Al-Jazeera opinions here please :p

Anyone here have an opinion about these people?

http://english.aljazeera.net

I've read (heh..) that they "aren't biased" and that they try to get both sides of a story, etc. I doubt this.

Any opinions?

Aren't all news organizations biased? Except some are more than others for example: the LA Times, the NY Times, BBC, Fox News etc.

Aljazeera takes it to the extreme though.

Well, of course that's the opinion of most rational people. But I have someone claiming that this one is either not biased, or less biased than pretty much anything.

I don't exactly get my news from them, though so it's tough to make a point about it.

If Al-Jazeera was my primary/only news source, I'd probably be pretty biased too.

Well, maybe not.

But, I feel really sad for folks who don't have at least a reasonably unbiased alternative.

We of course can come to the SL forums for unbiased news and intelligent discourse...

=SV

Al-Jazeera has their good points and their bad points. Overall they seem to at least TRY to avoid being nothing more than a mouthpiece for the radical fringe of Islam.... once in a while they actually succeed too.

They have a tendency to be a bit.... overly credulous of various claims as long as they're being made by muslims.

They're not quite the muslim Fox News.... but they aren't as far off it as some people seem to think.

Al-Jazeera is basically what happens when the media and popular opinion are controlled by a handful of people. Of course, any lessons to be learned here are totally lost on Micheal Powell and the FCC. They would rather spend their time rewinding that halftime show tape and pretending to be offended.

Can't say I disagree...

Nobody wants to really defend them though, huh? (good, I suppose)

I'll defend them as far as I feel they deserve. They frequently try to be objective.... in fact more so than many other media outlets, both here and in that region.

Operative word being try.

*applauds* Amen to that Teeny. The mainstream news outlets in this country are no better than al-jazeera. They're just as biased and just as sensationalized.

Haven't really seen enough of the channel to make a comment directly on the topic of this thread but I do remember reading that a large number of the journalists etc. that work for the channel cut their teeth by working for the BBC, primarily in the World Service, I believe.

I thought "objectivity" was a "rule" that developed in American journalism over the last 100 years or so (it didn't exist pre the "yellow journalism" scandal early last century) and that it wasn't necessairly an ideal among the journalisms of other countries -- it might be depending on the country but not necessiarily? I'm not saying that American journalist succeed at being objective (some do but honestly -- as the deconstructionists say -- what is objectivity anyway? Are we sure it actually exists? Probably not, considering all writers, journalist or not, filter the world through their own POV), I'm just saying that Al Jazeera might not even function under the mandate of objectivity, which would make the whole "biased" argument mute. Right?

Or do I have my journalism history wrong?

Zana

Is this your first time hearing about Al-Jazeera?

If you think they are objective, check out the cartoons at tha above posted site.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/54C8AFC7-8C97-4C4F-B38D-D41E6169C42E.htm

Isn't it interesting how almost EVERY link on that site is accusing or blaming Israel and the Jews for doing something? Puh-leaze.

Good find with the cartoons...too bad they aren't very good. Oh well

If the "first time hearing about" question was directed at me....ummmmmmmm no, of course not. If it wasn't then nevermind.

Zana, I see what you're saying. Informational mediums that don't claim to be objective (and openly present opinion with fact) are usually called "entertainment shows" though. Well, that's how it supposed to work. Of course now news = entertainment as well, at least in the US. That's kind of sickening (although there are some US news sources that don't do this).

I know for a fact that many (I assume most) non-US news sources don't focus as much on "entertainment". I think it's a by-product of capitalism (competition). When the competition becomes too great, journalists get more and more pressure to make things more interesting to increase their competitive ratings. Apparently competition and news don't go together well. So that aspect of the news isn't entirely their fault, it's ...capitalism's fault.

Not to seem like an antisematic - however Israel is equally to blame for that stupid conflict, and the U.S. does have a favourable foreign policy towards israel compared to palestine. But that's as far as I will go myself. Hopefully someone will go over there and bash the living crap out of all the extremists in both camps. I vote for maddox.

As for Al Jazeera - I'm not defending them, they are biased, but no more than FOX.

-Adam

Actually we already had an Israel topic recently, and I recall that we flamed both sides pretty well done.

Israel is a good topic to look at though, to find bias in Al Jazeera.

*cough *cough... oh politics.. *steers clear* whoops road bump! Oh well....

funfun

Well, I guess if we can have the clowns at Fox News on the airwaves, fair is fair.

I'm still waiting for someone to show me something that Fox has "said" which demonstrates that they are so biased (I don't watch Fox myself).

But Bodhi.....have you met Bhodi yet? OMG NAME SIMILARITIES omgomg