I guess this is a ringing endorsement of Al Jazeera. It's the network the dictators fear. I can see some people saying they are being shut down because they are supporters of radical Islam but from what I've seen of them this is pure nonsense.
It's nice to have a news network that doesn't suck so bad. It's shocking that this network does better (in my opinion) at news reporting than American news networks given that it comes from a part of the world where free speech isn't a concept rooted in law.
Look for the network the dictators hate. The network that the ruling class denigrates. That's the one more likely to be telling the truth.
> I can see some people saying they are being shut down because they are supporters of radical Islam but from what I've seen of them this is pure nonsense.
"pure nonsense" is exactly what it is :)
The only reason it seems that way from the western perspective is because:
1) They interview Islamist figures
2) They don't portray them as evil
But they also interview people from every color of the political spectrum.
> given that it comes from a part of the world where free speech isn't a concept rooted in law.
I was shocked that most channels in North American report mostly on local news (e.g. man bitten by a dog), and if they ever report on global events, it's usually brief. And that's when they run any news at all; most TV is focused on entertainment 100%. From where I stood, it sounded like some sort of a conspiracy to keep the people ignorant about what's going on in the world around them.
"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth."
– Steve Jobs in WIRED magazine, February 1996
Statements like this are a result of our innate desire for everything to be black and white. Unfortunately, that's not the way things work. While the news networks are indeed in the business of providing what people want, they also have a hand in shaping their audience's desires.
To lay the blame of crappy news solely at the feet of the audience is about as short sighted as the conspiracy notion IMHO.
If your definition of "obvious" is a feedback loop, then you clearly have a very sophisticated, very select group of acquaintances. To many people I know, this concept is far from obvious.
The United States and it's citizens are stuck on black & white (right and wrong etc), we always have been. You want a real grey area? Try Russia where bribes and laws are close cousins. The problem with B&W is it leaves no room for the most logical explanation for most apparent conspiracies.
I don't disagree. While Americans never come across as remotely curious about global affairs for the most part, not unless it directly involves them, perhaps it is because they have just never been exposed to a globally focused media.
I personally despise this stereotype of Americans. There may be more than a bit of truth to it, but I hate it. I try to represent the opposite, and those that I choose to associate with do as well. I also try to represent the best of what "being an American" can be.
An unfortunate stereotype; but it's also accurate.
It's also accurate for most of the world, period. Very few people actually care what is going on outside their sphere of influence.
I think the reason such thinking is particularly and unfairly associated with Americans is because your media agencies tend to be the biggest, the loudest and the most partisan. Plus America is a damn big place, so it is noticeable when many millions of people aren't interested in something...
I often think that those dumping general criticism like this on the US should take a careful look at their own country first, and see if their criticism is even more general than they are making it :)
From where I stood, it sounded like some sort of a conspiracy to keep the people ignorant about what's going on in the world around them.
It's a conspiracy where the people are a part! The media influences expectations. The expectations shape the market. The market holds the purse strings of the media.
With a cycle like that, all it takes is small corrections, which can be undertaken by organizations with sufficient resources, to maintain general control.
Actually, I wish my local news actually only reported local news. I get the feeling that to survive in the next decade, the successful ones will do just that.
As to the national networks, if it doesn't happen on the coasts or in Texas, it pretty much is ignored unless it is a natural disaster. Heck, the coverage of Nashville flooding was pathetic compared to the dollar cost of the damage. Drew Curtis's (of Fark fame) book has a chapter on it and some interesting stories from Fark.
More to the point, it's actively abused. You can't say people aren't allowed to lie, so they can heavily editorialize or even outright fabricate and still call it news. Because the average person watches the news to be told, not to think, networks that do as above in a way that reinforces people's preconceived notions are rewarded with viewership. In an effort to regain viewers, the so-called "legitimate" networks resort to cheap gimmicks and demagoguery of their own, and the actual news gets lost in the scuffle.
