Al Jazeera is hiring in Kenya and all I can think about are Boeings 747s.
A few years ago I went to visit my family in Jamaica for the Christmas holidays. I try and go roughly every two years or so but this particular year I had left it very late to book my ticket and I couldn't find any direct flights. That was when I discovered Cubana Airlines - Cuba's national airline - and was able to finally spend the festive period with my relatives after a short stop over in Havana. For anyone who has not had the pleasure of flying Cubana Airlines it is a slightly ramshackle affair, the planes are old Aeroflot planes and the service makes RyanAir look positively luxurious. However the feelings of national pride of the cabin crew and my Cuban passengers was positively tangible and that is the point of most national airlines; national pride.
In the 1950's and 60's as different countries achieved independence nationalised airlines proliferated. It was a way for countries to assert their presence on the world stage and demonstrate their economic importance. It was a form of global shorthand saying "we are a country to be reckoned with".
However as the global financial realities took hold throughout the '80's and '90's the vast majority of these airlines were sold off, closed down or were subsumed into larger private airlines. The national names occasionally remaining but effectively they are just shells for other carriers (the Jamaican governments owns less than 17% of Air Jamaica now).
But while countries have now abandoned this aerial national posturing recently a new form has crept onto the world stage that should concern people from diverse backgrounds working in the media: The nationalised international news channel.
Like the airlines before them the nationalised news channels do not make a profit and they normally rely on the largess of the state. But unlike the national airlines this is not a game that small states can play as they did previously with airlines. Television news is so expensive and the returns are so small it is a game only for the emerging new world powers; Russia, the Middle East and China to name three.
If one needed an example of how these news channels are vying for national pride and global influence one should look no further than East Africa. Qatar’s Al Jazeera announced on the 8th August that it will launch Al Jazeera Kiswahili in 2012 broadcasting to Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. This comes just a month after China Central Television (CCTV) went on a recruitment drive for East African electronic media journalists. The cold war might be over, the space race may be won (and lost), and national airlines might have flown away but clearly news and us journalists are the latest tool in global power struggles.
In many ways this is a great opportunity for all television journalists across the world. Greater competition between channels means more demand for our talents and that obviously translates into better jobs and careers.
However these new developments are not without their concerns. While Al Jazeera English regularly displays high editorial standards the journalistic integrity of other channels can be more questionable as they put patriotism before objective reporting. It may be idealistic but while I positively welcome news from different global agendas I think striving for truth should be every journalists' objective, not bringing glory to whichever nation is paying your salary.
At its best news fosters democracy, civil society and our understanding of the world. The news is far too important to become propaganda for the glory of nations to assert their power on a world stage. If the nationalised airlines of old were bad then normally worse that could happen is they would lose your luggage. Bad nationalised news channels can keep corrupt governments in power or even justify unjust wars. But like the airlines hopefully the bad ones will just go away with time.
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