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.

Comments

That sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Jazeera America was a great, unbiased source of news. I will definitely miss it.

Re:That sucks

[cmeans]

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.

Re: That sucks

[bill_mcgonigle]

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.

Re:That sucks

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

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.

Re:That sucks

[Locke2005]

Not sure whether or not you're being sarcastic. Al Jazeera obviously had a pro-Arab bias. But it also appeared to be really trying to do journalism. The only sources I've seen lately that adhere to traditional journalism values are Al Jazeera, BBC, and Christian Science Monitor (which is also much less biased that one would expect). Hopefully, Al Jazeera's web-based news service will continue. Why does anybody expect media companies owned by huge multinational corporations to do real, unbiased journalism? (Fox, ABC, MSNBC, CNN... yes, I'm talking about you!)

Re:That sucks

[epyT-R]

Riiight. Just like fox news is 'fair and balanced' and al sharpton's show on mslsd isn't race baiting garbage.

Re:That sucks

[ericloewe]

Whoosh.

Re:That sucks

[GerryGilmore]

Actually, real TV journalism can still be found on PBS NewsHour. For print, it's The Economist or nothing.

Re:That sucks

[bobbied]

Al Jazeera America was a great, unbiased source of news. I will definitely miss it.

This is an attempt at a joke right? Yea, and NPR has less bias because it's not advertisement funded... Don't believe anything you see online, less than half of what a reporter says in print or pictures, and barely half of what you personally observe.

Re:That sucks

[Lumpy]

Or just read the associated press feed raw without all the spin the channels add to it.

Re:That sucks

[amiga3D]

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.

Re:That sucks

[thunderclap]

I agree. It was a great source of News if you ignored anything muslim or israeli related. They had the paris shootings hours before cnn

Re:That sucks

[thunderclap]

You have to admit thought, Trump's hatred of Megyn Kelly has made them more visible of late.

Re:That sucks

[ourlovecanlastforeve]

It used to be anyone could go to the Al Jazeera English website and watch a live stream.

Then they tried to sell out to the cable companies in the US (and failed, obviously), placing IP blocks on their video stream for anyone browsing to their site from an IP address inside the US.

I hope they'll go back to streaming in the US so I can punish them for their dissent by blocking their ads and watching their stream in my browser.

Re:That sucks

[hambone142]

I bookmarked it in hope that I'd get unbiased news. After a while, the news links just seemed to be "Yahoo-like" clickbait.

Sensational, tabloid type news subjects.

I removed it from my news sources.

I wish I could find an unbiased news source but it's getting more-difficult to fine lately.

Re: That sucks

[jrumney]

Being fully aware of the biases is important. But when the competitors are biased against the truth, and/or towards corporate interests, then an exception to that can seem like it is unbiased in comparison.

Re:That sucks

[Darinbob]

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.

Re:That sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: That sucks

[Darinbob]

You can sort of be aware of bias, and I think it's possible to have news without bias if one conscientiously avoids it. It's sort of like saying that you can't teach mathematics without bias because everyone has some innate bias. There might not be any objective truth in news, but there are the basic facts. If they cut out all the extra crap then they could focus on just the basic facts and have time to allow showing more basic facts rather than picking and choosing a small subset of facts (which increases bias).

The part I hate in America (probably true in many other parts) is the artifical way a lot of states try to avoid bias by giving time to opposing views. If 5 minutes were given reporting Obama's state of the union address (straight up facts, this is what he actually said) then they feel compelled to give 5 minutes to the opposition party's rebuttal (again, it is a basic fact that those were the words that were spoken). The result is a lot of gibberish. It leads false credence to the idea that all views are equally important. This technique can lead to the ludicrous if taken to an extreme ("here with the rebuttal to NASA from the Flat Earth Society is our guest ...").

A good news channels should build a wall between news reporting and editorializing; be trained to spot innate bias; understand science, statistics, polling; don't pander to an audience; have a role of ombudsman or such on staff; and so forth.

Of course, not all bias is bad. Some of the more enlightening radio shows I've listened to in the past were ones that would take people with opposing views and have them try to reach an understanding or common ground rather than just shouting back and forth.

Re:That sucks

[epyT-R]

True. A sad state of affairs all around. The state of the union is definitely not strong, and the future is in serious question.

Re:That sucks

[epyT-R]

NPR has less bias? They're biased by the views of their listener/doner base.

Re:That sucks

[VVelox]

Really? I remember recently the really half assed article below was brought to my attention. This is so far from being unbiased or even vaguely researched it is funny. The author did no research into SBS and constantly describes something that is very federally illegal as if it was legal to do.

http://america.aljazeera.com/a...

That article is also far from the first time I've seen them do something like this.

Re:That sucks

[VVelox]

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.

Re:That sucks

[Darinbob]

But then you don't get any in depth analysis. Of course once you start doing analysis it becomes so much harder to avoid the bias. But the raws news feed doesn't give you perspective, you just get a jumble of facts without a way to tie the facts together.

For instance if the news feed says that a government report came out showing that the Oil Interoperability Index for July was 32.9, then what does that really mean for you? Is it up, is it down, is up better than down, how does it affect my daily life, what's the history behind this index, and so forth?

Re: That sucks

[ClickOnThis]

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.

Re:That sucks

[Midnight Thunder]

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.

Re:That sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

The AP feed is FILLED with pro-leftist bias.

Reality generally is, too, at least relative to how far right the US has become.

Re:That sucks

[Jack Griffin]

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.

Re:That sucks

[Applehu Akbar]

"They're biased by the views of their listener/doner base."

I've heard NPR being accused of a lot of things, but I've never heard them run a kebab commercial.

Re:That sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Reality has no bias. Reality is, by definition, the construct by which all observations are made.

Leftism is the bias du jour of the powermongers and pseudointellectualists (including, by default, major media). Don't conflate the media's bias and the opinion of the population of the intelligent world.

Re:That sucks

[Jack Griffin]

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".

Re:That sucks

[ScentCone]

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?

Re:That sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Reality has no bias. Reality is, by definition, the construct by which all observations are made.

Leftism is the bias du jour of the powermongers and pseudointellectualists (including, by default, major media). Don't conflate the media's bias and the opinion of the population of the intelligent world.

Your statements are woefully out of touch; it also exposes your views on political, social and economic constructs are very simplistic. Funny that you put leftism and major media (the same major media of your outlets); you need to check the Board of Directors, Chairmen and other figures that run the shop and make the big decisions.

The statement is Reality has a Liberal Bias, because no matter what one individuals chooses to believe, or to ignore, reality is going to remain right where it is. It isn't a construct at all.

Re:That sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

media is one of the pillars of a strong democracy

Niel Postman has an interesting book on this subject, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, I don't know what to say about this book other than you should read it. It does not paint a pretty picture.

I too stopped watching, even listening to most news and I remember the exact time and place. And why.

Re:That sucks

[ArmoredDragon]

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.

Re: That sucks

[Sun]

Actually, it takes a little more than that.

A biased source of news may still be professional about it. If a source of news regularly publishes lies, drop it.

