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Al Jazeera America Terminates All TV and Digital Operations (theintercept.com)
waspleg writes: Executives of Al Jazeera America (AJAM) held a meeting at 2 p.m. Eastern Time to tell their employees that the company is terminating all news and digital operations in the U.S. as of April 2016, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs. AJAM has been losing staggering sums of money from the start. That has become increasingly untenable as the network's owner and funder, the government of Qatar, is now economically struggling due to low oil prices. The decision was made recently to terminate AJAM, which allows the network to terminate all of its cumbersome distribution contracts with cable companies, and re-launch its successful Al Jazeera English inside the U.S.
I wouldn't describe it as totally unbiased, but it did seem less biased than all the other options here in the USA. I will miss it...here's hoping Al Jazeera English steps up.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
unbiased source of news
Ain't no such creature, son. The key is being fully aware of each source's biases and mapping the common ground among all of them, post-filter. Gets you a little bit closer to an objective truth, but even at that don't take any related reality too seriously.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It's difficult to sympathize with the economic plight of a government that wouldn't even let me board their national airline because of who I was born to.
Bruce Perens.
I wouldn't describe it as totally unbiased, but it did seem less biased than all the other options here in the USA.
Bingo. It wasn't totally unbiased, but they covered a lot of stuff that never made it into the 3-minute "news" cycle that most of the news outlets in the US live and die by.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Rather than fill a market gap for strong-voiced journalism with a focus on domestic counter-terrorism policy and the Middle East
Because screaming about how America should be afraid will really help the Al Jazeera brand. Yeah right! American cable news is so heavily politically slanted that you have to take everything with a kilogram of salt.
I'm more likely guessing the problem came from "purchased Current TV in late 2012 from founder Al Gore for $500 million." I'm guessing the bought a lemon of a company from someone who they thought was trustworthy. Also, whenever you have foreign management take over an American company instead of starting from scratch you have issues. Established American corporate culture rarely mixes well with foreign work cultures.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Why, many exciting activities:
*Funding wars and terrorism
*De facto acquiring deeply-troubled airlines to use as a means to circumvent EU airline ownership laws
*Promoting slavery
*Bribing everyone at FIFA
*Pissing matches with fellow Arabs to see who has the most expensive $_item, the tallest vaguely-phallic architectural piece, largest airline, etc
*Organizing huge events to pretend they're a civilized country (see "slavery" and "FIFA")
And I'm sure I missed a few.
It might have had some bias but I'm so used to CBS, MSNBC, CNN and FOX acting as propaganda outlets outlets that they seemed unbiased. It was refreshing to have a channel that mostly just reported the news.
Well, it's 3 minutes of news cycle, then 22 minutes of talking heads going on about nothing important, then 5 minutes of commercials, repeated for a 24 hour period. Depending upon the channel this can change slightly to that the 22 minutes are news anchors giving partisan editorials lightly disguised as heavy hitting news, or entertainment news (Kardashians), or a "for a rebuttal let's go to the other political party for their reaction" segment, and whatnot.
Al Jazeera has fallen to the same problem as the other news networks: they get paid based upon the number of eyeballs that watch them. The other networks decided to sensationalize the "news" to bring in eyeballs rather than go under.
There's still the BBC. I get a lot of my news from them on the web or radio. I wish they had a streaming service that will go to a TV though.
That's actually hilarious. The AP feed is FILLED with pro-leftist bias. It's only marginally less biased than Reuters, and that's not saying much. The manifested hate for the right is practically seeping out of the ethernet ports on the AP's edge routers. "The channels" don't need to spin it, because the whole idea of syndicated journalism is that someone posts a story and the publisher just prints it (sometimes after modifying the headline for space considerations.) Hell, even Fox will sometimes post an AP story, but there's usually a link to an editorial rebuttal at the bottom of the page.
Depends on the subject. They are very blatantly biased and actually act as a propaganda tool for the Democrats when it comes to 2nd amendment rights issues.
The key is being fully aware of each source's biases and mapping the common ground among all of them, post-filter. Gets you a little bit closer to an objective truth, but even at that don't take any related reality too seriously.
Not necessarily. Argument to moderation could put you further away from the truth, rather than closer.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I wouldn't describe it as totally unbiased, but it did seem less biased than all the other options here in the USA.
Bingo. It wasn't totally unbiased, but they covered a lot of stuff that never made it into the 3-minute "news" cycle that most of the news outlets in the US live and die by.
All news sources will have some degrees of bias, whether it is intentional or incidental. In the end when we are exposed to a source of news, we should be aware of who sponsors it, who the target audience is, what the quality of research is and what their historical narrative has been.
Ideally if you the time, exposing yourself to multiple sources and understanding historical context is the best, but beyond a specific story, I doubt many of us can or will make that time. Saying that, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be open to different takes on the same story.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The AP feed is FILLED with pro-leftist bias.
Reality generally is, too, at least relative to how far right the US has become.
Well, it's 3 minutes of news cycle, then 22 minutes of talking heads going on about nothing important,
This is why I stopped watching the news. People love information, which is why the News is so popular, but watching a 'breaking story' where there is zero information and talking heads speculate over possible scenarios is just trash.
The sad part is that media is one of the pillars of a strong democracy, and by cheapening the news, it results in people switching off and caring just that little bit less.
Ironically when a story does break, the talking heads in here usually have far more insight than on TV. I remember when that jet went missing over Malaysia we had Pilots, Traffic controllers, Navy guys, GPS experts, all in here discussing the finer detail, then when I switched on the News it was the like the play school version by comparison.
Depends on the subject. They are very blatantly biased and actually act as a propaganda tool for the Democrats when it comes to 2nd amendment rights issues.
Are they actually biased, or they just didn't agree with your views on the matter?
