Al Jazeera Gets a US Voice

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Al Jazeera plans to start an English-language channel available in more than 40 million U.S. homes, with newscasts emanating from both New York and Doha, Qatar. They announced a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore seven years ago. But the challenge will be persuading Americans to watch the award winning network with 71 bureaus around the world — an extremely tough proposition given the crowded television marketplace and the stereotypes about the channel that persist to this day. 'There are still people who will not watch it, who will say that it's a "terrorist network,"' says Philip Seib. 'Al Jazeera has to override that by providing quality news.' With a handful of exceptions, American cable and satellite distributors have mostly refused to carry Al Jazeera English since its inception in 2006. While the television sets of White House officials and lawmakers were tuned to the channel during the Arab Spring in 2011, ordinary Americans who wanted to watch had to find a live stream on the Internet. Al Jazeera's Robert Wheelock said, We offer an alternative. It's a broader coverage of news. It's a broader spectrum into countries that aren't traditionally covered.'"

Comments

I, for one, welcome...

[bugs2squash]

Well actually I do, it's great to have an alternative voice and hopefully this will bring more understanding and humanity to the news.

Re:Looking forward in a Fox News sort of way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fox News isn't really that independent 25% of its ownership belongs to Saudi family (yes, as in Saudi Arabia). At least AlJazeera provides quailty coverage..

Re:Looking forward in a Fox News sort of way...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should look up their web page and read their coverage before you make such stupid ignorant statements

Re:Fox News in Russia

[MrEricSir]

Al Jazeera is more like CNN or BBC than Fox or Russia Today. It's an actual news organization rather than a propaganda outlet.

Actually watched Al Jazeera English?

[theedgeofoblivious]

As someone who's actually watched Al Jazeera English, I'd just recommend that people watch it before they judge it, rather than just assuming it's the "Al Qaeda network". It's not.

Re:Actually watched Al Jazeera English?

[surfdaddy]

I've watched it a few times and came away impressed. My initial impression that it would be "Arab Propaganda" was changed to a belief that it is in some ways more open-minded than US journalism. It doesn't hurt to listen to multiple perspectives. They appear to be working very hard to do legitimate news in a very serious way.

Re:Actually watched Al Jazeera English?

[Dusty101]

Agreed. Al Jazeera is already available as one of the free OTA digital channels in many places in Europe - this should not be seen as a big deal.

It's my understanding that many of its journalists have been trained in the West, and/or with Western news organizations such as the BBC. The BBC produced a fly-on-the-wall documentary about Al Jazeera a few years ago, & the staff definitely came across as modern, professional journalists to a fault. In one instance, the real-time translator stayed at his post even while his family were in an area of heavy fighting and he was unable to determine if they had been injured.

Having watched it myself, as a white, non-Muslim Westerner with no connections or affiliations at all to the Middle East, I have generally found their news coverage to be more content-rich and less opinion-piece-filled than many of the major US news networks. if nothing else, their service is mercifully free of the obnoxious Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck "talking head" types that are unfortunately so common on the US networks.

Re:Actually watched Al Jazeera English?

[jbolden]

I've been reading the Arab press off and on regularly for about 20 years and was reading it almost exclusively 2001-05 for world news. There is no "middle eastern mindset" beyond differences in situation and focus. Most of their arguments are sensible from a US perspective. They disagree with US emotional opinions and often weigh the facts differences. The major thing the bring to the table is they aren't on "our side". They don't take it as a given that US goals are more or less the right ones. What you want from Al Jazeera, what they have to add to the conversation are those differences. Otherwise what would be the point?

Re:Actually watched Al Jazeera English?

[grcumb]

Al Jazeera is probably no better (or worse) than any of the american news networks.

Al Jazeera are vastly better than American news networks. Vastly. First and foremost, they actually report on things that do not directly concern the USA. And when they do report on events in which the US is involved, the consider other perspectives, giving equal weight.

If you want news from Africa, Central or South America, from the Asia-Pacific region - or hell, anywhere East of Iran - Al Jazeera is your best possible source. They have a great network of solid, professional journalists. They also recruit widely from outside the Beltway when bringing in outside analysis. Rather than balance, they tend to rely on expertise. The tone of their interview/discussion shows is respectful but quite pointed. Their interviewers generally avoid 'gotcha' questions, instead trying to legitimately present the ramifications of current events.