Assuming they do keep a minimal journalistic ethics regime, however, you still need to try to watch the bias points. It's best to try and get your news from more than one source, and compare the presentation, headlines, and differences.

The problem with bias is that it is catching. Humans are affected by the things not said more than they are by the things stated explicitly. This means that if you have an unconscious bias, you are more likely to cause others who listen to you to adopt that bias. This stands in the way of informed discussion.

The best way to fight it is to make the bias explicit. Point it out to yourself, so you can make your own opinions and biases (and everybody has those) somewhat related to that myth called "objective reality".

Shachar

Re:That sucks

[myowntrueself]

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.

The most hilarious US 'news' I saw recently was CNN talking to some republican guy about Trump. The republican said "You guys talk about Trump a lot and I watch a lot of CNN. You never seem to cover the democrat primaries." The CNN talking heads didn't quite seem to know what to do and said "We'll cover that when time comes for the general election." which seemed incredibly dumb.

Re:That sucks

[whoever57]

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.

In a word: Roku. BBC has the iPlayer and there is a BBC News "Channel" on the Roku. You might need to route your traffic through a VPN, though.

Re:That sucks

[whoever57]

. The republican said "You guys talk about Trump a lot and I watch a lot of CNN. You never seem to cover the democrat primaries." The CNN talking heads didn't quite seem to know what to do

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.

Re:That sucks

[codeButcher]

Al Jazeera America was a great, unbiased source of news. I will definitely miss it.

That "woosh" I heard probably was that gazguzzler SUV that you didn't buy that might have shored up the oil prices that might have kept this alive.

Re:That sucks

[Darinbob]

I've got Roku and there's no BBC on it. When I first got it there was BBC but it never did anything, like it was out of date or broken, then later it disappeared. It does have Sky News though but it's not quite the same.

Re:That sucks

[PvtVoid]

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.

Re:That sucks

[DeBaas]

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.

You could try https://www.filmon.com/tv/live BBC News is there as well, you can cast it to chrome from a tablet. SD quality is free (with some ads)

Re:That sucks

[terjeber]

Eh, no. Al Jazeera is nowhere near the league of Fox. Seriously. Al Jazeera is far more balanced than almost any news source in the US, and FAR more balanced than news sources in Europe. In fact, in Northern Europe these days I'd call the "native" news sources being entirely anti-Jewish in its coverage of the Middle-Eastern conflict.

It was very refreshing to see a female reporter from Al Jazeera tear several new orifices in the Hamas leadership about their use of civilians as shields for their military operations while European news sources were busy talking about the evils of the evil army populated by evil Jews in the evil state of Israel. The Hamas leader said multiple times things similar to "I will not be talked to like this by a mere woman". I have never seen a roasting like that on any European or US news channel of those murderous terrorist bastards.

Re:That sucks

[TapeCutter]

they get paid based upon the number of eyeballs that watch them.

No, AJ actually has a lot in common with the BBC, including the fact it is state funded so does NOT rely on eyeballs for revenue. There's also the ABC/SBS network in Australia, it was born at the same time as the BBC and copied it's funding/organisational structure (we even had the same TV license scheme in Oz up until the late 60's). The reason a state funded TV network like the BBC works so well is because they are set up as an independent state funded corporation (the 'C' in BBC/ABC stands for 'corporation'), this is vastly different to a state run TV network that's used as a political megaphone by the ruling party.

The BBC/ABC are tasked with entertaining/informing the masses, they must cater for a wide range of tastes so almost by definition they will offend someone. More importantly they are also tasked with "keeping the bastards honest". They both do a pretty good job and have an enviable track record stretching back over half a century, which is why the masses who actually pay the operating costs overwhelmingly support their continued existence.

Finally AJ haven't "gone under" in the US, AFAICT they are just rebooting the US business to get out of a contractual money pit they dug themselves into. They don't need to make a profit to serve their "foreign relations" purpose in the US, but they can't continue to feed the current money pit. Cleaning up the first launch failure and re launching seems a sensible thing to do, it's almost certain they will do a better job after such an expensive training exercise. I wish them well, this kind of foreign relations exercise is infinitely preferable to firing missiles at each other.

Re:That sucks

[allcoolnameswheretak]

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.

They also create many good documentaries, which you can still watch on their website. Not surprising, considering many BBC employees were wooed when Aljazeera got started.

Re:That sucks

[allcoolnameswheretak]

It's a losing battle you're waging. The problem is, conservatives in the US are so off the charts these days, that "reality" has a liberal bias to them. That's why they also created "Conservapedia" - Wikipedia is a den of liberals and socialists.

Re:That sucks

[Coisiche]

It does have Sky News though but it's not quite the same.

Sky is just another Murdoch outlet.

Re:That sucks

[wkwilley2]

Anything seem unbiased in comparison to NBC, CNN, etc.

Re:That sucks

[AmiMoJo]

I think it's less pro-Arab bias, and more that most western media has a very anti-Arab bias.

Re:That sucks

[UnknownSoldier]

> never made it into the 3-minute "news" cycle that most of the news outlets in the US lie about

FTFY, as in lie by facts or omission.

3 minutes? Ha! More like 10 second sound-bite.

Re:That sucks

[hairyfeet]

What is truly sad and pathetic is how thanks to deregulation allowing a handful of corps, all of which are either heavily tied with the US government or the defense industry, to own all of the media stations USA "news" has become that joke from the movie Airplane. You know the one where all the other news outlets report "four alarm fire rages through X" except when they get to the Soviets a guy with a gun hands the reporter the script and he reads "four alarm fire makes way for GLORIOUS new tractor factory!"? That is the "news" in the USA in a nutshell.

BTW you want an easy measuring stick on how much government dick is being sucked by a particular news org? Look up what they reported the day after Wikileaks dropped those docs showing a PMC in Afghanistan was selling little boys as rape toys to get better contracts while the US government tried to cover it up while also releasing that video of the chopper pilot laughing and joking as he blew that guy and his kids away. If they ran with the "if Assange didn't use a condom he MUST be a rapist" line? They were sucking dick as that was originally put out by a state dept talking head, if they actually talked about what was revealed? Then they might actually have a spine. The only ones I saw pass? PBS with Frontline who ran stories on both, followed by in depth hour long stories laying out the background of what happened, the rest? "Four alarm fire makes way for glorious new tractor factory!"

Re:That sucks

[dywolf]

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.

Re:That sucks

[dywolf]

race baiting: phrase used by conservatives when someone admits black people not only exist in the US, but are at a systemic disadvantage

Re:That sucks

[dywolf]

Statist!
DRINK!

Re:That sucks

[ArmoredDragon]

and no, there are no efforts to get Beck or anyone else off the air.

First of all, google "stop beck". That alone proves you wrong. Second of all, indeed there are concerted efforts to get talking heads off the air all the time. In fact, that's how I typically hear about people like Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage. I don't listen to or watch their programs, but when I do run across them in the news, it's about some organization or social media effort trying to take them off the air.

Re:That sucks

[tehcyder]

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.

There is a difference between news and comment.

