Thread: Aljazeera in English in America

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

I know!! People have gotten very sensitive lately. I really don't like the tone that is portrayed in topics like this. It's not very nice at all. And that while I come here to.."relax".

I agree completely. From now on, I'm not
to view topics such as this. This forum has
been a great diversion from the BS of the
world, BS that I have no control over.



Terry

Oh alright if I must hehe I'll go back to talking about razors I can't afford lol

Originally Posted by JLStorm

Oh alright if I must hehe I'll go back to talking about razors I can't afford lol

Terry

Josh, after reading your opening post, I wasn't too convinced that you had done your homework on this topic.

You wrote that you are "sickened" by the idea that "those people" (I assume you mean Al Jazeera?) have the balls to broadcast in English, "purely for recruitment and propaganda purposes."

Purely for recruitment and propaganda purposes? Jeez. This kind of ignorance is pretty startling, man.

You mentioned that you can understand wanting limited availability to the network for "intel purposes," but it's pretty clear that you meant that in a strictly militaristic sense, and that anyone watching Al Jazeera should be taking notes as though it were Terror 101. How about making it available to the public for general intelligence purposes? If a smart guy like yourself -- someone who works in the Pentagon, for Christ's sake -- doesn't know what Al Jazeera is, I can only imagine how ill-informed much of the American public is with respect to this stuff.

The fact is, Al Jazeera's broadcasting in English coincides with the tenth anniversary of the network's inception. This is a channel, Josh, that rivals the BBC in terms of viewership. It's the Middle-Eastern CNN, basically. Is it without bias? No, certainly not. But try to point me in the direction of a specific news group or medium that is -- you won't find one. It's the new kid on the block Journalism-wise and at press junkets around the world, VIPs will often walk right past BBC, CNN, CBC and Reuters to be interviewed by Al Jazeera.

In both America and the Middle-East, the government has quite the influence over the news media. Over there, though, Al Jazeera is really the only independent outlet. Prior to 9/11, they were congratulated by the US for being so progressive; after the fact, airing taped statements of Bin Laden's and other Al-Qaeda leaders changed the American opinion of them, all because they chose to show footage (without adding partisan comment, incidentally) of the other side of Bush's war on terror. Is it possible that a viewer might find this madman's rants attractive? Of course. But you don't have to. Nobody has to, in fact.

Ask yourself: how is giving the podium, in this instance to an undoubtedly derranged Osama bin Laden, any different than America tuning in to President Bush's addresses, which air on nearly every network in the states? Everyone stops and watches as the man is given uninterrupted air time to ramble about "evil doers," "staying the course" and "terror- terror- terror."

Educate yourself: check out http://english.aljazeera.net/News. This is the english translation of the Al Jazeera website. It may seem spooky, but it's news reporting from a different perspective. There are no recruitment sections, but there is an "Around the World" section, a "Sports" section, an opinion poll which appears to be democratic... but I guess there's no way to determine if it's legitimate.

I fail to see how a different perspective is a bad thing. Their reporting on the war in Iraq would be completely different. A learning experience, no matter how you slice it. With Saddam, instead of seeing press conference sound bites saying "We got 'im!" they provide a different angle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLoasfOLpQ