AJ+ Isn't Going Anywhere
By Tony Karon, Editorial Lead, AJ+
Here we go again.
Back in the late 1980s, in my native South Africa, I was the editor of an anti-apartheid magazine when the white supremacist regime ordered us to shut down. We were an independent journalism outlet covering state repression and the resistance of a Black population who refused to submit to white supremacy, and this made us, in the words of Home Affairs Minister Stoffel Botha, “media terrorists.” We took Stoffel’s edict as a badge of honor – a backhanded award for impact journalism. We defied the ban and kept publishing, and had the last laugh: 18 months later, the regime surrendered to the inevitability of democratic majority rule.
Thus, my sense of déjà vu on receiving this week’s news that the Trump administration has issued an administrative decree against AJ+, requiring that we register as “foreign agents.” That felt like another award for impact journalism, because clearly our work is making someone in power uncomfortable. And isn't the purpose of news media, after all, to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted”?
Journalism is not a profession that makes anyone rich or even, in most cases, financially secure. It’s more like an addiction; we do it because we can’t help ourselves. We’re that insatiably curious, that outraged by injustice, that inspired by people acting to change their fates. We’re that passionate about telling these stories because we know their power and importance.
The Trump administration’s decision to designate AJ+ a foreign agent follows two years of intensive – and expensive – lobbying of DC politicians by the United Arab Emirates, which together with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt has demanded the closure of our parent company, Al Jazeera, as a condition for lifting their economic blockade of Qatar. But branding us “foreign agents” because the Al Jazeera Media Network is funded by the government of Qatar is laughable. We’re no more a voice of the Qatari government than the BBC is a voice of Her Majesty’s Government. Yes, like the BBC, we receive state funding — to run an editorially independent news organization.
As journalists, we bridle at being told what to do by any government, and feel lucky that our funding comes without editorial strings or commercial pressures, giving us the freedom every day to do the vital, unapologetic social justice journalism covering the connected crises of 2020 America.
Critics claim the fact that AJ+ covers LGBTQ rights struggles despite heavy restrictions on gay rights in Qatar is some sort of devious sleight of hand. Nope. It’s actually a sign of our independence from Qatari government policies. Our journalism is not guided by anyone’s political or geopolitical agenda; it’s guided by a clear set of editorial values:
We do professional, morally committed social justice–focused journalism, making no apologies for treating all human beings as being of equal value and equally deserving of human rights, justice, respect and dignity
We hold power to account and question its narratives
We amplify the efforts of marginalized communities to make themselves heard and seen, to tell their own stories and seek change
We are aware that journalists write the first draft of history, and that the history of American progress toward equality and inclusion has been driven by ordinary folks “making good trouble”
We are optimistic, positive and solutions-oriented
We take a global view, believing – as climate change so painfully demonstrates – that we're all part of a single global community whose fates are tied together
An attack on AJ+ is an attack not only on the most inspiring cohort of passionate, committed and professional young journalists I’ve ever had the privilege of working with, it’s an attack on the right of the marginalized communities whose stories we tell to be heard and seen; and it’s an attack on the right of our audience to access those stories. And that’s a violation of the rights of a free people that we cannot abide or accept. We’re not going anywhere, because what we do, together – our journalists, the subjects of our stories and our audience – is far too important to give up.
There’s a lot more to come from AJ+.
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