The news tells me that David Bowie has died, which I want to know. People's comments on how good/bad his music was I can take or leave as I see fit.

Sites like slashdot are just republishing news from elsewhere to generate discussion, you can only rely on them for news because the original news sites exist.

Re:That sucks

[tehcyder]

What once, many years ago, was known as the "Fouth Estate", has now become the "US Department of Propaganda", that will tout whatever the current administration tells it to...It doesn't matter which party is in power, they both use the "propaganda department" to LIE to you...

There are plenty of other news sources than television.

Re:That sucks

[tehcyder]

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.

Though half the people who act like experts on this site have just read a bit more than you on the subject and then act like they know what they're talking about.

Yes, it's amazing what you can learn about being a Pilot, Traffic controller, Navy guy and GPS expert from an hour on wikipedia. It's like Keanu Reeves learning to fly that helicopter in one of the Matrix films.

Re:That sucks

[tehcyder]

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.

That would be a good precis of the comments in a typical slashdot thread, although you'd have to add something about how Bill Gates has caused more deaths than Hitler

Re:That sucks

[MachineShedFred]

What's to cover? You have the preordained candidate that the DNC is doing their best to rig the primaries in favor of, a grumpy crank independent Senator from New England who is making waves because he actually cares, and some other guy that has zero chance, but is hanging on anyway.

The only way that the Democratic primary race becomes anything other than 'dog bites man' is if Bernie runs the early table and wins Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. I don't blame the news networks for not carrying anything about that - it's not a race, and they refuse to talk about Hillary's dishonesty or flaws of character for fear of upsetting the preordained nominee and getting shut out during the general election.

Re:That sucks

[MachineShedFred]

I don't want my news to 'agree' or 'disagree' with anything. I want facts. Agreeing or disagreeing is opinion, and there's entirely too much opinion in the 'news' today.

That's the fucking problem.

Re:That sucks

[MachineShedFred]

Your example is nice, except that they can easily state if it is up or down, and what effect that has without going off the fucking deep end and saying that the economy is going to go all 1939 and that it's Obama's fault.

Analysis is fine, but they're giving too much 'perspective' and that's what makes it unwatchable / unlistenable.

Re:That sucks

[Chris Mattern]

I expect the real answer is much simpler. Trump is entertaining. Trump is controversial. Trump pulls in ratings. So they cover Trump.

Re:That sucks

[ArmoredDragon]

Thank you for proving my point.

Re:That sucks

[PvtVoid]

What a fine example of the effectiveness of the propaganda networks. Or have you forgot to add sarcasm tags?

Sorry, Dude, but these guys make it entirely clear all on their own.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Re:That sucks

[operagost]

The reason a state funded TV network like the BBC works so well is because they are set up as an independent state funded corporation (the 'C' in BBC/ABC stands for 'corporation'), this is vastly different to a state run TV network that's used as a political megaphone by the ruling party.

Yeah, because they'd never change their reporting if the ruling regime decided to reduce their funding if they didn't.

Re:That sucks

[bobbied]

I've heard them give credit to (AKA advertise for) a number of their large corporate donors who get both favorable mention over the air and a tax write off at the same time..

Haven't heard the local Kebab place mentioned persay, but I have heard local businesses given credit for supporting their local radio station's broadcast of NPR programming..

Re:That sucks

[StayFrosty]

I expect the real answer is much simpler. Trump is entertaining. Trump is controversial. Trump pulls in ad revenue. So they cover Trump.

FTFY

Re:That sucks

[LynnwoodRooster]

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall. When you try to silence your critics or those you disagree with, you've already lost the debate. You're the close minded dolt, not the person you're trying to silence.

Re:That sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason a state funded TV network like the BBC works so well is because they are set up as an independent state funded corporation (the 'C' in BBC/ABC stands for 'corporation'), this is vastly different to a state run TV network that's used as a political megaphone by the ruling party.

Wow. Just. Wow.

That is the stupidest, most gullible post I have ever read on Slashdot, and that's saying something.

Re:That sucks

[whoever57]

I've got Roku and there's no BBC on it

Perhaps it needs to be (or appear to be) in the UK? BBC news works on one of my Roku boxes (the one that appears to be in the UK)

Re:That sucks

[wyHunter]

And they're the Clinton News Network so they always want to say "Anyone who opposes our hero is BAAAD"

Re:That sucks

[Crosshair84]

"What is truly sad and pathetic is how thanks to deregulation allowing a handful of corps, all of which are either heavily tied with the US government or the defense industry, to own all of the media stations USA "news" has become that joke from the movie Airplane." OK, Hairry, you need to put down the pipe and read the idiocy you are posting.

You blame "deregulation" for causing the problem, seemingly deliberately ignoring the issue of regulatory capture that happens in any regulated industry you care to name.

Then complain you about corporations that have heavy ties to the US government.

Instead of blaming corporations, defense industry, etc, just get to the root problem with is LARGE GOVERNMENT. Government that has the money and power to hand out favors to the politically well connected.

Back in the 19th century you didn't have any of that at the federal level. Back when Senators worked with a shotgun to the back of the heads, held by the state governments, that sort of nonsense did not happen at the Federal level because there was virtually nothing to hand out. The STATE level was where you had all the shenanigans going on, with Tammy Hall and such, because THAT is where the power was concentrated.

The benefit of that system, which is how the US is supposed to be setup. Was that any corruption and bad policies was limited in scope. We didn't have nationwide Jim Crow, we only had it in the south. which millions of blacks exploited by simply moving out of the south. We, for the most part, didn't have anti-Asian and anti-Hispanic laws on the national level, they tended to be at the state level.

Any shenanigans over money, favors, and power had to be done on a state by state level. Consolidating such shenanigans across multiple states proved impossible to do for any length of time, as each state had different local interests competing on the state level, each with their own power structures and lines of loyalty.

So you get down to the root of the problem, deregulation and whatever is just a symptom of the problem. The problem is big government and the welfare state and sadly it doesn't seem like much will be done about it until the federal government is finally forced to default on everything it has promised all the special interests. That will happen whenever the world stops handing us more rope and starts demanding payment on our bonds and T-bills.

Re:That sucks

[DocHoncho]

The "joke"

Re:That sucks

[tnk1]

And you can find leftist whackos who spout off things at the same level of insane if you look for them. I think the bias is more stark when I only hear about the Christian Right nutjobs.

Yes, there's some pretty nutty people on the Right, just as there are on any side with that this many people involved. I'm more worried when I don't hear about the other side's cartoon characters. It makes me think someone is leaving them out to try and suggest that they don't exist, which of course gives the other side a nice "reasonable" sounding narrative. That's a lot more insidious and bothers me a lot more.

There are quite reasonable people who are conservatives. They haven't been bought by big anything and they don't hate women or minorities (unless you have redefined "hate", of course). They just don't believe in certain programs as either effective towards the desired goals, or they feel that they have dangerous consequences. Those conservatives could be wrong to be sure, but every conservative I have personally met believes in evolution, and is willing to accept the concept of climate change. Some aren't even Christians, let alone fundamentalists. What they don't accept necessarily, is that the only solutions out there are the ones being suggested by the political left.

