Reuters is a newswire, although you can get their work directly there's nothing untoward about a network republishing it: that's their principal business model.
I have no issue with Al Jazeera itself, but if they just republish a story they provide no value. It's not the original article and in this case they don't act like anything more than an (inflexible) aggregator.
This made sense in newspaper times (since compiling your news from multiple sources was hard), but in the internet age I don't see why it would.
The closer to the actual source the better (HN policy I strongly agree with).
Al Jazeera is 100% owned by the Qatari state (itself lacking democratic institutions), with its 2 last CEOs being from the ruling Qatari family. The current editorial standards are supervised by AJ chair man, who is Qatar's former minister of information.
So no, there's no comparison whatsoever with CNN or BBC and it's a problem that articles and information from AJ is shared without any caution.
>So no, there's no comparison whatsoever with CNN or BBC
Yes, in the sense that the US (CNN) and the UK (BBC) have had and have their gruby hands all over the globe, in occupation, colonisation, invansions, interventions, trade wars, national interests, resource grubbing, etc., whereas the Qatari interests are somewhat limited.
So, I'd take the AJ editorials on most matter with smaller grains of salt than CNN and BBC.
> For years, critics have assailed what they see as anti-Semitic, anti-American bias in the channel's news content. In the wake of 9/11, Al Jazeera broadcast statements by Osama bin Laden and reported from within the ranks of the Taliban, earning a reputation as a mouthpiece for terrorists. In October 2001, a New York Times editorial took Al Jazeera to task for reporting Jews had been informed in advance not to go to work at the World Trade Center the day of the attacks.
Also, throwing all news sources affiliated with a national government into the same basket is like throwing all the media, or all of humanity, into the same basket. Obviously they are not all the same or guilty of equivalent sins. It is the fair starting place, but it is only a good place to remain if you are too lazy, ignorant, uninterested, or incompetent to go further. If the accuracy of statements means something to you and you are capable of doing better you don't stick with "let's assume they are all the same".
You had to click "controversies and criticism" at the bottom of the original link. Probably this section was getting so big it was promoted to having its own page.
Anyway, even the aljazeera link ends with [Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters] and is a clearly a copy/paste from reuters.
Reuters is a newswire, although you can get their work directly there's nothing untoward about a network republishing it: that's their principal business model.