Political Crossfire Forums

[The Russian]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijsNmMZt9fc

this is the intro video to their first english broadcast and stories, I'm pro-israel and pro-afghanistan war, and even I'm eager to see how this will turn out... as it will be a totaly different point of view... since it wont be offered on my cable TV, I'll be downloading my news... just to see...ya know? ...

heres one of the news storys about them: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/needtoknow/2006/11/will_you_watch_al_jazeera_engl_1.html

I debated whether this belonged in news or here, but I wanted a poll and an interesting discussion, so I settled here as this is quite political in scope, especialy now.

perhaps, if I'm allowed, I could post torrents to the news broadcasts if its deemed legal to do so... or if they even exist... for forum-discussion... again, if its legal, or shows up legaly on YouTube and can be linked to.

They are seen as pro-al-quaida because they were willing to air Osama tapes and tapes of atrocities of sectarian, sadam-induced, insurgent, and american nature from Iraq.

Part of me wants to say this channel might be grossly biased, another part of me wants to say it might be grossly uncensored... but one thing for sure, they have the balls to show what none of our networks would... even if it wasnt pro-al-quaida.

Donald Rumsfeld called their broadcasts "vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable". and many of our current providers refuse to provide access to this because they link it to al-quaida.

Do you think the government thinks we're to brainwash-ready, like they made us, to interpret the news on our own and weed out bias and facts? ... perhaps thats the fear.

If anything, i'm left wing and anti-arab policy, but I dont want this censored, i want access to what the muslim world is seeing about us... who would agree?... who would not want to see what kind of spin they put on *us* ? like we might put on them?

We should show a backbone and just what "freedom of the press" means in this country...

[mr.snruB]

Yeah I'd watch it, but for the same reasons I sometimes watch FauxNews

[Dookiestix]

I'd watch it, but with a grain of salt. All network television should be viewed this way.

[Moracca]

I voted "other" because I'll only watch it to see how it differs from the Arabic version. Al-Jazeera's coverage on Arab issues is really pretty good. But their coverage of non-Muslim news is pretty harsh and inflamatory to say the least.

My problem with the English version is that they are attempting to tone it down a lot by hiring so many Westerners and Western Muslims to do the broadcasts. They're obviously attempting to put out an "al-Jazeera lite" in order to squelch some of the critism of the father network.

Al-Jazeera also hires too many people who are tied into the local issues they are covering. A lot of their reports are freelance from people with a dog in the fight.

[War Approving Democrat]

I might but I don't know that much about how it reports, and their content might be better for certain areas than others e.g. Bin Laden videos or other Arab news.

[The Comrade]

is it on basic cable?


if it is i'll watch it.

[bob.appleyard]

Meh, neither for nor against. I might give it a look.

[bob.appleyard]

Moracca wrote: I voted "other" because I'll only watch it to see how it differs from the Arabic version. Al-Jazeera's coverage on Arab issues is really pretty good. But their coverage of non-Muslim news is pretty harsh and inflamatory to say the least.

Much like the other way then?

My knowledge of Arabic is very limited and, I imagine, pretty archaic (mostly looking at 9th-12th C stuff), so that's an interesting insight.

Quote: My problem with the English version is that they are attempting to tone it down a lot by hiring so many Westerners and Western Muslims to do the broadcasts. They're obviously attempting to put out an "al-Jazeera lite" in order to squelch some of the critism of the father network.

Yeah, I noticed that as well.

[figaro]

YES.

I will definitely watch it.

Want to get the Arab view of things, rather than continue to bury my head in the sand and be mislead by the utter rubbish that is spewed out by the likes of FoxNews.

Undestand that George Bush loves watching FoxNews; no wonder he's got his country and himself into such an almighty mess.

[The Russian]

I have been doing some research, theres a story that aired on Al-Jazeera thats pretty enlightening.... honestly, it aired on the arab version and it blew my fricken mind now that I found it... if you read anything check out the following clip and then the 2 english interviews:

A Syrian born Psychologist with some very deep answers to serious world questions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYB4pG3kHIY&mode=related&search=

^^ video from Al-Jazeera Arab version with english subtitles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7SD4UCTb-E

^^ radio interview in english part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWEwJYVu11M

^^ radio interview in english part II

if you then go to http://memri.org you'll see some of the anti-western, anti-jewish biased news that also airs on al-jazeera... its pretty disgusting

I think this validates the view that al-jazeera is going to be more mild... perhaps this is a better thing for Al-Jazeera English watching arabs, than Al-Jazeera English watching americans.

very interesting stuff.

[figaro]

Quote regarding Al-Jazeera's English language launch, except from
their website:

"Wadah Khanfar, the director-general of Al Jazeera network, said on the eve of the first broadcast: "Our launch figure is over double the original target we set for ourselves."

"This is unprecedented in the broadcasting industry"

Wadah Khanfar, director-general, Al Jazeera network



"This is unprecedented in the broadcasting industry - no other international news channel has launched with such a high number of homes across the world.

