BuzzMachine

Before you get all pissed off at me (because what I say will probably piss you off; but I don’t intend it to; it’s a legitimate question); aren’t you the same guy who promotes new media relentlessly and new methods of distribution and new paradigms for journalism?

Isn’t this AJE’s opportunity to shine using models other than the outdated “we need to get on Cable to survive” model?

I know a ton of people who are watching events unfold on AJE streams all over the country, and the reason they are is because AJE made everything available to everyone. Isn’t that what “new media” is all about?

Like I said, just asking. Not trying to criticize or anything.

Hope it works and you guys get it :)

I have one eye on Al Jazeer on TV and one eye on twitter. #jan25 and #egypt on twitter will add all the extra news you need. We get CNN International over here (Holland), but without Christiana Amanpour it really doesn’t add anything to the news.

Another greeting from Holland

I know US cable companies will have many reasons for not carrying Al Jazeera but what is the most common reason. Too one-sided for Palestinians and against Israel? I sincerely hope that being one-sided is not the issue since those same cable companies have no problem carrying Fox News.

Hallelujah. I totally agree. I’ve been watching little else. Ironically, I had no idea it was there until recently because it’s buried in the digital dial.

MhZ carrying in the Washington, DC, area (275 on Comcast).

Please note AJE has a site set up for people to make this exact demand of their US cable operators easy: http://www.iwantaje.net/

Sorry Jeff, if you do not know why Al Jazeera is not being broadcast in the U.S., then you really need to look back into the archives from 2003 and 2004.

I am about as progressive a media supporter as they come, but Al Jazeera or Al Jazeera English should not even be considered until past reporting has been accounted for.

I am not going to go into line item by line item what was reported, the methods in which they were reported, or the changes that have allegedly been made over the years. Instead of a driveby post on the subject it really deserves a thorough and intensive study if you are interested in the issue.

Who needs Al Jazeera? If I wanted to watch Anti-American rhetoric, I can turn on MSNBC. ;)

I´m here watching in Addis Ababa the news from egypt, I have two options, one is the BBC, the other is Al Jazeera. All do I think, it is not my case, Al Jazeera have a lot to give, specially in arab countries, for the westerns to watch this channel is hard to do, only because where it comes from, if you put another name to Al Jazeera, like PNN, more western will watch it because its a good news channel.

BBC for instance is boring, they repeat to much you can´t stand and watch it for more than one hour, the only program that really counts for me is: Hard talk.

Sorry about my english, I hope I had express my self ok.

To answer Paul’s question about whether a payment to AJE also supports AJA, the answer is no. I used to work there and AJE and AJA have completely separate staffs, except for a handful of the top officials (just like at Fox.) In addition, the English language version has lost money every year it’s been in business — if anything, the Arabic side funds the English side.
As for Paul’s other assetion, there IS bias at AJE. There were times when I was told to make sure my segment was critical of the US, and I know that happened to other reporters too. Recently, several high-ranking staffers at the DC bureau were fired because the bureau didn’t do enough reports about the tiny church in Florida that was planning to burn the Quran, thus giving the impression that the US was a nation of people out to destroy Islam.

I was once told to hand over the name of a contact to a government that was hostile to the US, because officials of that government were angry with what the contact had done.
As for being anti-Semitic, Al Jazeera Arabic once threw an on-air birthday party for an admitted terrorist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samir_Kuntar Even though they later apologized for it, many analysts and retired military and diplomatic sources in the US refused to continue to appear on the network.
Unfortunately, there are few places where people in the US can easily obtain information about the rest of the world. The excuse is that US viewers don’t want it — the truth is that viewers don’t want boring news reports, and interesting ones cost too much money. At a newspaper, it costs about $500,000 to fund an investigative unit that will produce about 12 pages of material a year. Who will fill all those other pages? And in TV, the costs are even higher.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/08/cost-nyt-magazine-nola-story-broken-down
http://sanford.duke.edu/nonprofitmedia/documents/dwchamiltonfinal.pdf
Whatever you think of Al Jazeera, at least the Emir of Qatar and other investors have stepped up to pay for their people to get important information, while politicians in the US are calling for the elimination of funding for all broadcasting here. That shows us who really wants an informed public, doesn’t it?

Al Jazeera hates America and especially the Jews…can’t be any worse than CNN

I live in Canada and AJE has been a blessing. I’m a big news hound and the story’s that are covered pale everything else. If I want to know what’s going on in the world I’ll watch AJE, if I want to know what up with Lindsay Lohn I’ll watch CNN, if I want talking heads trying to outdo each other it’s NBC or FOX and if I want fluff between commercials I’ll watch Canadian broadcasts.

AJE is the way the news should be done. I want to be informed, not entertained.

Quite some time ago I looked into some material from Al Jazeera on YouTube and was impressed at the overall high quality in reporting of this station. Which came as a surprise to me, as before, I had noticed the American sentiment linking Al Jazeera to religious psychopaths, and actually had believed this to be true. But, to be honest, in quite a few stories Al Jazeera covered I found MUCH more PROFESSIONAL and impartial reporting than I often can see on the big U.S. networks (where, ironically, in turn I very frequently stumble across clear propaganda, more-or less open hatemongering, and such unworthy of actual professional newspeople´s actions! So, coming from there, I wish Al Jazeera the best of success also in the United States. But, even more importantly, I would wish for the leading U.S.-native networks to remember their ethical obligations as well as their duty of SERVING the people in this great democracy with actual informations and insights, instead of manipulating them!

I’m an american in UAE for work and between cnn, al jazeera and bbc (the only available english networks on satelite), al jazeera english is by far the LEAST biased, and the british/mid-east correspondents are amazingly professional compared to the other networks. Not sure what the arabic station is like.