We have a govt broadcaster (funded by govt but with full editorial independence) always being criticised by the the Right for apparent Left wing bias. Independent analysis is done and never finds any,or if it does, it's the least biased of all media outlets. It seems that the Right will just complain more about sharing the platform with other, opposing points of view. Conservatism by it's nature does not like other points of view, ie it's conservative, whereas Liberalism embraces it (even if it's plain wrong)
These same right wing politicians will happily go on Fox News, so most of the times whenever I hear "bias" it usually means "disagrees with me and shouldn't be heard".
They had the paris shootings hours before cnn
What? CNN and Fox were both airing on-air interviews with people on the ground in Paris before police had entered the concert venue. You might dislike both of those networks, and really have liked AJAM ... but what do you gain by lying in a way that's so easily debunked? Really, what's the point?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Are they actually biased, or they just didn't agree with your views on the matter?
That's basically the same thing as bias. Agreement or disagreement is an opinion. I.e. saying "we think firearms are bad" is different from saying "a district court made a new ruling against private ownership of firearms today". One is stating an opinion, the other is reporting on current events.
Conservatism by it's nature does not like other points of view, ie it's conservative, whereas Liberalism embraces it (even if it's plain wrong)
That's blatantly false (and quite naive on your part.) Take for example the concerted effort to get Glenn Beck off of the air. If they don't watch his show, why did they even want it off of the air? Simple: They don't want anybody else hearing him either, even if those people watch his show. (Disclaimer: I never did watch his show, nor do I identify as right, left, conservative, liberal, or even centrist. More like libertarian) Similar efforts are routinely undertaken to get other conservative talking heads off of the air.
Oh and by the way, have I mentioned (from what I hear) that Glenn Beck is very outspoken against Donald Trump? If he was still on Fox News, his program would likely be routinely plastering Trump every day. Consider it poetic justice to the left if Trump gets elected (I don't care either way as moving from one president to the next doesn't ever change much.)
These same right wing politicians will happily go on Fox News, so most of the times whenever I hear "bias" it usually means "disagrees with me and shouldn't be heard".
You mean like the concerted effort to take Beck off of the air? No shit? You're pretty far off of the deep end dude.
Here is a stunning example of how bad the USA news cycle can be.
This story would be the night 19 August, 1991. I was a graduate student living not too far from New York. The previous day, I'd heard ominous indications of a coup in Russia, probably trying to return to Soviet style government. Having been out of touch with news media for about 24 hours ("graduate student", remember?) I felt the need for an update, so I tuned my radio to a New York city "24 hour news" radio station.
After a full 30 minutes, they hadn't even mentioned it once. Then the announcer said "And now back to tonight's top story..."
"Finally!" I thought.
"... basements flooded in Long Island"
ARGH! I gave up. The world's second largest nuclear arsenal was potentially falling into the hands of hostile extremists, the Cold War could be restarting, and it didn't rate a mention compared to flooded basements.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
That's because they would have to admit that Clinton has a serious rival for the Democratic nomination: Bernie Sanders. They would prefer that the sheeple did not consider this possibility.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Depends on the subject. They are very blatantly biased and actually act as a propaganda tool for the Democrats when it comes to 2nd amendment rights issues.
Recognizing that most 2nd amendment rights advocates in the U.S. are raving nutjobs is not bias, it's contact with basic reality. This is but one of many issues where false equivalence is turning U.S. journalism into a farce.
So basically they are Americans.
*Funding wars and terrorism
Yep. They have done that and are doing that
*De facto acquiring deeply-troubled airlines to use as a means to circumvent EU airline ownership laws
Not sure what this means, but they spy on the manufacturors (who also spy)
*Promoting slavery
Working extra hours without pay. Being allowed to pay people below minimum wage. People who work still needing help. Opposing unions in any way possible.
*Bribing everyone at FIFA
The FIFA? That is a game. The US bribes their political system and they are proud to announce how much they made for their campaign
*Pissing matches with fellow Arabs to see who has the most expensive $_item, the tallest vaguely-phallic architectural piece, largest airline, etc
USA! USA! USA!
*Organizing huge events to pretend they're a civilized country (see "slavery" and "FIFA")
World championchips where only the USA is a contestant. (See USA! USA! USA!)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Reality has no bias, but it very much appears biased, because one entire side of the political spectrum (the Right) has abandoned it altogether and only exists inside a fantasy world where:
- the US is the only nation that matters, and Europe, Canada, and Australia either doesn't exist, or are considered to be socialist hellholes, even though they live longer, safer lives, with less violence, less poverty, more education, more freedom, less debt, better healthcare
- all the worlds scientists are engaged in a global conspiracy to force evolution and global warming, and other lies of satan upon the world
- the only knowledge worth having, be it political and economic theory, social studies, science, or philosophy, comes from the Bible
- more guns = more safety, even though the rest of the world has already patently disproved that notion many times over
- immigrants are evil people intent on killing us in our sleep, even though they actually commit crimes at a lower rate than the native population
- terrorist threats are imminent, terrorist = muslims, and the president is a secret member
- the entire constitution only applies to Christians, everyone else is SOL
- the "war on poverty" is a lost cause, even though history clearly shows that social programs (aka welfare) have reduced it and improved the quality of life of society's weakest members, and in other nations that have gone even farther than we have, have even lower rates of poverty
- trickle down economics works
- Obama/Clinton are felons, somehow, because 4 people died Libya, even though countless investigations by the very people blaming them continually fail to find them at actual fault, and also somehow Bush/Cheney are completely blameless for all that they did
- we somehow can't afford to take care of troops when they come home, but we can spend 1000x that amount on going to war in the first place
The list goes on and on and on.
So yes, reality effectively does have a bias, in the sense that only one side actually lives in and acknowledges it.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.