As an example, if you want to understand the current tension between Islamism and progressivism in Egypt, there is no other source that even comes close. People who claim they are apologists for Islamic fundamentalism are just... wrong. Yes, they give time to the Muslim Brotherhood, because they're the largest faction in the fucking government right now. You simply cannot claim to understand the news if you ignore them.

To use a less charged example, Al Jazeera's coverage of China's expansion into sub-Saharan Africa is simply world class. They don't weight their analysis with geopolitical or ideological bias, but neither do they pull any punches when demonstrating the economic, social and political tensions that have arisen as a result. Most refreshingly, their reporting is based on good old investigative journalism. They report from the factories, warehouses and marketplaces where the effects are most vivid. To my limited knowledge, no other news service has even come close.

Al Jazeera does have a blind spot. There is virtually no mention of any bad news originating from Qatar, whose royal family sponsors them. They give more time to Libya, Egypt and Syria than to Bahrain and Iran (which is a short missile ride across the water). There is virtually no mention whatsoever of the US presence in Qatar or Bahrain, and no criticism whatsoever. But the unspoken diktat from the Crown Prince seems to be 'here's a short list of things you cannot talk about, but you are free to do what you like in every other respect.' It's not a perfect situation by a long stretch, but it's better than the global blind spot that US networks have to anything that doesn't impact their interests.

Unfortunately, that's not a particularly strong supporting argument ...

Viewed from the outside world, the US television media establishment is a sad, sad joke. I travel a lot in the Asia-Pacific region, and though I keep trying, I cannot watch CNN for more than a couple of minutes at a time. The other news channels don't even get a look in. It's the BBC World Service, Al Jazeera, or nothing, I'm sorry to say.

CBC's AIH has warm, smart women interviewers

[ivi]

CBC's "As It Happens" & "The Current" news & current events programs are well worth a listen, eg, via podcasts.

Warm - asking difficult questions sensitively (eg, about tragic stories), & providing time both for the whole answer -and- transitions between adjacent stories... sometimes playing fitting music between them.

Smart - asking excellent & concise questions, giving time for interviewees' answers... but also asking excellent follow-up questions, so their probing questions -get- answered.

Ever since the days of the (late) radio journo Barbara Fromm, these & other Canadian programs have kept the hard-hitting interview tradition alive & well. We love em!

Searched for "Gay" on their website

[grimJester]

Found stories like

Are US evangelicals exporting anti-gay views?
"A new report reveals conservative American Christian groups behind efforts to criminalise homosexuality in Africa." and

What is Obama risking by backing gay unions?
"We ask if the US president should go a step further by offering constitutional protection for gay and lesbian couples."

Al Jazeera is far from conservative.

Re:Searched for "Gay" on their website

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to have a pro-Israel spin if you are trying to be objective. How would you put a positive spin to constant war crimes, settlements, price tagging (i.e. kristallnacht type of terrorism), apartheid, checkpoints, destruction of EU financed projects, sieges and starvation of 1.8 million people? How do you put a positive spin to a cruel and unhuman occupation of a people?

I don't know with what biased eyes you are looking, but I doubt anyone reporting on a cruel occupation has it easy to put a positive spin on it.

Try googling there are a lot of interesting reports on the perception of Israel and they seem to update them pretty regulary: site:aljazeera.net israel

Queue the ignorant comments...

[caseih]

Yup here they come. Except for issues that have directly to do with the Qatari government and its interests (for example Arab Spring in Qatar), Al Jazeera english is quite fair and balanced. And they go a lot of places other news organizations are unable or unwilling to go. This may be unpleasant to Americans (the inside story of the civil war in Syria, for example), or even uncomfortable when the results of western action are exposed.

In any case, give it a look see yourself. Go to their web site and watch right there online. Or do this:

rtmpdump -v -r rtmp://aljazeeraflashlivefs.fplive.net/aljazeeraflashlive-live/aljazeera_eng_med | mplayer -

Re:Queue the ignorant comments...

[Andy_R]

In common with most 'world news' channels that claim to be unbiased, Al Jazeera is actually pretty good, provided you change channels when they report (or omit) events close to home. The same applies to another channel that Americans are likely to dismiss on name alone, Russia Today - they actually provide a solid and unbiased English language news channel when reporting on things that (to them) are both foreign and outside their sphere of influence.

