watch Al Jazeera you have a window on a world that’s much broader, much more diverse, and much richer culturally than you would find in a Britishcentric BBC or an Americancentric CNN,” he said.
“Al Jazeera is a window on a world that is far broader and far more diverse than I think a lot of us realize”
“There’s a serendipity nature to everybody’s life and everybody’s career. Probably it was my decision in my early 20s just to leave Montreal and take a year and a half and see Latin America, where I realized that oh my god, there was much more to the world perhaps than what I was seeing in Canada.”
He wants to continue to use Al Jazeera as a platform to tell the stories the world isn’t hearing, in ways they’re not hearing them- particularly ones coming from this region.
“I think the consequence of that is people realize that what’s happening in the Middle East is far more interesting and far more diverse and dare I say far more complicated than the kind of comic book representation these issues often get, where things are simplified to the point of incomprehensibility.”
No matter where it’s happening, Burman says a crippled The problem though isn’t young journalists he says. The press leads to a crippled society. problem is a sense of global apathy, a turning inward and a return to isolationist thinking, particularly in North “People need accurate information to make sensible America, which perhaps didn’t exist 30 years ago. choices about their lives, about the direction of their countries. An informed citizenry produces enlightened “Literally there are countries that are regularly covered policies that benefit people generally. And the reverse and mentioned on Al Jazeera that are never seen in is true- when you have inaccurate information or you North America or in the UK. And whether it’s countries have sensationalism or distortion, that plays with in Latin America or Asia or Africa, I think that’s exciting,” people’s minds and leads to bad decisions,” he said. “I he said. “I think its location – it’s the only international think that organizations like Al Jazeera, and we’re news channel that’s located in the global South. not the only one in the world, that are committed to It’s the only channel that has as one of its primary accurate and full information, ultimately help society.” 30 NOV 09 STRIKE 4.indd 30
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