"We will continue to build on this figure after launch and will be looking to expand our reach significantly. This is another reflection of the strength of Al Jazeera brand."

Sincerely hope that Al- Jazeera does better than anyone expects, have had enough of the bias, propoganda and lies that emanate, generally, from US TV.

[The Russian]

figaro wrote: Quote regarding Al-Jazeera's English language launch, except from
their website:

"Wadah Khanfar, the director-general of Al Jazeera network, said on the eve of the first broadcast: "Our launch figure is over double the original target we set for ourselves."

"This is unprecedented in the broadcasting industry"

Wadah Khanfar, director-general, Al Jazeera network



"This is unprecedented in the broadcasting industry - no other international news channel has launched with such a high number of homes across the world.

"We will continue to build on this figure after launch and will be looking to expand our reach significantly. This is another reflection of the strength of Al Jazeera brand."

Sincerely hope that Al- Jazeera does better than anyone expects, have had enough of the bias, propoganda and lies that emanate, generally, from US TV.

I'm eager to watch Ted Kopple in Tehran on the Discovery channel... but I would not call all US media biased, I respect CNN and BBC to a degree... I get my news from google news, where it lists al-jazeera stories side by side with other sites and papers, many of which are arab too, and I can tell you that the arab version of al-jazeera can be extremely slanted towards the middle east, just like Fox News here can be extremely slanted towards the conservative west. Note, there *are* liberal US papers that side with Al-Jazeera on several issues, like NYT, but then the arab conservatives decide to bash them for presenting the Israili side too, and not just palestinian, like the 18 accidental deaths. I think the general arab public might be a little too biased on the issues to let such free media exist in their own nations. I have not heard a single pro-Israel anything on there, and Israeli arabs at the same time enjoy the highest quality of life of any arab in the middle east... its a contradiction in reason, do you not agree?

I remember your pro-palestinian bias from the other thread and wonder if you watched the video and the radio audio I posted.

It was so insightfull, I might have to actualy write up a full transcript, spend an hour or two.

[[Bible]Monkey]

The Russian wrote: I have been doing some research, theres a story that aired on Al-Jazeera thats pretty enlightening.... honestly, it aired on the arab version and it blew my fricken mind now that I found it... if you read anything check out the following clip and then the 2 english interviews:

A Syrian born Psychologist with some very deep answers to serious world questions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYB4pG3kHIY&mode=related&search=

^^ video from Al-Jazeera Arab version with english subtitles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7SD4UCTb-E

^^ radio interview in english part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWEwJYVu11M

^^ radio interview in english part II

if you then go to http://memri.org you'll see some of the anti-western, anti-jewish biased news that also airs on al-jazeera... its pretty disgusting

I think this validates the view that al-jazeera is going to be more mild... perhaps this is a better thing for Al-Jazeera English watching arabs, than Al-Jazeera English watching americans.

very interesting stuff.

The only link I clicked on in your thread so far was the first you tube one in this ^ post, I watched it halfway through. That looks like part of an episode from the al-Jazeera debate show "The Opposite Direction". That show is pretty good, actually-they let anybody on there. They'll have an orthodox Jew debating a fundamental Islamist, and the moderator barely interferes-let's 'em go at each other. Everybody tried to shut them down-the Saudis, other Arab princes, Saddam, Bush, Powell-but they never shut up.

al-Jazeera is a news channel from the Arab perspective, they grew out of the BBC , when they folded their mideast office

Quote: In defense of al-Jazeera

Attacking the messenger, and our message at the same time

By Michael Moran
MSNBC

LONDON, Oct. 18, 2001 ‹ One day in April 1996, as I headed for my desk in the newsroom at BBC Television Centre, I noticed an odd gathering of
journalists in the space beside ours ‹ the newsroom of BBC Arabic
Television.

There were tear-streaked faces, hugs among staff members and
anger as the 250 journalists were told that the network, a BBC partnership
with a Saudi company, would be shut down because the Saudis tried to censor a documentary on executions in their puritanical country. It was a
devastating defeat for a brave group of journalists.

FOR MANY of BBC Arabic¹s staff, that day marked the death of a long-held dream: uncensored news for the Middle East, reports shorn of the crazy conspiracy theories, anti-Israel sentiments and sniveling praise for venal regimes that is standard fare on state-controlled broadcast networks from Algiers to Islamabad.

Jamil Azar, then with the BBC¹s Arabic service, told me later how
wrenching it was for so many on the staff who worked so hard at something they truly believed would change attitudes in the region. ³We understand the BBC¹s position,² Azar told me. ³But the gap it will leave will be tremendous.²

BORN FROM THE ASHES
As it turned out, the gap was quickly filled. From the ashes of BBC
Arabic rose al-Jazeera, a satellite channel funded by the Emir of Qatar and
other Arab moderates who had recognized during BBC Arabic¹s short life that the long-term interests of Islam would be served best by truth rather than censorship. Unfortunately, that kind of foresight temporarily escaped the White House, opening the United States up to charges of hypocrisy at
precisely the time when the United States needs to be seen taking every
possible step to be up-front about its goals.