Unfortunately, this also has the effect of allowing the right-wing nutjobs more airtime, and Trump's campaign rolling over more moderate Republicans shows just where that is going. The media loves Trump because he's quotable and reinforces their own internal narrative about how conservatives "really are", but at the same time, they're giving people like him more power than they would otherwise have and causing the polarization that they seem to be constantly crying about at every turn.

Re:That sucks

[vandamme]

There's still the BBC.

Lots of PBS stations put the BBC news hour on.

Re:That sucks

[david_thornley]

I've seen polls that put him ahead of Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire. Any Democrat with a pulse will probably beat whichever clown the Republicans decide on (and it's not necessarily limited to that, as John Ashcroft once lost a Senatorial election to a dead guy). Sanders is old, but Reagan was older when elected.

Re:That sucks

[david_thornley]

There's far too many facts for anyone to keep you informed, so news sources have to pick which facts they cover. Bias comes in there. If newspaper A runs lots of articles on terrorism, and newspaper B runs a lot of stories on crime, and newspaper C runs a lot of stories on white-collar crime and police brutality, they're all giving you the facts but from different viewpoints.

If you trust the media, what you really need to do is find out what really happened in a story the media covered. You'll find that they often say nothing that's a lie, but the impression you will get is way off how your contacts see it.

Re:That sucks

[david_thornley]

Deregulation caused this particular problem. We used to have laws limiting the amount of media one company could own, which included one radio station per market. This meant that there was room for lots of independent radio stations with their own emphases and biases. When that law was changed, small media just got gobbled up until most of the US media were controlled by a small number of really big companies. We had regulation, and lots of variety in radio. Then we removed regulation, and allowed capitalism to proceed unhindered. Now, the variety is mostly gone.

Radio is really a Federal responsibility, since radio waves pay no attention to state borders.

Re: That sucks

[david_thornley]

News organizations can say some pretty misleading things while never lying. I've watched it happen.

Re:That sucks

[david_thornley]

I'm not disagreeing, but there is no effective conservative party in the US, unless you count the Democrats. The frontrunning Republican candidates are jokes, and the Democrats have a battle between a centrist (by US standards) and a guy who wouldn't be considered right-wing by Europeans. I think conservatives should form a political party sometime that would be, you know, conservative. You know, move slowly on things, value approaches to balanced budget, respect traditional US values, that sort of thing. I bet it would get significant support.

Re:That sucks

[PvtVoid]

Yes, there's some pretty nutty people on the Right, just as there are on any side with that this many people involved. I'm more worried when I don't hear about the other side's cartoon characters.

The left's cartoon characters aren't leading candidates for President.

Re:That sucks

[SvnLyrBrto]

It could also just be an attempt at tit-for-tat payback for the removal of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC at the behest of the (at the time) RNC Chairman, Michael Steele. It's not like the left is inherently above such pettiness. I thought Glenn Beck left Fox news on his own accord though, to start that "internet media network" project of his. I take it that endeavor failed and he's back on Fox?

Re:That sucks

[ChrisMaple]

When Limbaugh became addicted to painkillers, there were leftists who tried to use the court system to have him jailed. Leftists fear and hate right-wing political voices, and there is no limit to the methods they'll use to silence the right.

Re:That sucks

[ChrisMaple]

Radio is really a XXXXX responsibility, since radio waves pay no attention to YYYYY borders.
The United Nations should have absolute censorship control over all electromagnetic transmissions by your argument. It's a complete non sequitur.
Sound is really a Federal responsibility, since people can talk across state borders.
Writing is really a Federal responsibility, since people can throw wads of paper across state borders.

Re:That sucks

[ChrisMaple]

how far right the US has become.

Says the AC with no sense of history.

Try reading the works of the Founders, then realize how far to the right of today's right they are. Then read Plutarch's Lives, and see how much farther to the right honorable men were 2000 years ago. In the US, the general historical trend has been to the left, to corruption, loonyism, arbitrary capricious and unknowable law (We'll have to pass Obamacare to know what's in Obamacare, to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi.) The extreme right today would seem outrageously leftist to a moderate from 1900.

Re:That sucks

[ChrisMaple]

Media corporation bigwigs are major contributors to the Democratic Party.

Re:That sucks

[Jack Griffin]

That's basically the same thing as bias. Agreement or disagreement is an opinion.

Not it's not. Reporting a story that presents facts is not biased. Having an opinions piece that gives alternate views equal time in not biased.
Fox News mostly only present their angle, or only their opinion, that's is why they are considered biased.

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?

I'm don't know who Glen Beck is sorry, nor do I know who "they" are.

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.

I have no idea what you are talking about so can't comment.

Re:That sucks

[Jack Griffin]

It's a losing battle you're waging. The problem is, conservatives in the US are so off the charts these days, that "reality" has a liberal bias to them.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. I'm not American, and our Right wing is more left than the US Democrats. So when we hear US Republicans talking, it seems like these people are from a different planet. If Nixon or Reagen were around these days they would be considered left, that's how crazy the US political system is now.

Re:That sucks

[Jack Griffin]

Sites like slashdot are just republishing news from elsewhere to generate discussion, you can only rely on them for news because the original news sites exist.

The problem is that traditional "News" has now turned into 5% news, 95% opinion (seriously, record your local new bulletin and see that 1 hour broadcast could be easily condensed into 5 minutes of actual information). And since the viral nature of information, I could probably find out that David Bowie died through 6 degrees of separation. Social Media now allows information to spread just as quickly, the only problem is the reliability of that information.

Re: That sucks

[Sun]

Yes, but if it's not your only source, then the misleading will be glaringly obvious. At the very least, it will be obvious to you that one of your sources is misleading you, and you'll be able to know which subject matter to delve more deeply into.

Shachar

Re:That sucks

[david_thornley]

I'm referring to the US Constitution here, so the UN is irrelevant. Sound and writing are not Federal responsibilities, since they are normally intra-state. Radio reaches much, much farther, and I've listened to Minnesota radio stations well into Wisconsin.

Re:That sucks

[ArmoredDragon]

Not it's not.

Yes, it is, by definition.

Reporting a story that presents facts is not biased.

That's basically what I said. However you specifically brought up agreement about one's views. An agreement or disagreement is an opinion. There is no way around that.

I have no idea what you are talking about so can't comment.

Google "stop beck".

Re:That sucks

[dywolf]

damn you are good at this bullshit thing

Re:That sucks

[dywolf]

regulatory capture does not invalidate the need for regulation.

Re:That sucks

[dywolf]

fear Limbaugh?
no one fears Limbaugh
even Limbaugh knows he's a joke.

he's in on the joke.
he is full self aware that he's long ago descended into the realm of self parody.

he just doesn't give a fuck because idiots like you keep making his schtick profitable.

leftists tried to use the court system....aka law enforcement who enforced the laws against prescription drug abuse...and since when did conservatives stop caring about law enforcement? idiot

Re:That sucks

[Jack Griffin]

That's basically what I said. However you specifically brought up agreement about one's views. An agreement or disagreement is an opinion. There is no way around that.

