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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The fact is that Al-Jazeera isn’t nearly as anti-American as people think.

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.