The first time most Americans heard the name al-Jazeera was
Sunday, Oct. 7, the day U.S. and British forces began hitting the Taliban
and its ³guests² in Afghanistan. The timing was almost surely accidental ‹
Western journalists had spent three weeks expecting an attack at any moment.

But the impact on the White House was undeniable, and suddenly Washington reverted to the kind of bullying that had not been evident in the buildup to the attack.

Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced al-Jazeera for airing
³vitriolic, irresponsible kinds of statements² when it broadcast a
videotaped statement by suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden praising the
Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

The CIA leaked its concern that bin Laden might be sending secret
messages through these taped statements. Condoleeza Rice, the national
security adviser, called and visited with top American network and newspaper representatives, urging them to consider the dangers of airing bin Laden¹s views. On the shallower media outlets around the U.S., al-Jazeera suddenly found itself being equated with the former Communist mouthpiece Pravda or Hitler¹s National Zeitung.

REALITY CHECK
The truth could hardly be more different.
Today, al-Jazeera is staffed by many of the same journalists I saw
weeping in London that day, including Azar.

It is the lone Arabic broadcast outlet to put truth and objectivity above even its survival. For its pains during the five years of its existence, it has been attacked by virtually every government in the Middle East.

The chairman of Qatar's al-Jazeera satellite TV network, Sheikh Hamad bin
Thamer al-Khalifa, talks to the media last week.

The network¹s bureaus around the region are periodically closed because of al-Jazeera¹s insistence in airing stories about the corruption of government officials in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and elsewhere. Israeli officials and journalists, all but banned from other Middle Eastern networks, are staples on al-Jazeera, whose motto is ³We get both sides of the story.²

To truly understand how wrong it is to attack al-Jazeera, one needs to
consider two points.

First, that to be anything but a lackey in the Arab media is to
invite beatings, torture or death. The Society for the Protection of
Journalists¹ annual list of reporters killed in the line of duty is littered
with the corpses of moderate, tolerant Arab journalists who have stood up to their bullying dictatorships, on the one hand, or their puritanical mullahs,
on the other.

Second, the fact that bin Laden¹s zealous murderers chose al-Jazeera
as a way to get their message out has very little to do with the fact that
al-Jazeera is the Middle East¹s only free news network. Did the rebel Irish
Republican Army send coded messages to the BBC and the Reuters news agency claiming responsibility for its bombings because it thought British
journalists would be sympathetic? Did Saddam Hussein choose CNN as a conduit for his own propaganda during the Persian Gulf War because he took a shine to Peter Arnett? Of course not, though some ‹ most memorably former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, claimed so at the time.

The reason all of these outlets get the story is because they earn
it. Al-Jazeera worked hard covering the Afghan story when the very notion of doing so would have been dismissed at an American news meeting. It is
important to remember that the list of American journalists who have set
foot in Afghanistan over the past five years is short, indeed. It¹s not that
it wasn¹t possible: My MSNBC.com colleague Preston Mendenhall did it just
this spring and produced our series Pariah Nation.

Still, we couldn¹t get NBC to air any of the hours of video he shot
while there. It simply didn¹t fit the mold of what NBC executives thought
would garner the largest possible audience.

In contrast, al-Jazeera and the BBC, until its correspondent was
ejected by the Taliban stayed in Kabul through the 1990s to cover a civil
war that has been raging, in part with American weaponry, for more than a
decade. So do we blame al-Jazeera for covering this war? As Fox would say, You decide.¹

LESSONS LEARNED?

Happily, the attacks the Bush administration launched on al-Jazeera
recently backfired so completely that Washington quickly shifted tactics,
suddenly granting long-denied interviews with officials like Powell and
Rice. Now, there¹s even talk of buying time on al-Jazeera to broadcast some kind of paid political advertisement about the conflict. To many, after the U.S. efforts to squash al-Jazeera, this will be lumped into the same
category as the bin Laden campfire video: propaganda.


Photojournalist Harriet Logan's look at the suffering of Afghan women under Taliban rule. For al-Jazeera, the lesson is somewhat different. The Bush administration had a good point when it complained that the entire bin Laden video was aired without context. It¹s not just a matter of demanding equal time. Even in the airiest confines of journalism¹s ivory towers, the implications of what is being broadcast matters.

You can¹t shout fire in a crowded theater ‹ at least in an American one ‹ and expect to get away without consequence for the deadly stampede that ensues. Al-Jazeera¹s broadcasts since have taken pains to put things into better perspective.

Unfortunately, because they¹re the only game in Kabul, often American
networks grab al-Jazeera¹s video images but don¹t have the perspective to add because they¹re not on the ground.

That brings us to the final lesson here: what passes for news in America.
For the past 10 years, roughly since the idiotic O.J. Simpson trial, the
language of marketing has entered American newsrooms like a badly targeted cruise missile.