My advice is, if you want a really independent view of the world, watch BBC World, Al Jazeera and Russia Today, and trust them whenever 2 or 3 out of 3 agree.

(disclaimer - I've briefly appeared on all three as founder of the Pirate Party UK, but not received payment from any of them. I did accept awful tea and coffee from the BBC and Russia Today â" the Russians hired satellite link facilities from the BBC so it was the same studio with the same BBC drinks â" while Al Jazeera bought me a tea from Starbucks. From an interviewee's point of view, Al Jazeera asked the toughest questions, the BBC seemed to have the lowest budget but were the only ones who offered to cover my travel expenses, and Russia Today were he only ones who expected me to want to pre-approve their questions).

Competition is a good thing.

[some old guy]

I'm sure Nickelodeon and The Comedy Channel are already feeling the heat.

Rupert Murdoch is Australian

[tepples]

Subject: I expect Fox News to report on this heavily.

After all, a non American involved in US broadcasting is clearly beyond the pale.

That was sarcasm, right? K. Rupert Murdoch, head of Fox News Channel's parent company Fox Group (formerly News Corporation), isn't even as American as Barack Obama.

Re:Rupert Murdoch is Australian

[colinrichardday]

Article. IV.

Section. 1.

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

The State of Hawaii says that President Obama was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961.

Re:Rupert Murdoch is Australian

[hairyfeet]

This is what always made me LMAO at these chuckleheads, they can't say what they really want which is "He's a nigger!" so they try to find another reason to get rid of him, even if that reason MAKES NO SENSE. The law could NOT be clearer on the fact, as long as the mother is an American who has not renounced her citizenship then the baby is an American PERIOD. If the father is of another country the baby can be of dual nationality but that does NOT change or remove his American citizenship in the process.

I mean its so fucking simple and fucking obvious why things are set up this way, otherwise pregnant women would be afraid to get on a boat or a plane because 'ZOMFG the kid wasn't born on American soil!". Now if you wanna argue that the laws need to be fixed, so that so called "anchor babies" don't count? I'd agree with you, no other country lets you just sneak a pregnant woman across their border and suddenly gives the kid of an illegal invader full citizenship and benefits, that would be stupid, but giving the child of an American citizenship isn't stupid, its common fucking sense, especially in a world where you can go across the planet in less than a week.

As for TFA? They couldn't lie to us any worse than our corporate owned MSM so I'm all for it, as we saw with Wikileaks all that matters to the MSM is US corporate and government interests. I didn't see a single news service say a fucking word about the revelation that Blackwater was selling kids as fuck toys to get better deals in both Kosovo and Afghanistan, all we heard was "Assange is a rapist pervert that should be shot for daring to post the truth!" so honestly they really can't tell us any more bullshit than we are already being fed. To quote the late Bill Hicks "Go back to sleep America, everything is fine, here is more stupid mind numbing television. Your leaders are in control and all is well, go back to sleeep"

Re:Rupert Murdoch is Australian

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with the first part, the criteria for natural born US citizen are

A) be born in the US,
OR
B) BOTH parents are US citizens.

Now, I don't personally know first hand if he was born in Hawaii or Kenya, nor do I care; Hawaii says he was, and that's what legally matters. IF he was born in Kenya, his mother was a US citizen, and his father was not, THEN he would not have been a natural born citizen, which is a requirement to being US President. Again, I don't take a position 1 way or the other, just that the state of Hawaii has certified that he was born in Hawaii, making the above situation moot.

The question was also raised by people who were ignorant of the rules that John McCain was not born on US land, but on a ship at sea. The question was, does a US ship at sea count as US territory. Really, it was irrelevant since both of his parents were US citizens, so he was a natural born US citizen even if he was born in Antarctica.

Re:Rupert Murdoch is Australian

[Maow]

This is what always made me LMAO at these chuckleheads, they can't say what they really want which is "He's a nigger!" so they try to find another reason to get rid of him, even if that reason MAKES NO SENSE. The law could NOT be clearer on the fact, as long as the mother is an American who has not renounced her citizenship then the baby is an American PERIOD.

