Al-Jazeera English
Nov 15 2006 14:55
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6149310.stm
Al-Jazeera has gone English and can be recieved in this language in the UK. Do you think its a better channel to watch for Middle Eastern issues than the BBC? Or is there not much difference?
Nov 15 2006 15:04
#2
It's pretty good, I mean it's basically just the beeb for the middle east, but considering the prism of racism and imperialist assumptions that UK British BBC reporting goes through in regards to the region it's much much better.
It actually took on most of the BBC's Arabic World Service staff after it was shut down.
Nov 15 2006 15:28
#3
AJ used to be the Beeb’s old foreign office for the area, but they closed it down in a recent round of cutbacks. Tis better coverage on some issues, because the bias is with middle eastern capital rather than western and on non-business stuff they’ll side with the politics of their middle eastern hosts and audience rather than western. Still shit on anything we’d want to know about though (working class struggle etc).
Nov 15 2006 16:52
#4
or, you can go straight to the source: http://english.aljazeera.net/News
Nov 15 2006 17:43
#5
Cheers, good African section.
Still probably better than Sky.
Nov 15 2006 18:02
#6
What wouldn't be better than Sky News? Its just Fox but for the UK :?
Nov 15 2006 18:07
#7
Well I suppose CNN is worse. Although is that also linked to Murdoch somehow?
Nov 15 2006 18:10
#8
I dunno CNN is just boring, so i guess in that sense it is worse.
Nov 16 2006 10:07
#9
CNN is Ted Turner... Agree with RKN it is just boring. I'd rather watch Fox; it is not news but it is very funny and entertaining.
I like Al-Jazeera. They are by far the best source for Middle Eastern broadcast news, simply because they are based there and they do sort of have a pan-Arabist stance (which is refreshing compared to the Arab-bashing on the beeb, cnn and fox). Still, not a revolutionary station.
What is good about them is that they cover pretty "small" stories. When I was in Palestine doing ISM stuff Al-Jazeera pretty much came at every single demo we had in this one village (Bil'in) and the footage would go out live or at least get its 15 seconds in the hourly news bulletins. Don't think you would see the Western equivalent on the beeb, CNN or Fox.
In the arab world al-Jazeera is perhaps the only channel (or news media in general) that is not controlled by the Saudis, which is partly why it is more progressive than al-Arabiyya and al-Hurra. Funnily enough al-Jazeera did start in Saudi, but since they were too critical of the al-Sauds it was shut down. It migrated to Qatar under the auspices of the prince there, who also allowed the US to have Centcom there.
What was that channel Hugo Chavez started a little while back? Apparently very anti-American, don't know much about its creds other than that.
Nov 16 2006 11:56
#10
First impressions are good.
However, they still seem to fall into some of the western framework of assumptions.
The Israeli attack on Gaza last night after a Palestinian rocket killed 1 civilian in Sderot was apparently a "reprisal" or "response". On the other hand, the Palestinian rocket attack, was just an "attack", not a "reprisal" for the killing of 18 civilians in Beit Hannoun.
This seems to be a pretty high-up editorial decision as it was consistent in all the coverage I saw last night.
Still early days - we'll see...
On the plus side:
One of the trailers for some of their up coming programming did refer to George Bush's "alleged war on terrorism"!
In general, there does seem to be lots of stuff shown you'd never see on BBC world or CNN international. There seems to be is no built in racist assumption that whatever happens in the West is more important (even if it's stupid shit). Hence more coverage of Africa and Asia.
Nov 16 2006 12:03
#11
asa wrote:
One of the trailers for some of their up coming programming did refer to George Bush's "alleged war on terrorism"!
the BBC have been known to refer to it as "the so-called war on terror" too 
Nov 16 2006 12:17
#12
Really? On TV?
Nov 16 2006 12:18
#13
i think so, might have been newsnight, or maybe just on the website. i remember the editor defending it on the website anyway, can't remember where the initial usage was though.
Nov 16 2006 13:38
#14
The only difference I know between UK stations and other European and Middle Eastern channels is their pictorial coverage of events, inc. showing more graphic tv coverage. Some German news I have seen are very graphic, shame you don't get such truth shown on UK news, its all very sanitized.
Nov 16 2006 17:36
#15
atlemk wrote:
Funnily enough al-Jazeera did start in Saudi, but since they were too critical of the al-Sauds it was shut down. It migrated to Qatar under the auspices of the prince there, who also allowed the US to have Centcom there.
one for the prince tho': that great "moderate" colin powell went to qatar and asked the prince if perhaps he could prevail on al-jazeera to tone down its "anti-american" posture. the prince responded with a lecture to the american on freedom of the press.
Nov 17 2006 11:56
#16
Quote:
the prince responded with a lecture to the american on freedom of the press.
What a lovely man he is, under him the free media flourishes in all its glory.
Nov 17 2006 14:35
#17
better than it does here, apparently
They may have better pictures and quicker coverage. Otherwise its exactly the same, and I hear its staffed by old, washed out British journo's.