The AP has a story today (6/14/10) noting the continuing problems Al Jazeera English is experiencing in getting on American television:
Frustrated by its continuing inability to crack the American television market, Al Jazeera English‘s new strategy is to make itself available for free on every other possible screen.
The Qatar-based news network said its 24-hour newscast has been streamed over the Internet for 18 months. The company said it will expand its presence on various smart phones, is launching an iPad application and is aggressively distributing content through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
So, a quick refresher about howour media system works. Every weeknightI could easily tune in to Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck.And part of my cable bill every month goes topaying for that programming, no matter what I think of Fox News Channel, or whether or not I even watch it.
But Al Jazeera English–with actual reporters around the world doing journalism–is largely unavailableon U.S. TV screens, and is forced to resortto Facebook and YouTube.
Does that seem like a good system?
Ignorance is bliss
If you make your millions depending on it
I got rid of ALL the commercial channels from my satellite package a few months ago. I took out the trash. No CNN, no MSNBC, no FOX, no Lifetime, etc. I didn’t watch that crap anyway. Now I pay a $6 per month access fee and pay for the premiums I want. They’re not that great, never have been, but I like movies and hate the cramped, small, noisy, high-volume movie theaters we’re provided with these days. Still get FSTV, LINK, (both of which carry a half hour of Al Jazeera each day) UCTV and the like … and the infomercial channels, which used to be pretty fair entertainment in the early 90s. Life is better. If the satellite outfit bars this option in the future, then I will simply cancel service and buy or rent movies.
The news business in America (and most of the world, by the way) is a for-profit enterprise which is much more closely akin to entertainment than it is to journalism, if not outright propaganda.
I know not just because I pay attention to the news, but I used to be a reporter myself. Outside the U.S. news organization always have an anti-American bias in their own reporting of this country, and sponsors don’t want their thousands of dollars per minute to support an anti-American news network with appears to promote radical Islamic terrorists.
The U.S. Constitution theoretically allows for a free press unfettered by government control and censorship. It says nothing about the government forcing cable networks to do business with anyone they don’t want to do business with.
I once interviewed a fellow reporter who said she didn’t feel anyone can honestly be objective – my editor cut that out of the story. My point being that I’m personally in no more inclined to watch right-wing Middle Eastern propaganda on Al Jazeera than I am to watch right-wing American propaganda on Fox. Fair or not (no pun intended), Al Jazeera will probably have to sue someone if they want things to change, though I’m not sure exactly what the basis of the suit would be. The network is, after all, free to build its own broadcast infrastructure. A costly proposition, to be sure, but they have friends in the Middle East with deep oily pockets.
Let’s not pretend that the main reason American cable companies have blacklisted Al Jazeera is because of 9/11. Al Jazeera is a pariah here and elsewhere. Terrorists love to deliver their video of their EIDs blowing (mostly American) soldiers to smithereens and of dismemberments and beheadings of Jews, soldiers and anyone else who doesn’t agree, Muslim or not. Terrorists know Al Jazeera will happily broadcast their gruesome deeds ASAP. Graphically violent video is not uncommon in much of the world, but it is here. Cable executives and their advertisers get ulcers at night at the thought of shocking anyone into a heart attack, let alone showing a baby-faced American getting his pretty head hacked off all over suburban TV screens. Ratings would go through the roof for five minutes, but not only would all advertising immediately drop to zero, but the roar of the public outcry would be deafening.
I’m sure Al Jazeera could go the way of HBO. They might actually get more sucscribers than most people ware dare to predict (except me, of course): all those boneheads who’d pay just to see real blood and guts in the world.
Despite all this, it’s possible that if Al Jazeera wants on an American system they may have to simply have to pony up the dough. Undesirables always pay a higher price for admission in every culture and in every walk of life. In the end it might not be a political issue or a religious issue or even a graphic-violence issue, it may just be a money issue. Most things are.