Talk of plot lines and demographics, sexiness and water-cooler appeal have polluted a mission that is protected by its own
constitutional amendment.

Celebrity journalists interview celebrity dimwits about their sex lives, while American foreign policy is left running on
auto-pilot.


The hard truth is that the U.S. media left America as unprepared for
these terrorist attacks as any Air Force general or CIA bureaucrat. As we
dropped bombs on Iraq for 10 years running ‹ justified or not ‹ the U.S.
media failed to report on it. Then suddenly, on Sept. 11, we think ³We¹re at war when in fact there hasn¹t been a day since the Gulf War ended when a American aircraft hasn¹t locked onto a target with a missile or bomb.

We were at war, it¹s just that the media didn¹t think it was interesting enough to tell you about it.

That¹s our lesson to learn.

Quote: if you then go to http://memri.org you'll see some of the anti-western, anti-jewish biased news that also airs on al-jazeera... its pretty disgusting

Keep in mind that MEMRI is a Mossad front; it's founder was the anti-Terrorism advisor to two Israeli governments-so like al-Jazeera, Fox, CNN , take what they say with a big grain of salt too.

The Left-Right split in the western media is only about an inch apart, pretty tame, sanitized-when compared to al-Jazeera-they put people on their from all extremes-and I mean extremes.

They have the best combat footage/carnage-results of war, unsanitized -unlike the western media is ( the news from the Western perspective) -I watched it during that last Lebanon war with Israel.


Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Christopher Ross, Donald Rumsfeld etc. were all interviewed by Al Jazeera . They were allowed to say their piece uninterupted ( unlike , say, Fox , or CNN where there's only softball questions, ( comparatively) or the interviewer interupts every seven seconds.



http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/t02262003_t0225sdaljaz.html
" Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Secretary Rumsfeld Interview With Al Jazeera TV

(Interview with Jamil Azer, Al Jazeera TV)

Al Jazeera: Sir, there are lots of questions which we feel they might be sort of like critical of the United States but we feel that Al Jazeera's audience would like to know your views about. It isn't that we are trying to find fault or anything like that.

Rumsfeld: Fair enough. If I hear a question that has a premise in it that's inaccurate I'll state that and say that -- good.

Al Jazeera: Mr. Rumsfeld, welcome to al Jazeera.

Rumsfeld: Thank you very much........

-----------------------------------

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011016-3.html
.......Q Overall, how do you perceive Al Jazeera as a credible or independent media? And should U.S. government officials encourage that, or try to influence government of Qatar in order to crack down in the only -- what are perceived to be the only independent media in the region?

DR. RICE: Well, if I did not have respect for Al Jazeera, I would not be doing this interview.

Q Thank you.

DR. RICE: I think it's important that there be a network that reaches broad Arab audiences. And the United States believes in freedom of the press. We believe that the press is one of the most fundamental bases for democracy and for individuals to have the kind of dignity that human beings should have. And so I'm delighted to be here on Al Jazeera. I know that you're going to have many of my colleagues on in the future, and I look forward to being back with you.

Q Thank you. And I leave you at the end just with a statement from you without my interference, to our audience in the Arab and Muslim world, whatever you would like to tell them....

-------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/21938.htm
Interview on Al-Jazeera Television

Secretary Colin L. Powell
Dead Sea, Jordan
June 23, 2003

-----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.tbsjournal.com/Archives/Spring02/talkshows.html
...........During each weekly episode of the program, Al-Jazeera's top talk-show host, Faisal Al-Kasim, spends the first two minutes of the flagship show, Al Ittijah Al Mo'akis (The Opposite Direction), posing questions that reflect opposite positions on a chosen topic. This talk show is just one of many through which Al-Jazeera opens the floor to unbridled and often noisy debates on some of the most sensitive issues in Arab society.

Other Arab TV networks would never screen such discussions, which result in floods of telephone calls to the studios and reams of protests throughout the Arab press.

Crossfire in the Middle East
The Opposite Direction—the most controversial show on Al-Jazeera—is modeled on the format of CNN's Crossfire, but this show is more fierce and uproarious than any of its Western counterparts. In a live, two-hour weekly broadcast, two guests from diametrically opposed sides on a variety of issues come face-to-face in debate and take calls and respond to faxes from viewers.

Emotions run high between the program's guests, especially after Al-Kasim sets the stage for hot debate and ignites discussion with provocative questions like those listed just above.

Al-Kasim's guests during this episode were Christopher Ross, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and the current U.S. State Department counterterrorism coordinator, and Ibrahim Alloush, a mass-communications scholar and editor-in-chief of an Arab think-tank's website, entitled The Free Arab Voice on the Internet.

