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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.'"
Well actually I do, it's great to have an alternative voice and hopefully this will bring more understanding and humanity to the news.
Nullius in verba
You should look up their web page and read their coverage before you make such stupid ignorant statements
Al Jazeera is more like CNN or BBC than Fox or Russia Today. It's an actual news organization rather than a propaganda outlet.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
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.
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!
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.
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.
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".
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".
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.
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.
"Lost time is not found again."
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
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?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.