One of the best parts about having an independent public broadcaster is that they aren't slaves to viewership, and by association ads. BBC, CBC, NPR, PBS... all have quality news programs. CNN, Fox, MSNBC... not so much.
That's a tad bit of hogwash. PBS and NPR are not neutral parties. They have to appeal to viewership just like everyone else. They ask for donations and corporate sponsorship.
I think you can see the difference in their appeal, however. NPR and PBS need to attract enough viewers to keep their programs going, which are made fairly cheaply. The BBC and CBC are government-funded, and have never really operated with an eye towards profitability. You can argue that they aren't objective news sources, but the quality of the news they provide is still much better than on the big US networks.
Not being for-profit doesn't mean there's a lack of budget concerns. BBC World Service will be cutting around 650 people over the next few years. Let's hope they can still provide high quality service.
PBS stations have been having a tougher time than in the past. Costs are rising, they've lost some of their audience to the greater variety of things people view on cable and the net, and many viewers are being tighter with their money.
Even when all sources are truthful, perspectives and emphasis differ. It's good to have a variety of sources available.
A number of international news networks including Aljazeera English are carried on MHz WorldView. It's seen on some cable systems, carried by some public tv stations over the air (often as an added digital sub-channel that many not be on their cable line up) and on direct tv. They can also be seen streamed on demand to those with ROKU.
Saying that US Networks do a poor job of reporting because their coverage sucks is exactly like saying that Wal-Mart does a poor job of retailing because they sell plastic junk. It's what the people want.
To some extent. But "news coverage" can, and is, also slanted by many networks to shape and promote specific behavior and knowledge amongst it's viewers, without them necessarily being aware of that. There is perhaps a deeper evolutionary reason for viewers to crave information of a certain color, but the producers also cleverly manipulate.
One could perhaps argue that "reporting" sucks in inverse proportion to it's objectivity, completeness, and emotional neutrality.
Doing something well and doing something profitably are far from the same thing. No one would deny that Microsoft had a successful, profitable stranglehold on the PC operating system market from the early 1990s to the 2000s. But few people would say that it's because they made good software.
Likewise, making meaningless "news" that gets people's attention but doesn't inform anyone may be a good way to sell ads and gain market share. But it doesn't inform people, and that's what good journalism does.
Objective, factual journalism is the cornerstone of our society. News should not be a product and the content should reflect reality and not the desires of a particular demographic or the fantasies of a particular political group.
(I like AJ's role in Egypt, but not the naivete of these comments. Standing up to one dictator doesn't make you a freedom fighter if you're funded by another)
Why are the comments naive? I don't expect AJ to be critical of Qatar's dictator.
The royal family of Saudi Arabia owns a fair chunk of Fox news. Big companies/wealthy people control much of the news media in the U.S. Likewise for AJ but they appear, at least in some instances, to be better than other news outlets.
It says a lot to me that AJ has been attacked by Rumsfeld, Bush, Mubarak, and others and it's something worth pointing out.
I doubt that Ahmadinejad or Bashar elAssad have anything to fear from al-Jazz. In fact, I'm pretty sure that those two would agree with your glowing assessment of their activities.
President Obama has expressed his disdain for Fox News on several occasions. Wouldn't that make Fox a network that is hated by the ruling class?
Al-Jazeera does indeed endorse certain "causes", if that's what you're hinting at. Usually that cause is the freedom of the people. They don't support the governments of Syria or Iran nor run any of their propaganda. They regularly interview opposition figures.
Have you seen any criticism of the Iran or Syrian regimes on al-J? Have you seen any criticism of Hamas or Hezbollah? Are these guys really beyond reproach?
> Have you seen anything of Al Jazeera? probably not.
Please do not make any assumptions about me, I have seen plenty. For example, when al-J threw a birthday party to Samir Kuntar and called him a hero. Samir Kuntar is a guy who was doing time in Israel for killing a 4-year old girl by bashing her head with a rock.
> Al-Jazeera always interviews people from the Israeli side (and they get a lot of heat for it).
You're comparing guys like Samir Kuntar to Israeli government ministers?
