INTERVIEW-US anchor ready for challenge at Al Jazeera
14 Nov 2006 19:41:56 GMT Source: Reuters
By Deborah Charles WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. anchor for Al Jazeera's new English-speaking channel sees his job as a chance to do "daring" news but is prepared to leave the controversial pan-Arab network if he senses bias. "If I discern an editorial slant that I find intolerable or incompatible with my beliefs then I'm out of here," said Dave Marash, who last worked for "Nightline", an ABC News program. "I have my pill in my pocket." When Al Jazeera English is launched on Wednesday, Marash will anchor the news from Washington, one of four broadcast centers around the world. The Qatar-based network, which was launched in 1996 and gained success during the Afghan war with exclusive footage of Osama bin Laden, has drawn fierce criticism for showing footage of dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq and being the first to broadcast statements from al Qaeda leaders. Marash acknowledged that Al Jazeera's Arabic-language network has upset Washington and drawn other criticism. "I think there's much more curiosity than hostility," he said when asked about the attitude he senses toward the new channel. "From the right there are some people who suspect we are somehow tied in with terrorism. "But the fact is we report on terrorism, and because we're based in the Middle East and because our sister channel is by far the dominant news channel in the Middle East, we've become a conduit for some news releases -- but they're all being treated as news." Marash said the U.S. government had not put up any major roadblocks to the new channel's news reporting capabilities. "So far, everything has been handled quite professionally," he said. "There are obviously some government officials who choose not to talk to us and some political leaders who choose not to talk to us. But so far we haven't found that to be a crippling problem." Marash, who won several Emmy Awards for coverage of events including the war in Bosnia and the Oklahoma City bombing, said he decided to work for Al Jazeera because it offered a chance to report on a level of sophistication similar to "Nightline." "We're going to do a very smart, daring, provocative kind of news here," he said. There is no cable supplier for Al Jazeera English in the United States, although the broadcast will be on satellite. It can be accessed online at www.english.aljzeera.net.
