Al Jazeera’s Coverage of the Arab Awakening

From December 2010, when pro-democracy protests erupted in Tunisia, through the end of 2011, Al Jazeera was the network of record for millions of viewers throughout the world and a source of video for many other news organizations. Its correspondents, often natives of the countries they were covering, took viewers into the frenzy and heat of demonstrations, taking great risks to describe events as they happened. The network managed to keep reporting from Egypt despite the forcible shutdown of its Cairo bureau, signal jamming and beatings of staff members. In Libya, where Al Jazeera gave the world its first look at the late Muammar Gaddafi, one of its veteran cameramen, Ali Hassan al-Jaber, was shot and killed. Bullets from helicopter gunships whistled past correspondent May Ying Welsh as she reported live on the Bahrain government’s brutal response to civil unrest. Her exclusive, three-month stint reporting from Bahrain undercover was subsequently edited into Shouting in the Dark, news special. For the bravery and ingenuity of the reporters and photographers who documented an explosive chain reaction of political upheaval in the Middle East, a Peabody Award goes to Al Jazeera’s Coverage of the Arab Awakening.