See, the thing is, you're obviously biased towards Israel and you're endorsing the Israeli side of the story. Now, I don't know anything about this guy, but clearly the Lebanese side of the story is that he's a resistance figure.
> You're comparing guys like Samir Kuntar to Israeli government ministers?
No, you are. You're also implying the Israeli government ministers are "the good guys", which they are not. To put it more objectively, Al-Jazeera is an Arabic channel, supposed to be supporting Arab causes, like Palestine. Israel is the enemy here. So, network X is supposed to be endorsing a cause where A is the hero and the victim, while B is the evil aggressor. Yet, X interviews people from the B side all the time and gives them a chance to voice their views.
I've yet to see any American media outlets do the same. I remember a long time ago, a Hamas spokesman appeared on CNN for a few minutes, and the title was reading "Spokesman of Terror?".
See, the thing is, you're obviously biased towards Israel and you're endorsing the Israeli side of the story. Now, I don't know anything about this guy, but clearly the Lebanese side of the story is that he's a resistance figure.
You're both a little wrong and right here. The grandparent is right that journalists shouldn't be outright supporting viewpoints. He's also correct that it's generally agreed that Samir Kuntar was responsible for several deaths in his orchestrated kidnapping of an Israeli family (Wikipedia, I had never heard of this incident before this conversation).
However, the Al Jazeera network head then admitted that the behavior of the Beirut office was wholly inappropriate and should never happen again.
Maybe I should cloak manipulative fabrications as questions more often. I thought about providing some ridiculous startup-related examples, but couldn't bring myself to do it.
How can you compare a nation and it's minions who are conducting a terrible subjugation of an entire group of people who made the mistake of being born there.
As an Israeli I was really hoping Hacker News could be the one online forum where I didn't have to hear generalizations about my country's right to exist. I respect your opinion and I'm sure there's more complexity and historical awareness to mutually discuss, but please keep the snarky one-liners to Reddit.
> where I didn't have to hear generalizations about my country's right to exist.
I'm not sure where you inferred that from. Criticism of Israel's policies and structural flaws is not existentialism criticism unless you have a very paranoid mindset.
> could be the one online forum
There should be no place on this globe where you should be free from the consequences of your actions. It would certainly be nicer if you could retreat somewhere and not have to listen to the grievances that people have and maybe just maybe the way to do that would be to change Israel itself and then the chorus of complaints will be silenced.
> but please keep the snarky one-liners to Reddit.
I'm sick of pro-Israeli policy supporters always using clever language and smear tactics to voice dissent. How about you try to move the debate forward and help us understand your point of view instead appearing as someone who gets touchy when the little "problem" of the ghettoization and subjugation of a whole population is mentioned.
Free from the consequences of my actions?
How do you know how I voted in the last election?
If anytime you travelled abroad you were treated like a hard-core Iraq ware supporter and Halliburton board member you'd get sick of it too. Or if every time your country vaguely became a topic for discussion things immediately devolved to view you and your nationality as not much except native american murderers and subjugators and ask you to answer for everyone else's actions in the history of your country. And when you have a well articulated answer explaining that it's more complicated than an archetypical narrative, or anything slightly well-written, they dismiss you as a highly-trained PR spokesperson lurking on forums instead of a human being with an opinion.
Yeah, it gets tiring.
As a result, you don't really want to get into details because it doesn't really sound like anyone's too open to hearing what you have to say, just looking for a fight. And then people pre-empt you by saying "stop calling me an anti-semite" and "I'm sick of you people saying ___ " while at the same time completely ignoring other important human rights abuses going on in the world, you begin to wonder why you bother engaging anyone, and instead just resort to asking to talk about it elsewhere, not when you're trying to read Hacker News.
And yes, snarky one-liners that gloss over the entire region's history evoke all of this.
Oops. That's an ambiguity of English and a lack of careful specificity on my part. I meant "your actions" as in one's actions.