From the early moments, it was clear that the discussion would be contentious to say the least. Al-Kasim's first question, directed to Ross, was: "Why was Al-Jazeera's bureau in Afghanistan bombed?" Before Ross had a chance to answer, Alloush interrupted abruptly, saying: "I think the question we should start with is: Was the bombing of Al-Jazeera's bureau in Afghanistan a prelude for bombing Al-Jazeera's bureau in Qatar?"

Alloush's question alluded to the dominant Arab thought that the United States has been against Al-Jazeera since the September 11 attacks.

Although even Al-Jazeera officials noted that U.S. forces were aware of the bureau's location, few were prepared to make such unsubstantiated accusations. This is evidence that Alloush's interpretation is part of the conspiracy theories propagated by fringe thinkers and that his website is but one among the media that fosters such a theory in the Arab world.

Throughout the discussion, Ross, who was being interviewed from Al-Jazeera's studio in Washington, D.C., met Alloush's aggressive tone with a smile on his face and poise in his answers. Ross elegantly rebutted Alloush's arguments with rapid-fire and eloquent responses. Ross's answers were not in English; they were in fluent Arabic.

A November 6, 2001, article in Time described Ross's fluency in Arabic as a "secret weapon to the propaganda war" and "a tremendous asset in making the case to middle-class Muslims countering [Osama] bin Laden's adept exploitation of anti-American grievances in the Muslim world." The article mentioned that "it may take a spokesman with [Ross's] deep appreciation of the nuances of Arab politics-and language-to help reverse the tide of Arab sentiment against the U.S. five weeks into the Afghan bombing campaign."........

[Fionn mac Cumhaill]

I've never been swayed by biased reporting. Very annoyed, but not swayed. I'd watch Jazeera just for the entertainment value.

[The Russian]

[Bible]Monkey wrote: The Russian wrote: I have been doing some research, theres a story that aired on Al-Jazeera thats pretty enlightening.... honestly, it aired on the arab version and it blew my fricken mind now that I found it... if you read anything check out the following clip and then the 2 english interviews:

A Syrian born Psychologist with some very deep answers to serious world questions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYB4pG3kHIY&mode=related&search=

^^ video from Al-Jazeera Arab version with english subtitles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7SD4UCTb-E

^^ radio interview in english part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWEwJYVu11M

^^ radio interview in english part II

if you then go to http://memri.org you'll see some of the anti-western, anti-jewish biased news that also airs on al-jazeera... its pretty disgusting

I think this validates the view that al-jazeera is going to be more mild... perhaps this is a better thing for Al-Jazeera English watching arabs, than Al-Jazeera English watching americans.

very interesting stuff.

The only link I clicked on in your thread so far was the first you tube one in this ^ post, I watched it halfway through. That looks like part of an episode from the al-Jazeera debate show "The Opposite Direction". That show is pretty good, actually-they let anybody on there. They'll have an orthodox Jew debating a fundamental Islamist, and the moderator barely interferes-let's 'em go at each other. Everybody tried to shut them down-the Saudis, other Arab princes, Saddam, Bush, Powell-but they never shut up.

al-Jazeera is a news channel from the Arab perspective, they grew out of the BBC , when they folded their mideast office

Quote: In defense of al-Jazeera

Attacking the messenger, and our message at the same time

By Michael Moran
MSNBC

LONDON, Oct. 18, 2001 ‹ One day in April 1996, as I headed for my desk in the newsroom at BBC Television Centre, I noticed an odd gathering of
journalists in the space beside ours ‹ the newsroom of BBC Arabic
Television.

There were tear-streaked faces, hugs among staff members and
anger as the 250 journalists were told that the network, a BBC partnership
with a Saudi company, would be shut down because the Saudis tried to censor a documentary on executions in their puritanical country. It was a
devastating defeat for a brave group of journalists.

FOR MANY of BBC Arabic¹s staff, that day marked the death of a long-held dream: uncensored news for the Middle East, reports shorn of the crazy conspiracy theories, anti-Israel sentiments and sniveling praise for venal regimes that is standard fare on state-controlled broadcast networks from Algiers to Islamabad.

Jamil Azar, then with the BBC¹s Arabic service, told me later how
wrenching it was for so many on the staff who worked so hard at something they truly believed would change attitudes in the region. ³We understand the BBC¹s position,² Azar told me. ³But the gap it will leave will be tremendous.²

BORN FROM THE ASHES
As it turned out, the gap was quickly filled. From the ashes of BBC
Arabic rose al-Jazeera, a satellite channel funded by the Emir of Qatar and
other Arab moderates who had recognized during BBC Arabic¹s short life that the long-term interests of Islam would be served best by truth rather than censorship. Unfortunately, that kind of foresight temporarily escaped the White House, opening the United States up to charges of hypocrisy at
precisely the time when the United States needs to be seen taking every
possible step to be up-front about its goals.

The first time most Americans heard the name al-Jazeera was
Sunday, Oct. 7, the day U.S. and British forces began hitting the Taliban
and its ³guests² in Afghanistan. The timing was almost surely accidental ‹
Western journalists had spent three weeks expecting an attack at any moment.