Although you are on point with your critique, you are apparently unaware that Al Jazeera English airs nightly on LinkTV (channel 375 on DirecTV).
Some of you seem to have either forgotten Vietnam or are too young to understand that we used to have a media in this country which was not afraid to show the “real blood and guts”. It was a hugely contributing factor in stopping the corporate killing and the war itself, which was being fought for none of the altruistic reasons our leaders lambasted in Washington constantly. This is currently true in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan via remote control from Utah. With Israeli nuclear submarines in the Gulf slowly moving in the direction of Iran, and Iran sending Gaza aid ships towards them, who knows what kind of sights we may see on TV in the coming weeks. Be they on Al Jazeera or FOX.
Some of those images might even be viewed from merely looking out your window, if the Iran nuclear threat propaganda is true, eh? Wouldn’t Conde Rice enjoy that vindication?
Al Jazeera, if you could “objectively” watch them, actually does a better job of real reporting than most all Western news outlets, which mostly seem to prefer to “parrot” and opine. The problem lies in the very prejudice that you espouse here. Al Jazeera can’t report in any more detail than they are provided with. Western news has the same problem. The difference is that Al Jazeera wants both sides, but can’t always get it, while our news people do not want both sides, and always reject it.
As a news organization, they state that their goal is to do just that. Be objective, show all sides of a story. As a news organization in the Middle East where Western powers show so little regard for their cultures, religions and politics, it is not unreasonable for them to project visual imagery, in part to illustrate the horrors of consequence. But their ultimate intention is far more likely to be to stop the perpetual killing and not as many seem to believe, encourage it.
It’s the “chicken and egg” paradox really. Is Eastern news seemingly one-sided out of choice or the lack of it? I believe it’s the latter.
And Frank Sellers, you seem to be no different than the rest of the mainstream western news culture, which never ceases to amaze me that they can continue to believe that they somehow actually “investigate” anything they report. You admitted yourself that you lack objectivity. Is that like, “oh well” and you pretend to be objective anyway?
I think everyone needs to go back and read Orwell some more.
Aljazeera can be seen in Canada on several cable stations. here in Montreal we see it on channel 173 of the Videotron network. Rolin Stone is correct; it is a superb network with highly qualified reporters,, many former BBC types. Remember the Israeli attack on Gaza which we could not see because supposedly the Israelis prevented US media types from entering the wat zone? Well Aljazeera had reporters in Gaza and they sent out footage during the carnage; footage that was seen by everyone outside North America but which somehow US networks refused to use. So much for the public’s right to know.
Harvey, Watch the “crap”. Know thine enemy. // Jean Clelland-Morin
Mr. Sellers,
You wrote a lot and said nothing! Only a fool would be hoodwinked by your seemingly non partisan observations. Good job though….. in tyring to “muddy the waters”
Jean Clelland-Morin, I know my enemy far too well. Been observing it for nearly all my 60 years (and, James “Rolin” Stone, the media in the Vietnam years was no damned better than what we have now, just less entertainment oriented). Don’t need any updates from the mind-numbing U.S. “news” media, national or local, which all broadcast the same Chamber of Commerce (government) and Farm Bureau lies. You watch that crap, you better be careful, or you’ll fall under its spell, no matter how innocent your intent may be.
I don’t think I could stomach watching mainstream news. It’s hard enough subbing to a corpress rag (the Oakland Trib for now, although I’m moving at the end of the month, and the SF Chronic Liar before that), which I think is a necessary evil
Well, I was trying to delete the above, but I might as well finish the thought.
There is some useful local and state intel in them, amidst all the horse droppings, and it does reveal their propaganda priorities, doesn’t it?
(Long AP piece today on the Korean War’s 60th anniversary, following US vets returning to the battlefields of their “pivotal conflict”.”)
It’s hard to justify shelling out for the Chron’s overpriced spread, but at about six bucks a month, the Trib’s within my budget.
Anybody want to recommend a successor in Wisconsin?
Another reason why I won’t get cable until they give us the “a la carte” option