If I were from the US I agree that it would get irritating real fast if that was how I was treated while I went about my business - I'm not sure whether that was failed attempt of yours to turn the tables on me or a strange attempt at engendering empathy and garnering support.
I shall repeat because you appear to have missed it: there would be less opportunity to for you to get tired of hearing people calling out Israeli policies if Israeli policies changed, maybe that is where energy should be diverted to maybe just maybe?
Anyway, let's not stray too far from the real real news here, Egypt! The very real possibility of a genuine democracy on Israel's doorstep. That would be awesome, I'm sure we can all agree on that.
Repeating this, once again: Criticism of the Israeli government's policies is not antisemitic.
Criticism of the Israeli government's policies does not question Israel's right to exist.
One should not blindly support one's government. We all know how that turned out in Europe in the 30s.
Asking someone not to generalize is not the same as claiming someone is an anti-semite. I appreciate your clarification that you're not questioning Israel's right to exist, I read too much into it. Finally, thank you for helping this thread comply with Godwin's law.
Why do you doubt that Bashar has anything to fear from Al Jazeera? Mubarak apparently does and I can't think of why Bashar would be given better treatment than Mubarak. Do you know why this would be the case?
Perhaps because of Syria's pro Hezb Allah stance and Hezb Allah's affiliation with Iran. But Al Jazeera is an Arab, Sunni company based in the Persian Gulf. In that region there is a very strong anti-Iranian stance.
On the surface it would seem that Bashar would have more to fear from Al Jazeera than Mubarak.
I was surprised to see this downvoted. I don't agree with the first paragraph, but I didn't think it subtracted from the conversation. And I thought the second paragraph was a valid point. What were people reacting to?
Probably the short length for a first post, lack of substantiation (just stating an opinion), conclusion from a sample size of one (Obama == ruling class), and the other posts made by the same throwaway account.
Around a month ago a good journalist friend of mine was taken prisoner in Algiers because of his reporting. After a few days of heavy pressure from the embassy he was released unharmed.
A lot of friends were worried and continually asked if he was OK and whether his profession was really worth it. I congratulated him on his new status as a real grown-up journalist, whose reporting was so good that he scared regimes enough that they would want to imprison him.
This is the same - Al jazeera is doing such a good job that they're a threat to the Egyptian regime. They do what journalists are supposed to be doing but often aren't. They should be congratulated for that.
Yesterday they had a brief mention claiming that there was information posted to Wikileaks showing that the U.S. was behind the protesters, but none of their earlier reporting had made any suggestion of a connection. Most reporting is solid. Once in a while they'll say something that's a bit out there, and some might have issue with their use of "reconstruction" (shown in tiny font on screen) for video simulating the negotiations. There were cases were actors spoke dialog, yet the reporter later said the actual text of that particular conversation wasn't known.
Their release of information from the Palestine Papers initially was accurate but unbalanced by omission. They showed concessions without showing what the Palestinians would get.
They later had an interview with Martin Indyk, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration, who protested that they didn't show the information in perspective by failing to mention that Palestine was to get the sought after separate state status, along with some territory from the Israel side to compensate for loss of some developed areas. When added to access corridor area, the amount gained equaled what was lost. It was pretty clear they'd had him on just to validate the papers, and hurried / talked over him some when he raised these issues, but they deserve credit for still airing it. They do a lot of good reporting, but as always it's wise to compare reports from a number of sources. I'm curious how that interview came across when translated for their Arab-language coverage or if it was included.
In addition to Aljazeera English, MHz Worldview carries broadcasts from Japan, Israel, France, Germany, Russia, Taiwan and some others. The Russian one comes across as the most propaganda oriented with them going out of their way to emphasize things, often misleadingly, that cast the U.S. in a negative light. They say things like NBC won't report stories because G.E. is a defense contractor and G.E. leaked massive amounts of PCBs into the Hudson river (Which they did, but in 1977 and earlier, long before they bought RCA/NBC) They find plenty of quotes from people that give the wrong impression (They used one of John McCain in 2008 to make it look like the U.S. supported those that make have attacked their airport. That tone was gone later, but they quick to throw out negative comments)
The combination of most of the international sources on MHz WorldView, the BBC, and PBS Newshour seems to cover most things pretty well. The two that seem to work to twist things fairly often are Fox and RT (the Russian service), with the remainder of the U.S. networks just not giving much time/depth to a great many issues that matter.
