Editorial Politics and Practices

Abstract

The chapter examines Al Jazeera’s editorial policies and practices. It focuses on the broadcaster’s internal guidelines. It sheds light on these polices, guidelines and practices and how they come into being, the way they influence news output and whether they are implicit or explicit. It explains the role external factors and regulations play in Al Jazeera’s editorial polices. It provides a comparative analysis of Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic in terms of internal guidelines and regulations. It presents the arguments on why and how the two channels (English and Arabic) follow divergent editorial policies despite their being part of the same network. It analyzes the discursive impact the adoption of two different sets of internal guidelines has on the selection of discursive patterns and discursive categorizations of Middle East conflicts. It attempts to show how far internal guidelines can influence the two channels’ reach and viewership. Finally, and based on the analysis of data, the chapter finds out that Al Jazeera Arabic relies mainly on implicit/unwritten guidelines and does not adhere to any regulatory frameworks, while Al Jazeera English has in place written editorial instructions and follows legislative regulations in place in the U.K. and other European countries. The divergence in pursuing separate internal guidelines has resulted in one network with two different discursive voices.