Couldn't agree more, hairy.

no other country lets you just sneak a pregnant woman across their border and suddenly gives the kid of an illegal invader full citizenship and benefits, that would be stupid

Actually, there are some other countries (Canada is another "advanced economy", for example):

Antigua and Barbuda[9]
Argentina Argentina[9]
Barbados Barbados[9]
Belize[9]
Bolivia[9]
Brazil Brazil[9]
Cambodia[12]
Canada Canada[9][13]
Chile[14] (children of transient foreigners or of foreign diplomats on assignment in Chile only upon request)
Colombia[9]
Costa Rica[9][15] (Children born to non-Costa Rican citizens obtain citizenship if registered as a Costa Rican by the will of either parent during minority or by his own will up to the age of twenty-five)
Dominica[9]
Ecuador[9]
El Salvador[9]
Fiji[16]
Grenada[9]
Guatemala[9]
Guyana[9]
Honduras[9]
Jamaica[9]
Lesotho[17]
Mexico[9]
Nicaragua[9]
Pakistan[9][18]
Panama[9]
Paraguay Paraguay[9]
Peru[9]
Saint Kitts and Nevis[9]
Saint Lucia[9]
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines[9]
Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago[9]
Tuvalu[19]
United StatesUnited States[9]
Uruguay[9]
Venezuela[9]

There are also some that have modifed jus soli (which it seems a good idea to do in the days of virtually immediate international travel).

Re:Rupert Murdoch is Australian

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Entirely different points of law.

The 'full faith and credit' clause explicitly requires each state to honor the assorted official paperwork of the other states.

Arizona's legal trouble had nothing to do with other states failing to give it full faith and credit; but with the feds arguing that Article 6, clause 2:

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding."

made Arizona's de-facto attempt at doing their own immigration enforcement(generally recognized as an enumerated federal power) null because of the supremacy of federal law already governing that matter.

(The 'you look sorta mexican to me, show me your papers' aspect of it also had people concerned about the implications for the due process and equal protections clauses of the 14th amendment; but I don't think that that ended up being the deciding factor.)

Incidentally, the big 'full faith and credit' case, that has never had its day in court, for whatever reason, is probably the one that would erupt if a homosexual couple duly married according to the procedures of a state where such is legal were to demand that a state where it isn't(or is overtly banned at the constitutional level) give full faith and credit to the actions of the state that married them. That one would get a bit touchy...

Re:Rupert Murdoch is Australian

[phantomfive]

Oh, it gets even better. McCain actually wasn't born in America, he was born in Panama.

Re:Rupert Murdoch is Australian

[LordLimecat]

As I said here, (from wikipedia)

If one parent is a U.S. citizen and the other parent is not, the child is a citizen if
    * the U.S. citizen parent has been "physically present"[7] in the U.S. before the child's birth for a total period of at least five years, and
    * at least two of those five years were after the U.S. citizen parent's fourteenth birthday

This applies to out-of-us-territory births, of course. It has nothing to do with "women as chattel", it has to do with whether we grant citizenship to folks born outside of our country when their parents may have insubstantial ties to this country.

Re:Rupert Murdoch is Australian

[Kwyj1b0]

So, Honolulu is in Kenya now? It's good to know.

Yeah, that is what Apple Maps tells me ;)

Re:Fox News in Russia

[MrEricSir]

How cute that you think CNN and BBC are in the same category as Fox News. How jaded do you have to be before you start making absurd false equivalencies like that?

Re:Source of truth

[flyneye]

Oddly enough, I'm pretty impressed with Al Jezeeras online coverage of the mideast. That should say a lot since I am sympathetic to the Jews in Israel and a complete cynic about the newsclowns domestically and in Europe.
I'd rather read that than most of the crap I run into in the world.

Al Jazeera is a lap dog

[fustakrakich]

Its owner is the state of Qatar, hosts to the U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and Combined Air Operations Center. There is nothing "radical" about them. All "news" must receive clearance, Clarence...

They're a good news source

[msobkow]

I read Al Jazeera's English website regularly. They provide good news, good video clips, and seem right up there with the BBC or CBC for the quality of their reporting.

But unlike the BBC and CBC, a lot of their news is about Asia and Africa, areas which aren't even *mentioned* on "mainstream" channels unless there is a major disaster or a few dozen people killed.

Oddly enough, they manage to cover the world with only one front page to their website, the same screen real-estate that the other channels have.

In comparison, the BBC and CBC are "local" news channels. And the US news feeds are just a freakin' joke -- they don't cover anything that can't be directly related to US white house policy. Navel-gazing waste of time -- no wonder most Americans are so ignorant about world politics and economic issues.