But the impact on the White House was undeniable, and suddenly Washington reverted to the kind of bullying that had not been evident in the buildup to the attack.

Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced al-Jazeera for airing
³vitriolic, irresponsible kinds of statements² when it broadcast a
videotaped statement by suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden praising the
Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

The CIA leaked its concern that bin Laden might be sending secret
messages through these taped statements. Condoleeza Rice, the national
security adviser, called and visited with top American network and newspaper representatives, urging them to consider the dangers of airing bin Laden¹s views. On the shallower media outlets around the U.S., al-Jazeera suddenly found itself being equated with the former Communist mouthpiece Pravda or Hitler¹s National Zeitung.

REALITY CHECK
The truth could hardly be more different.
Today, al-Jazeera is staffed by many of the same journalists I saw
weeping in London that day, including Azar.

It is the lone Arabic broadcast outlet to put truth and objectivity above even its survival. For its pains during the five years of its existence, it has been attacked by virtually every government in the Middle East.

The chairman of Qatar's al-Jazeera satellite TV network, Sheikh Hamad bin
Thamer al-Khalifa, talks to the media last week.

The network¹s bureaus around the region are periodically closed because of al-Jazeera¹s insistence in airing stories about the corruption of government officials in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and elsewhere. Israeli officials and journalists, all but banned from other Middle Eastern networks, are staples on al-Jazeera, whose motto is ³We get both sides of the story.²

To truly understand how wrong it is to attack al-Jazeera, one needs to
consider two points.

First, that to be anything but a lackey in the Arab media is to
invite beatings, torture or death. The Society for the Protection of
Journalists¹ annual list of reporters killed in the line of duty is littered
with the corpses of moderate, tolerant Arab journalists who have stood up to their bullying dictatorships, on the one hand, or their puritanical mullahs,
on the other.

Second, the fact that bin Laden¹s zealous murderers chose al-Jazeera
as a way to get their message out has very little to do with the fact that
al-Jazeera is the Middle East¹s only free news network. Did the rebel Irish
Republican Army send coded messages to the BBC and the Reuters news agency claiming responsibility for its bombings because it thought British
journalists would be sympathetic? Did Saddam Hussein choose CNN as a conduit for his own propaganda during the Persian Gulf War because he took a shine to Peter Arnett? Of course not, though some ‹ most memorably former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, claimed so at the time.

The reason all of these outlets get the story is because they earn
it. Al-Jazeera worked hard covering the Afghan story when the very notion of doing so would have been dismissed at an American news meeting. It is
important to remember that the list of American journalists who have set
foot in Afghanistan over the past five years is short, indeed. It¹s not that
it wasn¹t possible: My MSNBC.com colleague Preston Mendenhall did it just
this spring and produced our series Pariah Nation.

Still, we couldn¹t get NBC to air any of the hours of video he shot
while there. It simply didn¹t fit the mold of what NBC executives thought
would garner the largest possible audience.

In contrast, al-Jazeera and the BBC, until its correspondent was
ejected by the Taliban stayed in Kabul through the 1990s to cover a civil
war that has been raging, in part with American weaponry, for more than a
decade. So do we blame al-Jazeera for covering this war? As Fox would say, You decide.¹

LESSONS LEARNED?

Happily, the attacks the Bush administration launched on al-Jazeera
recently backfired so completely that Washington quickly shifted tactics,
suddenly granting long-denied interviews with officials like Powell and
Rice. Now, there¹s even talk of buying time on al-Jazeera to broadcast some kind of paid political advertisement about the conflict. To many, after the U.S. efforts to squash al-Jazeera, this will be lumped into the same
category as the bin Laden campfire video: propaganda.


Photojournalist Harriet Logan's look at the suffering of Afghan women under Taliban rule. For al-Jazeera, the lesson is somewhat different. The Bush administration had a good point when it complained that the entire bin Laden video was aired without context. It¹s not just a matter of demanding equal time. Even in the airiest confines of journalism¹s ivory towers, the implications of what is being broadcast matters.

You can¹t shout fire in a crowded theater ‹ at least in an American one ‹ and expect to get away without consequence for the deadly stampede that ensues. Al-Jazeera¹s broadcasts since have taken pains to put things into better perspective.

Unfortunately, because they¹re the only game in Kabul, often American
networks grab al-Jazeera¹s video images but don¹t have the perspective to add because they¹re not on the ground.

That brings us to the final lesson here: what passes for news in America.
For the past 10 years, roughly since the idiotic O.J. Simpson trial, the
language of marketing has entered American newsrooms like a badly targeted cruise missile.

Talk of plot lines and demographics, sexiness and water-cooler appeal have polluted a mission that is protected by its own
constitutional amendment.

Celebrity journalists interview celebrity dimwits about their sex lives, while American foreign policy is left running on
auto-pilot.