No, a fact is a fact regardless of what you believe. So disagreeing with facts doesn't relegate those facts an opinion.

Google "stop beck".

Ok from a brief read, my take is that Beck is one of these opinionated mouthpieces that tries to pass his opinion off as fact, and some people don't like that so are protesting to get him off the air. I can't see anything wrong with that, democracy and free speech and all that
In relation to this thread, the GP specifically agreed that AJ was not very biased except on one hot topic which tends to get people frothing. So I believe that it's more likely that AJ still aren't biased, the GP just has an opinion that doesn't align with the facts.

This is completely unlike Fox News, in which no-one anywhere honestly believes they are unbiased.

Re:That sucks

[ArmoredDragon]

and some people don't like that so are protesting to get him off the air. I can't see anything wrong with that, democracy and free speech and all that

See this right here? You just contradicted yourself in a really bad way, ultimately proving my point about not only yourself, but the left as well.

You see, free speech includes even allowing the speech that we don't like. Sure, you can ignore it if you want to, and even change the channel. Nothing is stopping you from doing that. However when you go out of your way to remove somebody's voice, you're engaging in censorship. It doesn't matter if you have a majority consensus or not, it's still censorship either way. The founding fathers even added protections in the Constitution against the tyranny of the majority for exactly this reason, and in spite of your belief otherwise, it does not fit the American model of democracy.

Thank you, I rest my case.

Re:That sucks

[Jack Griffin]

See this right here? You just contradicted yourself in a really bad way, ultimately proving my point about not only yourself, but the left as well.

No I didn't, you have just failed to understand the argument.

You see, free speech includes even allowing the speech that we don't like.

No it doesn't, this is the most common myth about free speech.

Sure, you can ignore it if you want to, and even change the channel. Nothing is stopping you from doing that. However when you go out of your way to remove somebody's voice, you're engaging in censorship. It doesn't matter if you have a majority consensus or not, it's still censorship either way. The founding fathers even added protections in the Constitution against the tyranny of the majority for exactly this reason, and in spite of your belief otherwise, it does not fit the American model of democracy.

Thank you, I rest my case.

Thank you for resting your case, but you completely misunderstand what free speech is. It's a common error, perhaps you should Google it and educate yourself. Or perhaps read what the founding fathers actually wrote about the matter since you clearly don't know what it means.

But none of this matters with the original point. Bias is not the same as opinion. Nothing you have said disputes this despite patting yourself on the back for your public demonstration of ineptitude.

Re:That sucks

[ArmoredDragon]

No I didn't, you have just failed to understand the argument.

The argument you presented is that it's ok to censor somebody so long as it's a democratic process.

Re:That sucks

[nobodie]

The next poster says the US dept of Propaganda, but they don't have a wide enough view. Here is something from the register a few months ago:

{This reminds me of the occasion when the Daily Mail's ex-production editor tried to explain to me the underlying theme behind the popular British newspaper's unrelentingly frenzied quotidian obsession with house prices, illegal immigrants and things that supposedly give you cancer. "Every story is calculated to get across the same fundamental principle," he said, "and that's 'Be afraid be very afraid'."}

what possible chance do people who watch the news have when this campaign is going on 24/7 around the world. The media has learned what works: fear and sex. So that is what they sell. I can't stand it >

Mixed bag

[Fwipp]

I'm bummed about losing Al Jazeera America, but I did miss Al Jazeera English.

I hadn't even realized that AJAM had a channel, though; I only read their content online and through the mobile app.

Re:Mixed bag

[unixisc]

Are they closing just America, or ALL their international operations outside Qatar? If the al Thanis are running out of cash due to oil prices, why would other operations be more affordable?

Re: Mixed bag

[kenh]

why would other operations be more affordable?

Because those operations actually had viewers, AJAM peaked at 30,000 viewers for it's most popular shows - without viewers there is no advertising revenue, without revenue, no network.

This was the plan all along

[110010001000]

Now that they have been feeding us misinformation for the last few years, they terminate all broadcasts before the invasion! To the bunker (or your Mom's basement)!

Re:This was the plan all along

[Locke2005]

But... I'm already in my Mom's basement!

Difficult to sympathize

[Bruce Perens]

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.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[Locke2005]

I'm missing some back story here... care to provide a link?

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[Bruce Perens]

Check out a sermon on Qatar TV. The US Government will, if requested, allow you to hold two separate US passports so that you can visit relatives in Israel with one, and go to some of the middle-eastern nations with the other. I think a number of middle-eastern nations will ban you if your passport shows any entry to Israel. Also, a number of middle-eastern nations deny visas to Jews, and you can neither enter the country nor board an aircraft on the way there without the visa.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[fustakrakich]

There's enough taxpayer money and weaponry (including the wetware to operate them) going to Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, etc to keep them afloat. Russia is the target of the oil dumping schemes and continued agitation of the locals.

Al Jazeera, and RT, please... mouthpieces all, just like the Times, BBC, etc. They say what their sponsor tell them to say. I wouldn't miss any one of them.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[bobbied]

Yea, but it's sad to see hundreds of Americans that work for the network ending up on the unemployment lines just because they worked for a propaganda venture of the Qatar government...

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[Bruce Perens]

It's an unfortunate truth that for everyone in communication arts who actually has a job doing what they desired to do, there are 20 people just as qualified standing behind them who never get a job in the field at all.

Once in a while, I hear from someone in the field who did something sensible like finishing college rather than taking an opportunity that was presented to them. It never comes again.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[jrumney]

This is how a lot of people feel about America these days.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[bobbied]

Yea, bussing tables is a poor use of that journalism degree you got half of.. ;) Don't get me started on Actors, Artist and Musicians who to often don't choose the backstop of a college education and end up running a cash register at a big box store..

I'm glad that my offspring are condemned to STEM careers like their father. Get a one of those degrees and you might buss tables sometimes but it won't be all you can do. I thank my dad all the time for footing the bill and pushing me to finish college.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[dbIII]

That's blaming the owner not the org. The reason AJ seemed to become high quality from nowhere is because they bought a big chunk of the BBC that had been scrapped, and that portion is very much still run like the BBC.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[unixisc]

Oh, yeah. There was this Islamic diktat from the time of Mohammed that Jews couldn't live in the Arabian peninsula under any circumstances. For this reason, after Mohammed's genocide of Jews in Medina, this was always banned, and the US shamefully grovels before those Arab sheikhdoms.

That's the other good thing about low oil prices - the al Thanis being unable to fund al Jazeera, and being forced to fold their US operations. Hope that the same thing happens to it everywhere outside Qatar.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[PixetaledPikachu]

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.

But they aren't really pledging anything to you or anyone aren't they? In fact they are being smart and responsible by responding to their economic condition by cutting expense instead of doing business that is costing them money. Good for them

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[Bruce Perens]

Actually, I was referring to my own decision to take an opportunity to start a 19-year career in film computer graphics rather than continue my classes. You only get one opportunity like that, and I have indeed heard from people who were in the same situation and finished school, and their careers never took off. You can always go back to school.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[Bruce Perens]

In 1987 a guy named Brian Wilson did a hunger strike on train tracks at the Concord naval weapons station, and was run over by a diesel locomotive at high speed. He lost both legs and ended up with a plate in his skull, but survived. I don't know much about the situation or how it was that the train wasn't stopped. What I do know is that the train operator went through many years of psychotherapy and wasn't ever really OK after that.