Re:They're a good news source

[isorox]

I read Al Jazeera's English website regularly. They provide good news, good video clips, and seem right up there with the BBC or CBC for the quality of their reporting.

But unlike the BBC and CBC, a lot of their news is about Asia and Africa, areas which aren't even *mentioned* on "mainstream" channels unless there is a major disaster or a few dozen people killed.

Oddly enough, they manage to cover the world with only one front page to their website, the same screen real-estate that the other channels have.

In comparison, the BBC and CBC are "local" news channels. And the US news feeds are just a freakin' joke -- they don't cover anything that can't be directly related to US white house policy. Navel-gazing waste of time -- no wonder most Americans are so ignorant about world politics and economic issues.

The BBC gives a tailored page depending on where you're connecting from.

In the U.S. You get the U.S. front page. That's what americans want. I'm currently sat in Singapore, the stories on the front page are
MAIN
* Venezuela
* India
* Sudan

VIDEO
* Spain
* USA
* Czech Republic
* UK

Special report
* arab uprisings
* eurozone

Now if I go through a U.S. proxy it's similar, drops the Sudan piece for some non-news on yet-another-shooting in Colorado. The in depth reports are different though.

* Venezuela
* India
* Colorado

VIDEO
* Venezuela
* Bolivia
* Denmark

SPECIAL REPORTS
* China
* US Election
* US Sex Slaves

It's only very recently that BBC World has become more widely viewable in the u.s.,

Re:Source of truth

[Nrrqshrr]

Well, it heavily depends on which Al Jazeera you watched, the English or the Arabic speaking one. The former is pretty objective and neutral, the latter is trying to establish new records in how biased they can be.
Heck, just for an example, after the revolutions that swiped the region, Al Jazeera English covered the elections in a pretty neutral way, they only showed regular people voting and stuff. The Arabic one had images of the leader of the Islamist party in Tunisia, voting and showing off with his friends, running all day long. I guess they keep it this way knowing their "target audiences".

One interesting result of all this, though, is a huge loss of popularity for Al Jazeera in these countries (mainly Tunisia and Egypt). In part because, now that the revolutions ended and a semi-democratic climate is avialable, less biased news sources appeared and Al Jazeera can't claim it's role as the "Sole source of real infos". And also probably because everyone here understood the game Quatar is playing. They financed the winning team and they are reaping the benefits in "Honest opportunities for our benefactors to help us "finance" our economic rebuilding efforts".

Re:Fox News in Russia

[Sique]

Actually, the BBC is not owned by the british government. For some reasons, some US-Americans have a problem with grasping the difference between "public" and "governmental".

Al Jazeerah is BBC

[mrops]

It was formed when BBC closed it Arabic division. Those folks went and started Al Jazeerah.

It is criticized as too west in the Arab world.

JFYI.

Let Me Understand This

[mlookaba]

Let me understand this... Al Gore, Eco Warrior, founds Current TV, a left leaning political news cable channel. It is (last year) put up for sale. An offer from a conservative group is rebuffed, with the Current spokesperson saying, "the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.” Instead, they sell it, for $500 million (of which Al Gore gets $100 million), to the Government of Qatar, one of the top producers of fossil fuel in the world, a country were women have no voice, and homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death. As icing on the cake, apparently Mr. Gore tried to push for the sale to be complete before the new year, so he could take advantage of expiring tax laws. "we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.”

Re:Let Me Understand This

[westlake]

a country were women have no voice and homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death

Where are these "facts" coming from?

Among other things, the country is known for being the first country among Arab States of the Persian Gulf to allow women the right to vote.

Women in Qatar vote and may run for public office. Qatar enfranchised women at the same time as men in connection with the 1999 elections for a Central Municipal Council. These elections --- the first ever in Qatar --- were deliberately held on 8 March 1999, International Women's Day.

Qatar sent women athletes to the 2012 Summer Olympics that began on 27 July in London.

Sodomy between consenting adults in Qatar is illegal, and subject to a sentence of up to five years in prison. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not covered in any civil rights laws and there is no recognition of same-sex marriages, civil unions or domestic partnerships.

Human Rights in Qatar

Re:I expect Fox News to report on this heavily.