If one gets past the negative tone, the Russian service does point out things other media skips, like the lock down due to the missing nerve agent at the Dugway miltary testing grounds in Utah a few days ago. (the place that released an airborne toxin years ago killing thousands of animals 30 miles away) They also immediately covered the release of the U.S. Financial Crisis Investigative Report a few days ago. They make quite a fuss over U.S. human rights issues, pointing out the the U.S. and Sudan are the only U.N. members failing to sign on with never giving children life sentences or execution for serious crimes. The eerie part is that facts generally check out. It's too bad they make so many poorly founded negative conclusions and report few positive developments.
It'd be bad because I want the news, I don't care who is giving it to me as long as its accurate and up to date. In fact I think media personalities are bad for the news.
Let's see... he doesn't speak Arabic, so any "regular" journalistic skills he might have would be useless, and AFAIK he's not an expert on Egyptian culture and politics, so he doesn't have any special domain expertise that might be useful even without Arabic language skills. I'd personally rather hear more on CNN, MSNBC, etc. from actual Egyptian journalists.
There's an English version of al jazeera, where the anchors and reporters speak English and broadcast to the English speaking world. I doubt speaking Arabic is a necessity to work there.
Point taken, but a) they've already got plenty of good anchors, and b) many of the anchors (and all of the reporters that I've seen thus far) seem to speak Arabic as well as English, and can therefore do things like talk to people on the street, understand government broadcasts, etc.
I think that's a fascinating idea - logistical problems (not speaking the language etc) aside. I'm NOT a Keith Olbermann fan. I think in America we have an incredibly luxurious journalistic class. They can whine and berate the powers that be all day every day without risking anything. Put someone like KO in an oppressive country with real stakes and it just might make him more responsible, thoughtful, thorough.
Just so you know, aj jazeera is still broadcasting live from cairo. The egyptian authorities have revoked their license, but they are still carrying on regardless just as they have in previous days.
I think the title should be changed, they have not in any real sense been "shut down."
It reads that the bureau has been shut down, not their activities.
They are still doing their coverage, but:
- They have been kicked out of their Cairo office [1] [2]
- Their "tv uplink" has been shut down [3]
- Their correspondants in Egypt are no longer being named when reporting on air "for their safety"
While this is a really bad sign, another really bad sign is they are flying F-16s low over civilian crowds right now, for no other reason than to intimidate them. Just saw it on CBS and it's pretty freaky and scary.
I'm starting to think this is going to end really really badly. Are democratic revolutions even possible anymore today, given the technology and sheer firepower the small number in power can wield against the masses (which ironically the USA sells them).
How quickly we forget. Tunisia, earlier this month.
In fact that example was the impetus behind the Egyptian protest movement. If (as seems likely at this point) Egypt falls, expect to see several other governments fall as well.
This is as momentous a time for the Middle East as the fall of the Iron Curtain was for Eastern Europe. (Incidentally said fall gives several more examples of how military might doesn't prevent democratic revolutions.)
Not to be too pedantic, but the Eastern European "refolutions" were made possible because a) the Soviet Union and b) local Communist governments simultaneously made the decision not to use force.
Those decisions (and their publicity) were a necessary condition; it's what made the difference between 1956, 1968 and 1980 on the one hand, and 1989 on the other.
It will be a long and dark road for Egypt if Mubarak can successfully order the military to slaughter the protesting masses. The revolution will fail, both the government and the opposition will lose credibility in the eyes of the people and it will be years or decades of strict martial law.
Military might does not prevent the possibility of democratic revolution. However many pre-conditions are necessary before democratic revolution can happen.