The hard truth is that the U.S. media left America as unprepared for
these terrorist attacks as any Air Force general or CIA bureaucrat. As we
dropped bombs on Iraq for 10 years running ‹ justified or not ‹ the U.S.
media failed to report on it. Then suddenly, on Sept. 11, we think ³We¹re at war when in fact there hasn¹t been a day since the Gulf War ended when a American aircraft hasn¹t locked onto a target with a missile or bomb.

We were at war, it¹s just that the media didn¹t think it was interesting enough to tell you about it.

That¹s our lesson to learn.

Quote: if you then go to http://memri.org you'll see some of the anti-western, anti-jewish biased news that also airs on al-jazeera... its pretty disgusting

Keep in mind that MEMRI is a Mossad front; it's founder was the anti-Terrorism advisor to two Israeli governments-so like al-Jazeera, Fox, CNN , take what they say with a big grain of salt too.

The Left-Right split in the western media is only about an inch apart, pretty tame, sanitized-when compared to al-Jazeera-they put people on their from all extremes-and I mean extremes.

They have the best combat footage/carnage-results of war, unsanitized -unlike the western media is ( the news from the Western perspective) -I watched it during that last Lebanon war with Israel.


Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Christopher Ross, Donald Rumsfeld etc. were all interviewed by Al Jazeera . They were allowed to say their piece uninterupted ( unlike , say, Fox , or CNN where there's only softball questions, ( comparatively) or the interviewer interupts every seven seconds.



http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/t02262003_t0225sdaljaz.htm l
" Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Secretary Rumsfeld Interview With Al Jazeera TV

(Interview with Jamil Azer, Al Jazeera TV)

Al Jazeera: Sir, there are lots of questions which we feel they might be sort of like critical of the United States but we feel that Al Jazeera's audience would like to know your views about. It isn't that we are trying to find fault or anything like that.

Rumsfeld: Fair enough. If I hear a question that has a premise in it that's inaccurate I'll state that and say that -- good.

Al Jazeera: Mr. Rumsfeld, welcome to al Jazeera.

Rumsfeld: Thank you very much........

-----------------------------------

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011016-3.html
.......Q Overall, how do you perceive Al Jazeera as a credible or independent media? And should U.S. government officials encourage that, or try to influence government of Qatar in order to crack down in the only -- what are perceived to be the only independent media in the region?

DR. RICE: Well, if I did not have respect for Al Jazeera, I would not be doing this interview.

Q Thank you.

DR. RICE: I think it's important that there be a network that reaches broad Arab audiences. And the United States believes in freedom of the press. We believe that the press is one of the most fundamental bases for democracy and for individuals to have the kind of dignity that human beings should have. And so I'm delighted to be here on Al Jazeera. I know that you're going to have many of my colleagues on in the future, and I look forward to being back with you.

Q Thank you. And I leave you at the end just with a statement from you without my interference, to our audience in the Arab and Muslim world, whatever you would like to tell them....

-------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/21938.htm
Interview on Al-Jazeera Television

Secretary Colin L. Powell
Dead Sea, Jordan
June 23, 2003

-----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.tbsjournal.com/Archives/Spring02/talkshows.html
...........During each weekly episode of the program, Al-Jazeera's top talk-show host, Faisal Al-Kasim, spends the first two minutes of the flagship show, Al Ittijah Al Mo'akis (The Opposite Direction), posing questions that reflect opposite positions on a chosen topic. This talk show is just one of many through which Al-Jazeera opens the floor to unbridled and often noisy debates on some of the most sensitive issues in Arab society.

Other Arab TV networks would never screen such discussions, which result in floods of telephone calls to the studios and reams of protests throughout the Arab press.

Crossfire in the Middle East
The Opposite Direction—the most controversial show on Al-Jazeera—is modeled on the format of CNN's Crossfire, but this show is more fierce and uproarious than any of its Western counterparts. In a live, two-hour weekly broadcast, two guests from diametrically opposed sides on a variety of issues come face-to-face in debate and take calls and respond to faxes from viewers.

Emotions run high between the program's guests, especially after Al-Kasim sets the stage for hot debate and ignites discussion with provocative questions like those listed just above.

Al-Kasim's guests during this episode were Christopher Ross, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and the current U.S. State Department counterterrorism coordinator, and Ibrahim Alloush, a mass-communications scholar and editor-in-chief of an Arab think-tank's website, entitled The Free Arab Voice on the Internet.

From the early moments, it was clear that the discussion would be contentious to say the least. Al-Kasim's first question, directed to Ross, was: "Why was Al-Jazeera's bureau in Afghanistan bombed?" Before Ross had a chance to answer, Alloush interrupted abruptly, saying: "I think the question we should start with is: Was the bombing of Al-Jazeera's bureau in Afghanistan a prelude for bombing Al-Jazeera's bureau in Qatar?"

Alloush's question alluded to the dominant Arab thought that the United States has been against Al-Jazeera since the September 11 attacks.

