By: Joe Strupp When the U.S. invades Iraq, journalists in the
San Francisco Chronicle newsroom will not only be monitoring the war via CNN, Associated Press feeds, and their own oversees correspondents, but also through an unlikely news source: the controversial Al-Jazeera news network.
As of Wednesday, the Hearst Corp.-owned newspaper became a subscriber to the 24-hour satellite network, which has been accused of being a mouthpiece for Al Qaeda, but is also seen as a leading source for breaking news in the Arab world. "We may have to hire a translator," Managing Editor Robert Rosenthal told
E&P as workers were installing the necessary satellite dish Tuesday atop the
Chronicle building. "We have to see if there are English subtitles."
Rosenthal said the paper decided to get access to the foreign news channel, which he estimated to cost about $1,000 for a year of service (including monthly payments and installation charges), in an effort to get as much information about the Middle East at wartime as possible. "It's an outside view of the world," Rosenthal said. "It is the view from the Arab world."
Al-Jazeera was founded in 1996 in Qatar and now has an estimated audience of 55 million viewers.
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