Watched it last night – great piece by Raghee Omar on Dewsbury. And this morning, a debate about Palestine that was actually balanced – including a journalist from Ha’aretz, Palestine and good ol’ Jeremy Corbin MP!

I lurv it!

TMA

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld once famously denounced the Arab-language Al Jazeera as “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable,”..........Yesterday, most Americans could watch it only on the Internet

And the extreme right in America have the nerve to say that Al-Qaeda hate us because of our 'Freedom.'

It boggles the mind sometimes.

Buzz Kill 

What is funny about it is that there is a much larger audience on the internet than on TV. Eventually, some station will pick it up just to make money. Ah, the capitalist running dog ethic :)

Ya Haqq!

What was said: "However, in America, no cable operators have reported plans to carry the Qatar-based channel, and the two largest satellite providers have also opted out. Al-Jazeera English will be available through the Internet and a satellite company specializing in international television feeds."

Freedom of speech, free media, freedom of press. Yes. But….America suffers from the same media squeeze and propaganda that any banana republic imposes. Our tax dollars subsidizing networks that refuse us the choices that are our right as "Freedom loving" americans.

Actually, satellite dish audience is the monster. Internet is not as widespread. Won't be for sometime. I doubt that CNN or FOX or CBS will go exclusively internet anytime soon.

Salam alaikum,

The Daily Show had a hysterical report on Al-Jazeera English last night, mocking American cable providers for not agreeing to pick it up. I am somewhat optimistic that it will not be long before major cable distributors pick it up. It would help if people made a stink about it . . .

Mohammad

I think that adding one more bad source of public intelligence on top of all the others could hardly do much good. The problem is the media paradigm itself… the format more than the content or bias. Simply put, it’s not self-correcting.

But given that, I imagine the reason they aren’t showing it is simply that they’re tired of pissing people off. For those of us learning Arabic the Arabic version is more useful anyway. Plus about the only way you can be assured that diffferennt versions of “the truth” aren’t being provided in different language formats would be to have watchdogs translating the Arab version into English and then comparing.

Now that exercise might be very enlightening!

Al-jazeera is a heck of a lot less bias than say fox or some of the grabage which is now on CNN.
The problem the neo-cons have with al jazeera is that it actually tries to be fair and balanced.