Although even Al-Jazeera officials noted that U.S. forces were aware of the bureau's location, few were prepared to make such unsubstantiated accusations. This is evidence that Alloush's interpretation is part of the conspiracy theories propagated by fringe thinkers and that his website is but one among the media that fosters such a theory in the Arab world.

Throughout the discussion, Ross, who was being interviewed from Al-Jazeera's studio in Washington, D.C., met Alloush's aggressive tone with a smile on his face and poise in his answers. Ross elegantly rebutted Alloush's arguments with rapid-fire and eloquent responses. Ross's answers were not in English; they were in fluent Arabic.

A November 6, 2001, article in Time described Ross's fluency in Arabic as a "secret weapon to the propaganda war" and "a tremendous asset in making the case to middle-class Muslims countering [Osama] bin Laden's adept exploitation of anti-American grievances in the Muslim world." The article mentioned that "it may take a spokesman with [Ross's] deep appreciation of the nuances of Arab politics-and language-to help reverse the tide of Arab sentiment against the U.S. five weeks into the Afghan bombing campaign."........

I just read all of that... where do I get to watch Al-Jazeera if my local network doesnt have it?... prefferably Al-Jazeera english?

[[Bible]Monkey]

The Russian wrote: I just read all of that... where do I get to watch Al-Jazeera if my local network doesnt have it?... prefferably Al-Jazeera english?

al-Jazeera was in Canada since about '04, I think it was. I used to pay for it-then the Canadian government started to censor it-they started the censorship about the time of this one debate show where this muslim whack-job was denying the holocaust-debating a hard core Jewish guy ( forget which group he represented )-one of them stormed off the studio stage-. :lol: , but it really pissed me off -the censorship. So now I'm stealing the satellite signal . Eff you Canada Radio and Television Commision! :-D

I'd gladly pay for it, if the government didn't censor it, so I feel morally justified-I'd never steal a prime boxing match, or stuff like that.

What I liked most about the channel is they show what happens on both ends of the gun barrels of both sides, not just some embedded guys on one side.

I don't have Real Player ( memory pig on my gaming machine) so I don't know if there's video here or not
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1EBB4C7F-7F2E-4257-A04C-56678862E31A.htm

[The Russian]

[Bible]Monkey wrote: The Russian wrote: I just read all of that... where do I get to watch Al-Jazeera if my local network doesnt have it?... prefferably Al-Jazeera english?

al-Jazeera was in Canada since about '04, I think it was. I used to pay for it-then the Canadian government started to censor it-they started the censorship about the time of this one debate show where this muslim whack-job was denying the holocaust-debating a hard core Jewish guy ( forget which group he represented )-one of them stormed off the studio stage-. :lol: , but it really pissed me off -the censorship. So now I'm stealing the satellite signal . Eff you Canada Radio and Television Commision! :-D

I'd gladly pay for it, if the government didn't censor it, so I feel morally justified-I'd never steal a prime boxing match, or stuff like that.

What I liked most about the channel is they show what happens on both ends of the gun barrels of both sides, not just some embedded guys on one side.

I don't have Real Player ( memory pig on my gaming machine) so I don't know if there's video here or not
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1EBB4C7F-7F2E-4257-A04C-56678862E31A.htm

RM is a POS, I dont have/use it either :(... damn... I cant find the newscast on any illegitimate sites either.

PM me about how exactly to... aquire the uncensored version of the show via satelite?

[[Bible]Monkey]

The Russian wrote: PM me about how exactly to... aquire the uncensored version of the show via satelite?

I'm shocked and appalled! That would be illegal!

:-D

They left the keys to the car , and the parking stall numbers over here , though.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/91EEF363-FE1D-4EB9-A7D9-EF3701E39A3B.htm

But the bottom right corner is where you should go, and who you can pay to get it
Quote: Globecast
Fision
JumpTV
VDC

-your best bet-you can pay for it and it won't be censored in the U.S.

[Saracen]

Al Jazeera in Arabic is quite good. There barely is, from what I see, an "anti-Semitic" perspective; rather, they do their best to show both sides of the front. If anything, it is Al Jazeera's new "rival", Al Arabiya, that is quite partial.

So, yes, I'm definitely giving this one a watch. I hear former CNN anchor Riz Khan has his own show on it as well.

[The Russian]

[Bible]Monkey wrote: The Russian wrote: PM me about how exactly to... aquire the uncensored version of the show via satelite?

I'm shocked and appalled! That would be illegal!

:-D

They left the keys to the car , and the parking stall numbers over here , though.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/91EEF363-FE1D-4EB9-A7D9-EF3701E39A3B.htm

But the bottom right corner is where you should go, and who you can pay to get it
Quote: Globecast
Fision
JumpTV
VDC

-your best bet-you can pay for it and it won't be censored in the U.S.

Danke... now to figure out how to configure the sat I got catching the russian news channels and entertainment to catch theirs too... this thing was set up automaticaly for me, so I dont know how to work with the box... but I see what they posted on their site and map and I'm going to try to connect to one of the 3 satelites that seem to be servicing NY.