The problem with putting yourself in front of something like that is that the little person who is operating it isn't your political enemy, isn't there to make a point. They are only there because their job is their only, tenuous, connection to making a living and not being out on the street, and they must keep it at all costs.

Brian Wilson wasn't the only victim that day.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[Sun]

The US Government will, if requested, allow you to hold two separate US passports so that you can visit relatives in Israel with one, and go to some of the middle-eastern nations with the other.

Last time I checked, that was not necessary. When entering Israel, you can tell the customs official that you want your passport not to be stamped. You will get an addendum page instead, and your passport will not show any signs you were in Israel, so you can enter those Arab countries.

It's old information, so don't rely on it without verifying.

Also, when were you in Israel, and why didn't you contact any of the local LUGs? I'm sure we would have loved to hear you talk.

Shachar

Re: Difficult to sympathize

[Bruce Perens]

If you can find a conference that wants me as a keynote and will pay air and lodging, I'll come and talk. For about 2 years I was on vacation from Open Source talks. Having done them since 1996, I just burned out.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[Richard_at_work]

The US government does that across the board for a lot of nationals - and for a citizen of a free country, you would also have found yourself in serious legal issues if you tried to fly to certain countries such as Cuba (until recently in that case).

Dont make out the fact that Qatar having an issue with Israel is anything unique or special.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[tehcyder]

Don't get me started on Actors, Artist and Musicians who to often don't choose the backstop of a college education and end up running a cash register at a big box store..

Getting a college education hasn't guaranteed you a solid career since about 1980.

Anyway, the world needs actors, artists and musicians. Not everyone can be a STEM hero like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg.

Re:Difficult to sympathize

[bobbied]

Do what you like, but be willing to accept the consequences of your choices. There are a LOT of people who think that they can do well in the arts if they just get the one big "break" that never comes. Where I applaud their efforts and a lot of them have the necessary skills, the sad fact remains that in some professions there are simply limited jobs to be had that pay well. Actors, musicians, artists, professional athletes and race car drivers (to name a few) really need to figure out a backup plan, because having skills in their chosen vocation does not often mean there is a job to be found. Sometimes, you have to sideline the dream for a bit and surrender to reality to pay the bills.

STEM majors are not so limited. There are lots of jobs to be had in these fields that pay reasonably well, and actually a few jobs that pay *really* well if you have the right skills and aptitude. Personally, I'd not suggest you go Bill Gates route and finish your degree before jumping out of college. Yea, it worked out well for him, but it was a high risk move that just happened to pay off for him. Most of the others who've tried similar paths didn't do so well. Play the odds, stay in school at least though your undergraduate degree. Once you get a job, make sure to keep pushing on school while you are young. Education means most to your earning potential if you get it sooner rather than later. Maximize your return on the investment by doing it early.

Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[blind biker]

I just read this article (which I missed back in June): a number of ex Al-Jazeera employees are (were?) suing the company due to sexism, anti-semitism and a pro-Arab agenda.

In many ways, it seems that it wasn't a very healthy journalistic environment.

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[Anonymous Coward]

Its doing quite well in great arabian countries that are known for their respect of free press and journalism like saudi arabia. It really shows what a shady place the USA are: A self proclaimed "land of the free" speech, where you can't even run a sexist anti semitic TV station. Yes, you are right, the USA is not a healthy journalistic environment. @ least you can monitor your employees every day. After all, employees are just cows. Cows say Mooo. Mooo! Mooo! Mooo cows Mooo! Mooo say the american cows. YOU FAT COWS!!!

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[edbob]

How can they be pro-Arab and anti-Semitic at the same time? That doesn't make any sense.

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[mrchaotica]

anti-semitism

Fun fact: Arabs are just as Semitic as Jews, so describing anti-Jewish bias by Arabs as "anti-Semitism" makes very little sense.

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like someone who has never actually watched the station. In fact, you sound like the average idiot Republican. Good job!

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[unixisc]

The GOP tends to be pro-Arab as far as the Gulf Sheikhdoms go - KSA, Qatar, Emirates, Bahrein. Wouldn't your 'average idiot Republican' have accused them of Iranian propaganda?

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[Bruce Perens]

Lots of people who believe themselves to be of Persian descent identify as Aryans rather than Semites.

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[blind biker]

I guess those are the standard terms used due to lack of insight (i.e. due to ignorance). The correct terms should be pro Sunni Islamic and anti-Jewish. I was just quoting the terminology used in the article, because I assumed that most people are only familiar with those.

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[blind biker]

I agree - as I said to another parallel poster, I used the terms in the article as I assumed they are more commonly used. In fact, I disagree with pro-Arab as well - Al Jazeera is pro-Sunni Islamic. The Arab ethnicity has only coincidental connections with that particular flavor of Islam. One of my colleagues is Arab, but he's not Muslim (not Christian either, BTW).

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[tehcyder]

anti-semitism

Fun fact: Arabs are just as Semitic as Jews, so describing anti-Jewish bias by Arabs as "anti-Semitism" makes very little sense.

In normal English "anti-Semitic" means "anti-Jewish". The ancient history of language groups is irrelevant, unless you're having a technical philological or linguistic discussion.

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[abramovs]

Nope!
While 'Semites' are people with a middle-eastern language, 'Anti-Semitism', as defined in ALL dictionaries, is prejudice against Jews.
On a side note, I find it ironic that people who hate Jews will often include arguments that the term anti-semitism should not exclusively mean prejudice against Jews. They hate Jews so much that they don't even want to allow Jews a term to label that hatred!

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[NoImNotNineVolt]

So then why do people say "anti-Semitic" instead of "anti-Jewish"? Is this like the word "literally" now being used to mean "figuratively"? If so, is this something that we should be celebrating instead of continuously complaining about?

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[unixisc]

Since when do 'Persians' work for al Jazeera? Al Jazeera is a news organization owned by Qatar - an Arab country across the gulf from Iran. The term Semitic doesn't cover all Muslims, but it does cover Arabs. However, anti-Semitic is a general term used to denote Judeophobia, which I think is a more accurate label

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[unixisc]

This is quite right. People think that Shia Islam is an Iranian religion, but it's actually as Arab as Sunni Islam. In fact, Shia Islam was the official religion of the Mamluq sultanate of Egypt, and started due to the dispute over Mohammed's succession. In fact, Iran's pre-Safavid dynasties were all Sunni - the Samanid, the Seljuq, the Khwarezmid and even (after they Islamized) the Ilkhanate.

Within the Middle East, the Shia-Sunni split is about even, if one includes Iran but doesn't include either Egypt or Turkey. Aside from Iraq, which is 60% Shia, a good portion of the Syrian population has converted to Alawite. Then there is Bahrein, which is 75% Shia. Saudi Arabia's al Hasa province is largely Shia, and so is much of North Yemen.

