Video: First six minutes of Al-Jazeera English
Steve Safran November 16th, 2006
It’s ridiculous that the new Al-Jazeera English channel will not get much carriage in America. The fact is that cable MSOs would get a ton of complaints (and probably cancellations) from customers who don’t want to get news from a differing point of view. The fact is that Al-Jazeera isn’t nearly as anti-American as people think. And if you only hear from people who agree with you, how do you ever get your own notions challenged? Here ends the rant. And here is the first six minutes of the launch of Al-Jazeera English. (Thanks, Max.)
14 Comments Add your own
1. Darrien | November 16th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Its a damn shame we can have this available in the US. I guess I’ll have to be happy with Fox News and G4.
2. Vinny | November 16th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Unless you speak Arabic, you probably aren’t qualified to say that.
You don’t speak arabic, do you?
Oh right, you’re not talking about Al Jazeera. You’re talking about the pretty English package this comes in. Okay, then, carry on.
3. thedetroitchannel | November 16th, 2006 at 8:46 am
did i just hear the financier is the mirror guitar?
4. Max | November 16th, 2006 at 8:55 am
I’ve been watching it here in the UK and it works great as a place to get an alternative perspective, though not so much as a place to get straight-up news. For that, I’ll go to Sky or the BBC, where “rolling news” is a bigger part of the agenda. Yesterday, they delivered the first live television broadcast from inside Zimbabwe in SEVEN YEARS, which considering Mugabe doesn’t exactly embrace freedom of the press, is pretty amazing. Interesting to point out that Shuilie Ghosh, the female anchor you see in the video, was one of the UK’s foremost network anchors until recently. Of course, there are many other correspondents both American and British who’ve made the jump across, chief among them the legendary Sir David Frost, whose discussion show begins on Friday night with a fairly ballsy pick for a first guest: Prime Minister Tony Blair. George Bush, on the other hand, would apparently rather bomb Al-Jazeera in Doha (where the video above was being transmitted from) than appear on their air!
5. Steve Safran | November 16th, 2006 at 9:04 am
Vin: I’ve followed the English language site for some time. But let’s suppose al-Jazeera IS anti-American. So what? Don’t you want access to that? Don’t you want to know what the other side is saying about us? I certainly do. One of the sites I bookmark is MEMRI.org. It translates the virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic news from the Middle East. It’s important to know what’s being said about us. Simply ignoring it is not an option. I’m sure you’ll agree with that.
6. Wouldee | November 16th, 2006 at 9:14 am
>> And if you only hear from people who agree with you, how do you ever get your own notions challenged?
Are you kidding me? FoxNews is the right and CNN/MSNBC is the left. Do you ever flip between the two? CNN is anti-American and Fox News is pro-American.
The point is they have very different points of view.
7. Vinny | November 16th, 2006 at 9:40 am
I not only agree, but I passionately agree, Steve. You know me; I’m all about free speech 100% no matter what idiot is spouting off whatever idiocy they want, but that’s not really the point here.
Al Jazeera is blatantly and virulently anti-American. This cuddly warm fuzzy version in our language is going to be nowhere near what the rest of the Arab world sees, dude.
Now, a little backstory. I had an arabic speaking friend who translated for me the kind of crap AJ has been running for years. One time, for shits and giggles, we compared the English version and the Arabic version of the website.
To say they’re different would be a massive understatement.
I say bring on all points of view, but let’s not kid ourselves about who the purveyors of those points of view are.
8. thewashingtonchannel | November 16th, 2006 at 9:50 am
that david marish looks like a real islamic sympathizer…beard and all
9. Stu | November 16th, 2006 at 11:25 am
It does depend what you mean by ‘Anti-American’. If you mean that a station is broadcasting reports and investigations that are investigate the US Government rather than taking everything they say at face value…. then that’s not anti-american. That’s what independent news organisations do, they provide checks and balances on those in power (be they corporations or governments) - incidently something that the opposition parties in both the US and UK haven’t been doing!
If that’s anti-american then virtually every news organisation outside the US is
If you mean anti-american as in the organisation itself is against America then Al Jazeera isn’t, nor is the BBC and CNN certainly isn’t (CNNi is far too US-centric to the extent of not being any good to me). You shouldn’t confuse hearing a diffrent point of view with ‘bias’ especially on stations like AJ where you hear multiple points of view
You yanks really need some plurarity in your news media, it’s all so insular. You’re only just starting to get BBC World, i wouldn’t harm you to get another foreign english language service
AJI is available online, and it’s made a very good start. Perhaps those with pre-concieved ideas should take a look
10. Rob | November 16th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
I used to watch the Arab version (we’d have our interpreters translate for us), along with the American-backed Al Iraqiya back in the day.
Each network has its own agenda. One comes across as anti-American and talks about how much people in the Middle East dislike the West and the US in particular while the other one talks about how great the 1st Cavalry Division was for handing out backpacks at a local school.
Anyway, every Net has its own bias, whether its Pro-American, Anti-Bush, Anti-American, Pro-Car-Chase-of-the-Day … you may hate it but Al-Jazeera is nothing more than FoxNews wrapped in a dishdasha.
11. johnfromNV | November 16th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
The last i checked, terror leaders that are threatening to blow up my city and kill my family don’t use Fox, CNN or CNBC as the primary delivery vehicle of their taped messages.
12. Howard Owens | November 16th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
there’s some interesting stuff going on here …
The term “set the agenda” is used several times. On one level, that’s pretty arrogant; on another, it’s insight into their plans (”we will be biased”); and it reveals a lot about how they view journalism — as an agenda setting platform.
At the same time, they are claiming to be honest and truthful.
So which is it?
BTW: I’m not opposed to news organizations having a POV. But I don’t think you can make the contradictory claim that you have a POV and you’re also fair and honest, or fair and balanced.
There’s also an insight to how they plan to subtly work in propaganda … the end they talk about every body’s right to know while showing a picture of a little Palestinian boy dressed up like a terrorist with a rocket launcher strapped to his back. Such images will terrify some and make them think, AJ will expose this sort of thing, but to others it will be something to cheer.
thanks for bringing this forward.
Interesting stuff.
13. Safran | November 16th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
“Propaganda” is an interesting word, isn’t it? Wikipedia provides a perfectly good definition: “Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation directly aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of people, rather than impartially providing information.”
I submitL You can always find a person who will call a given news organization “propaganda.” That’s why it’s important to allow all points of view into the discussion.
Stu is right (though I hate the word “Yanks”) - and makes an excellent distinction between “anti-American” and questioning American actions. We should never stop questioning our government. Just ask Thomas Jefferson.
(”Questioning” doesn’t mean “disagreeing with,” either. It means asking good questions and holding people we allow to govern accountable.)
I don’t even know where to go with people who think that CNN and Fox News cover the two extremes. That’s like saying Democrats and Republicans are the two extremes of world political thought.
14. Rob | November 17th, 2006 at 12:20 am
One thing to realize is that the ‘primary delivery vehicle’ for spreading terror information isn’t Al Jazeera … it’s the Internet. All they need is a camcorder, a laptop and an Internet connection and their message is worldwide in a matter of minutes.
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