[hoboroadie]

I use a diversity of sources, funny how all the big American networks are (un-)weighted on the slant/credibility scale.
Al Jazeera is very easy to read as the CPU doesn't have to compensate for a lot of bias overhead .

This is London!

[vm146j2]

Those of you not familiar with the history, Al Jazeera was founded by the staff of the BBC's Arabic language channel when they went into retrenchment (shut down the channel they did). The Qatari's foot the bill, but the overarching philosophy and quality are Auntie Beeb's. They only got a bad rap from the Bush administration for reporting honestly during the Iraq invasion, but basically they are the straightest shooters in the Arabic world, and one of the best sources of world news period now that the U.S. desks have given up on maintaining foreign bureaus.

Re:Oh the Irony

[whistlingtony]

" they closed the deal before the end of the year to avoid higher taxes. I thought democrats wanted higher taxes on the wealthy?"

The deal closed after the new year. Gore will pay higher taxes. You're either wrong, or lying.

" [] a muslim, foreign nation's state owned media apparatus broadcasting into other nations"

What's wrong with muslims? We can talk about who's controlling the strings, and if that's good or not, but you busted out Muslim as a bad thing all by itself.

You should perhaps consider that you're an uninformed racist, at best.

I'll give it a look

[davmoo]

I'll watch the channel, assuming Concast (and no, I didn't accidentally misspell it) will carry it. Al Jazeera can't possibly be any more biased than Fox, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc.

Al Gore

[Charliemopps]

The funniest part of this whole deal is that Al Gore pushed the sale to get completed prior to the new year to avoid Obamas tax increases. Not that I wouldn't do the same... but it's more of Al Gores "Do as I say, not as I do" nonsense. I wonder if he was the sole passenger on a private jet that took him to sign the deal.

Re:Source of truth

[Livius]

Arabic language journalism seems to be about where English language journalism was about 300 years ago.

Hopefully they will catch up, and hopefully stop about 30 or 40 years ago when the English language profession was at its high point, and not follow all the way to the degenerate crap that we have now.

Re:Looking forward in a Fox News sort of way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just pointing out a Troll here folks.

People. Don't be willfully ignorant. Check out Al Jazeera for yourself and decide:
http://www.aljazeera.com/watch_now/
http://www.aljazeera.com/

I will tell you first off a little bit about myself to point out any biases that I may have: I am a white Canadian man who is in his 40's who hates Muslim zealots and Jewish zealots. Yes I can't stand Christian religious fundamentalists either. I'm also a highly analytical person. I hate political correctness, and I hate yellow journalism. I'm finding a lot of ignorant and prejudiced comments here, so I'll start off with this Troll who proclaims to be knowledgable about Al jazeera, and who seems to imply that it is NOT so much a news company but rather a propaganda organ for religious extremists. Think moderators: before you up-moderate Trolls!

Parent said:

If you look at their English edition and track the history of reporting on different countries you'll notice that articles about the US are far more likely to have the comment system enabled, while articles about Middle East countries, Russia, or China almost always have the comments disabled.

OK I admit I don't track the history of comments. Lets be serious though; nobody except for somebody with an agenda would track comment history. Even if the parent's comment is true, it is still a Troll because it implies malfeasance without any proof but the authors own speculations. Also realize that people often see patterns where there are none (this is a psychological phenomena of the mind). Also notice that this person gives no statistics and doesn't back up his claim in any way. Most people who would do this kind of research, even on an amature basis would at least post their details on a public Website: and there are lots of free services to do this.

For that matter, who cares? Not having comments enabled has NOTHING to do with journalistic standards. This is a red herring argument.

Also: think of the logic here. Al Jazeera English WANTS to have a Western audience. This is because it is a business that is owned by a businessman. It doesn't make business sense for them to post Islamic religious propaganda because they know that they will be very carefully scrutinized by the Right Wing in the West and especially the Christian Fundamentalists in their largest potential market: the United States.

Also, look at Al Jazeera's journalists. They have quite a few award winning journalists that have (and had) worked for prominent Western news agencies like the BBC, CBC, etc. These professionals are not going to ruin their careers and reputations by working for a propaganda organ of the Muslim Brotherhood or some other political or religious organization. Of course, and for some perspective, politics will always play a role in journalism, for example Al-Jazeera English journalists protest after being ordered to re-edit UN report to focus on Qatar emir's comments on Syria. But at least there is transparency here. And lets not lie to ourselves or be hypocrites: Western news agencies, especially the for-profit ones like CNN and Fox News have their own biases and are subject to the editorial control of their commercial sponsors.

When you see that most of the comments are anti-US and anti-Jewish, you will wonder whether it's an underhanded way of maintaining a veneer of neutrality while still guiding opinion.

You mean like on Slashdot, and on many Canadian and European news sites?

And YES I know what you mean by "anti-Jewish": anybody who criticizes Isreal or Zionism is an anti-semite according to Christion Fundamentalists. Using "hate crime" language to try and stifle speech and to censor news is wrong. I've seen Al Jazeera report bad things about Isreal, and I've seen Al Jazeera report bad th

Re:I expect Fox News to report on this heavily.

[LordLimecat]

Everyone has bias, and if you havent seen it in your favorite news source its simply because
  * You agree with them, and / or
  * You havent been paying attention

Re:frosty piss

[WaywardGeek]

Al Jazeera still has actual journalists on the ground in countries making the news, like Egypt, Syria, and Lybia. It's sad, but the New York Times, which still has more live reporting than any other major US newspaper, can't compete with the real life reporting Al Jazeera can do. They just don't have the money to make that possible. Because of it's fantastic presence in the Middle East, I'm happy about Al Jazeera gaining a channel to reach Americans.

However, people reading Al Jazeera should know the background of this source, just like readers of Fox News should know about Rupert Murdoch (which they don't - but that's another post). Al Jazeera is owned and run by the Emir of Qatar. This guy has done some things that impress me, though a lot of it's scary. He overthrew his father as Emir, claiming his father was corrupt and was misusing the government's assets for himself. He was probably right. He did a lot of things to modernize Qatar, and did a very impressive job. He's positioned tiny Qatar as an intellectual leader in the Middle East, much due to Al Jazeera, Qatar now plays a central roll in the Arab Spring and evolution of the Middle East. For Americans to miss out on this influential news source makes us weaker.

Then there's the side of Al Jazeera that pisses me off. When that pretty blond western journalist was brutally raped in Cairo during the Egyptian uprising against Mubarak, Al Jazeera deleted all posts that mentioned it. The Emir has a political agenda, and anything that goes against that agenda is banned from Al Jazeera. That agenda includes making the Middle East the "good guys" while allowing the rest of the world to appear to be the "bad guys". That's why westerners can be raped with no reporting, but if a westerner insults Islam, Al Jazeera is happy to fan the flames of anger - anger that resulted in the death of our ambassador to Libya.

So, by all means, allow Americans to learn what Al Jazeera has to say. There is no better news source to represent the Middle East. At the same time, let's all feel free to be seriously pissed off at Al Jazeera, because they deserve it. How much like Fox News is this?

Re:Fox News in Russia

[dbIII]

Editorially independant, and not subject to the equivalent of Rupert Murdoch ringing up and pulling a show off the air halfway through (which he did to one of his TV networks a few years ago).
The BBC are not immune to pressure - they had to apologise after they dared to question the ridiculous government line that Saddam could bomb London within 45 minutes, and more recently when a news report hinted that a powerful member of the government was on some sort of list with suspected pedophiles (the list was on camera). However how they react to the pressure is not dictated directly by the government. They can be yelled at or starved of funds but they can't be immediately directed to do anything.

Re:Fox News in Russia

[SteveFoerster]

How stupid he must be to have had, for a long time, the signature "Socialism is slavery".

Not really. If the state owns everything you need to survive, it's hardly a stretch to say that it effectively owns you.

Re:frosty piss

[DNS-and-BIND]

It was not anger that resulted in the ambassador's murder in Libya. It was an organized terrorist attack, timed to occur on 9/11. Where are you getting your news from, Mr. Well-Informed?

False equivalence.

[TapeCutter]

False equivalence is the favorite propaganda tool of Fox news and similar organisations.' Sure all sources are biased, but not all sources are equally credible or equally biased. The difference between Fox and AJ is that Fox is first and foremost a political organisation and AJ is a news organisation. AJ aspires to be a credible representative of the free press specializing in it's own region, and they do a pretty good job of it. Fox wants to persuade you to vote against your own self interest and will knowingly lie to it's audience to achieve that, they also do a pretty good job but they're not doing the same job as AJ, BBC and other members of the "forth estate".