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[unixisc]

The main reason is that Jews are both a religion and a race. Although it is possible to convert to Judaism, like Ivanka Trump did after marriage. In Europe, the prejudice against them was based on race, where the Europeans are not Semites, while the Jews are.

The prejudice that the MUSLIMS have against the Jews is not based on race, but on religion. For this reason, I prefer the term 'Judeophobia'.

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[NoImNotNineVolt]

You're correct in saying that European prejudice was predominantly racial. However, it was specific to Jews, not Semites in general (as there was no significant non-Jewish Semitic population in Europe to be prejudiced against). Consequently, I question the validity of using "anti-Semitic" in that context, as it's unnecessarily broad. If we're okay with using unnecessarily broad terms, why "anti-Semitic" and not "anti-Human", or "anti-Primate", or "anti-Animal"?

Let's face it. There was never a time when "anti-Semitic" was the most specific descriptive term to use. I guess it's just a consequence of the unguided evolution of language, akin to "homophobia" becoming a commonly-used term despite having very little to do with any actual "fear" of same-sex relations. That being said, I prefer to use the terms "anti-Jew" and "anti-gay".

Also, your claim about Muslims' prejudice against Jews isn't really accurate. Israel's ethnically Jewish population is largely secular and atheist, but many of their neighboring Muslims' hatreds are untamed by this fact.

Re:Al-Jazeera USA was doing some shady things

[david_thornley]

The GOP is pretty anti-Muslim also, and it loses them quite a few votes. Muslims coming into the country tend to be religious conservatives, and would vote Republican in large numbers if the Republicans would encourage them. Instead, they find that the Democrats, which they don't have as much in common with, like them.

Wasn't Qatar just funding it?

[rsilvergun]

For the most part I vastly preferred their coverage to the likes of Foxnews. They covered a lot of the nastier things the US Gov't was doing that the mainstream press wasn't covering. Frankly being gov't funded I'm surprised they got away with what they did.

The Intercept wants them to be another FOX News

[EmperorArthur]

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.

Re:The Intercept wants them to be another FOX News

[ChrisMaple]

FWIW, Gore refused to sell to Beck, who probably could have made the channel financially successful.

Re:WTH Qatar?

[ericloewe]

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.

Re: Shocking!

[bobbied]

How about just protecting the country borders they currently have and the citizens who reside there? Are you OK with that?

And nothing of value was lost

[Tailhook]

I watched AJ America a few times. I found it indistinguishable from the other cable news stuff except the advertisers were more obscure. It was available free for years on all the streaming platforms; if it mattered it would have had an audience.

I think it comes down to demographics. Old people watch cable news and they've picked their poison from among CNNMSNBCFOXNEWSBBCMURICAETAL. AJ America offered nothing compelling to them. The young have almost lost the ability to find a cable news network on a traditional teevee. So no one cared and no one will notice.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[kriston]

AJ America was only launched in late August of 2013. What you were probably watching for years was AJ English.

The other half of the key

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Ain't no such creature [as an unbiased source of news], son. The key is being fully aware of each source's biases and mapping the common ground among all of them, post-filter.

Unfortunately, one manifestation of bias is failing to report news that runs counter to the bias. This leaves you without information. You can't apply filters unless you have a signal.

So he other half of the key is actually GETTING the reporting from sources with other biases.

Al Jazeera America and Russia Today have been two such sources, readily available on cable and satellite TV throughout the US. AJA (and the many OTHER news feeds it aggregated) will be sorely missed.

Ahhh... at last

[willoughby]

I watched the Arab Spring online on Al Jazeera English and really appreciated the live coverage. (Well, the hours of the live video feed from the cameras around the square in Cairo got a bit snoozy, but anyway...) Then Al Jazeera America (and their exclusive cable contracts) started up & I lost live coverage of anything because I wasn't a cable subscriber. I'm hoping this change puts things back to where they were.

Re: Shocking!

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're demanding they leave Palestine? What are you? Some kind of lefty liberal nazi anti-semite conservative fascist?

Re: Shocking!

[chipschap]

I once heard NPR called "National Palestinian Radio". Not commenting on the accuracy of that but I thought it was pretty funny.

"This is not my beautiful house."

[Hartree]

"I'm already in my Mom's basement!"

You mean I'm not? Then whose basement is this?

Re:"This is not my beautiful house."

[M8e]

Yo mama!

Re:Shocking!

[unixisc]

Dear Al Jazeera

Serves you right! Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah

- Peyton Manning

P.S. Get back to showing those Osama videos

Re: Shocking!

[unixisc]

Uh, if we used THAT standard, Arabs would have to leave all countries - Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, et al and move back to the Arabian peninsula. Turks would have to leave Turkey and move back to Turkmenistan.

Re:WTH Qatar?

[unixisc]

And I'm sure I missed a few.

One that you missed - financing the building of mosques in countries regardless of whether or not there is a shortage of mosques or enough Muslims. Essentially, their way of promoting dawa, or Islamic proselytization in those places.

Re:I can see it now....

[unixisc]

You beat me to it!

al Jazeera on Arab Springs

[unixisc]

Did al Jazeera also cheer the Arab Spring in Bahrein, where Shias rebelled against the Sunnis? Yeah, they've been happy to support SUNNI revolts everywhere, be it Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, but when SHIAS rebelled, like in Bahrein, I'll bet you that al Jazeera didn't support them, for the simple reason that there was no way that their owners would have tolerated it.

Current TV

[jewens]

Does Al Gore get to keep the $500M he got for selling Current TV to them a few years ago? Al Gorzeera?

Re: Shocking!

[ScentCone]

Uh, if we used THAT standard, Arabs would have to leave all countries - Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, et al and move back to the Arabian peninsula. Turks would have to leave Turkey and move back to Turkmenistan.

Yup, and "Native" Americans would have to walk back to Asia where they came from. Or not. The entire history of the world involves cultures sloshing around from one place to another.

What will Hillary watch for news?

[kenh]

Hillary was a big supporter of AJAM back when she was in the State department

Those "cumbersome distribution contracts with cable companies" generated millions of dollars for AJAM - they are reason Al Gore got so much for his failed 'Current TV' network.

Re:What will Hillary watch for news?

[kriston]

No. That is patently false. Al Jazeera America was launched in late August of 2013. The article and network Clinton was referring to was Al Jazeera, and specifically the Al Ajazeera English service.

AJAM was rubbish; long live AJE

[wilkinsm]

Living in the UK I get Al Jazeera English (AJE) over the air for free; frankly it's my preferred TV news source here (sorry BBC.)
However every time I'd travel to the US, all I could usually get there was Al Jazeera America (AJAM); which I found frankly rubbish. The programming was all different and appeared to me to have been clearly designed to not be too harsh or distant; I suspect in order to try and not frighten the squeamish/sheltered US audience too much. Obviously that did not work out so well for them.