For instance the military response to 1980's events in Poland were much less nasty than the earlier examples because of the economic trouble Poland was in, and its dependence on loans from Western banks. The economic fallout from the regime's attempts to navigate their way through conflicting demands helped set the stage for the events of 1989.
Without that backdrop, 1989 would have turned out very differently. No matter how much the people wanted otherwise.
As for Mubarak, I'd be willing to bet money that it is too late for him. Yes, the army can crack down. But the public images from any attempt to do so will make it unpalatable for Western companies to do business with Egypt for a long enough period of time to recreate his problems.
Isn't it likely that the F16s are up for reconnaissance? Any time there's a touch of trouble here (in Belfast), there's invariably several helicopters over head. Nowadays these are normally small police helicopters, but up until a few years ago heavier military helicopters were common. I imagine that a plane would be preferable in a bigger city such as Cairo, especially if the protests are spread out.
No one uses F-16s for crowd reconnaissance. You'd be much better off with a few helicopters, which can hover over a problem spot, or any of the variety of fixed-wing aircraft specifically designed for it - good downwards visibility, low stall speed, etc.
Part of the reason for actions against Al Jazeera are because of where it is and where it focuses on. The BBC and CNN are Western-based media, and they toe the line when it comes to western media principles so dictators know what to expect.
For Al Jazeera, it's based in an Arab state, focuses on the Arab and North African world and many of these countries are either in a state of dictatorship or are relatively unstable. It also adopts what can be described as a mostly pan-arabian world view, much to the chagrin of the west. Therefore it's not surprising that a) given it's location and orientation and b) it's relative youth compared to the BBC, CNN et al and c) it's willingness to go against the grain in various countries, including against the will of the west, that it's attacked.
It's also important to note that while it's based in Qatar, it doesn't tend to provide the same level of criticism in Qatar as it does elsewhere.
Actually just to be clear and to make sure I don't sound like an ignorant European with some sort of MSM superiority complex, the British media is also pretty bad. The BBC is not exactly completely impartial - compare coverage of the BP oil spill on the BBC to CNN and you'll see some obvious differences.
In the UK we get BBC News, Sky News (owned by the same guy that owns Fox, and just as fair and balanced), Russia Today (which is hilarious to watch sometimes because of the blatant pro-russian bias) and Al-Jazeera, as well as some minor news programmes on other channels. All of them have their own bias to at least some extent, some greater, some worse. The trick is spotting where the bias lies and compensating for it.
Of course, the most transparent newspaper in the UK appears to be the Daily Sport. They don't really care about news, just sport and topless women. (http://www.sundaysport.com/ - warning, NSFW)
This is a very sad day for objective journalism. My family is from Iran and I've spent plenty of time watching it over satellite. I liken them to CNN in the 90s before they too started getting politically charged.
I'm angry that Al Jazeera has such a bad rap in the states, but frankly, I think we'd believe Nickelodeon was evil too if Fox News caught them broadcasting a single frame with both Bin Laden and their network emblem.
According to the Al Jazeera live blog for today 6 of their journalists have just been arrested in Cairo! Since the liveblog is always updating the relevant posts are:
2:40pm: Our correspondent tweets:
Unsure if arrested or about to be deported. 6 of us held at army checkpoint outside Hilton hotel. Equipment seized too. #Egypt
2:11pm BREAKING NEWS: Six Al Jazeera journalists arrested in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
Our correspondent there just tweeted this:
4 soldiers entered room took our camera. Wr ae under military arrest #Egypt #jan25
Yes. On Hacker News, we discuss subjects that people who like startups and hacking find interesting. That's not solely hacking, programming, IT or startups, there are a lot of things that young, educated people like to talk about, and major political events are one of them.
It's nice to have a news network that doesn't suck so bad. It's shocking that this network does better (in my opinion) at news reporting than American news networks given that it comes from a part of the world where free speech isn't a concept rooted in law.
Look for the network the dictators hate. The network that the ruling class denigrates. That's the one more likely to be telling the truth.