I hope now they find a way to push AJE out to the US TV providers; while it has it's flaws, I think US residents could greatly benefit from their excellent international news and documentaries (I highly recommend their "Witness" series in particular.) Yeah it's funded by government of Qatar, but after years of watching I've only detected their influence on the editorial process a handful of times (In reality I'm guessing it's usually AJE self-censoring; news around the royal family specifically seems to be a sensitive area.) When in doubt, France 24 is usually a good double check.

Finally I'd just say that I find AJE's coverage of Africa news/events some of the best out there; I really hope that does not change.

Re:AJAM was rubbish; long live AJE

[PvtVoid]

This.

I was a loyal watcher of AJE on the web: by far the best TV journalism avaiilable in the U.S. Then they started AJAM, which sucked, and blocked access to AJE from the US. (Thanks, Al Gore!) Why is it that media organizations which produce perfectly good journalistic content for consumption outside the U.S. produce dumbed-down, shallow garbage as soon as it's specifically intended for a U.S. market? CNN is the same way: CNN International is still a pretty good (not great) news channel. I saw HLN (formerly CNN Headline News) for the first time in a long time the other day. It was literally a ripoff of America's Funniest Home Videos, except it was home videos of children being run over by cars and the like, sort of "America's Funniest Lurid Death Videos". What. The. Fuck?

Re:AJAM was rubbish; long live AJE

[kriston]

Hopefully, now that AJ America is going away, they will bring back the FTA Al Jazeera English. It's encrypted now probably to not cannibalize Al Jazeera America.

News cycle

[Michael Woodhams]

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.

Re:News cycle

[operagost]

Thanks for your extremely relevant anecdote regarding one NYC news radio station on one day 25 years ago.

Meanwhile, a hurricane did hit New England the same day you were trying to find news about the coup, so it was a bit more than "... basements flooded in Long Island". People have more immediate concerns about their houses being destroyed.

Re:Current TV

[Bing Tsher E]

Algore always comes out good. He's a very successful operator.

Re:Bin Laden videos

[jandersen]

And the supply of Bin Laden videos, always a ratings booster, has been rather spotty lately.

I wouldn't be so sure - see what I discovered on my Linux box:

$ ls -lp /bin
total 13720 ...
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Jan 9 2014 ksh -> /etc/alternatives/ksh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1504944 Jan 8 2013 ksh93
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 140 Sep 26 2014 laden
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 165296 Sep 8 2014 less
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10128 Sep 8 2014 lessecho ...

Sinister, wouldn't you agree?

The first casualty of war...

[TapeCutter]

The dismal state of the US news networks became obvious to me during the invasion of Iraq. At the time I had cable feeds for the BBC, ABC (Aussie version of BBC), AJ(english) and the main US networks. The (private) US networks were wall to wall talking heads arguing about whatever the pentagon/WH told them to argue about, interspersed with the occasional video of something exploding. The state funded networks reported on a totally different war with real "boots on the ground" war correspondents, they were not shy of comparing what they saw to the airbrushed half truths of their host governments.

Re:The first casualty of war...

[liquid_schwartz]

The dismal state of the US news networks became obvious to me during the invasion of Iraq. ...

Sadly you're going to have to be more specific.

Re:WTH Qatar?

[houghi]

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!)

So we're in agreement

[ThatsNotPudding]

The name _definitely_ had nothing to do with their struggles to gain market share in 'Murica.

Re:So we're in agreement

[ChrisMaple]

And your use of the spelling "'Murica" doesn't indicate any trace of bias.

Re:WTH Qatar?

[ericloewe]

*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)

Maybe you shouldn't comment, then, since it's clear you're talking out of your ass.

*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.

That's not slavery, that's an unpleasant working environment.

*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!)

I'm not even sure what kind of idiotic comment that is...

Re: Shocking!

[tehcyder]

Turkey did invade Cyprus late last Century.

I thought they sent a peacekeeping force to protect the native Turkish Cypriots from being massacred by the terrorist ultra right wing Greek Orthodox Christian Cypriots?

I don't often watch TV news...

[dlenmn]

...but when I do, I find that AJAM is impartial, informative, and pretty dull.

I was on a delayed plane a few months ago, so they gave everyone free in-flight tv to keep us somewhat happier. I didn't have anything better to do, so I flipped back and forth between Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and AJAM. (Maybe Bloomberg too?) Anyhow, it was really clear that AJAM was covering more events and doing it in a very non-sensationalist way. I learned more for AJAM than from the rest of the channels combined.

Being non-sensationalist must be part of the reason AJAM folded. It's hard to make money on TV by simply telling people the facts. It's much easier to make money by scaremongering. (E.g. ebola will kill us all!)

Thankfully, written news is cheaper to produce, so you can still get good information in written form.

heavily subsidized by Qatar

[peter303]

And most of oil nations hurting from rock bottom oil prices. Maybe Qatar forced them to leave non Islamic areas.

slates one in 1500 watched them

[peter303]

28,000 viewers of 40 million cable availability

Al Jazeera English was good enough

[kriston]

Al Jazeera English was good enough. I was watching it on FTA satellite TV before Al Jazeera America launched. For some reason it is now encrypted on GlobeCast Channel 463 (Galaxy 19 12152 H, transponder 26).

When Al Jazeera America came out I was mystified. Its older sister Al Jazeera English was more than good enough. At the same time A-J English was removed from MHz Networks' UHF channels in the DC area and replaced with A-J America. Hopefully MHz Networks will be able to offer A-J English again.

Here's more info. Looks like A-J English is still encrypted for North America.
http://www.aljazeera.com/watchaje/20091022172112636517.html

The old MHz Networks announcement when A-J English was replaced with A-J America:
http://www.mhznetworks.org/blog/al-jazeera-english-departs-mhz-august-20

Re: Shocking!

[unixisc]

Right, so why is everyone on ISRAEL'S case for existing? Even if the Palis were displaced, they've by now lived for at least 2 generations in other Arab countries. There is no reason they couldn't assimilate in those countries, especially since they are Sunni Arabs like their hosts. But the Arab League has a rule against those countries giving them citizenship, since they are hellbent in wiping Israel off the map

Re: Shocking!

[unixisc]

The point I was making was that just like the Turks conquered Anatolia from the Greeks/Armenians/Kurds/Georgians, the Jews conquered whatever they did in the 1967 war. That's been the story throughout history. Those who demand that Israel go off the map should then allow for the same standard for the Arabs and Turks. I'm fine w/ Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Egypt being Arab, but by the same logic, I am just as fine w/ Israel keeping its post 1967 borders. And yeah, Turkey has no business having troops in any part of Cyprus.

Re:WTH Qatar?

[ChrisMaple]

America has hosted the (summer) Olympics twice in my memory...

The Olympics in the US is largely a state and local issue. Recently in Boston/Massachusetts, fat government egos wanting a Boston Olympics were defeated by multiple waves of massive public opposition. No reasonable locale wants to be burdened with decades of Olympic debt.

Re:Good Fucking Riddance!

[ChrisMaple]

My car is beige, not tan.

Victim of Pyramid scheme

[NewYork]

Victim of Global Pyramid Scheme aka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:WTH Qatar?

[ericloewe]

That's rich, stupid AC assumes I'm American.

Fuckin' moron.