AT&T Playing Politics with Al Jazeera America?

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern based news service, has filed a lawsuit against AT&T for wrongful termination of contract. AT&T was under contract to carry the launch of Al Jazeera America news service on U-verse pay-TV service on Tuesday.

Globally, Al Jazeera is seen in more than 260 million homes in 130 countries. But the new U.S. channel has so far had difficulty getting distributors, in part because Al Jazeera was perceived by some as being anti-American during the Iraq war.
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I support Al Jazeera for the same reason I support Fox News.

ALL news organizations are biased, and before Fox News came along (clearly right biased), the media was almost entirely left biased to varying degrees with some virtually being controlled by the Democratic party as a branch of their political arm.

Fox News, even though it was just one outlet against many, at least brought balance to that.

We need more BBC / Al Jazeera now to bring balance to the pro-American slant of news. And for those that don't believe its that bad, remember that sometimes what you DON'T report is even more important than how you report something. American media outlets both left and right have been very hesitant to portray the US in too poor a light, and generally have only done so when the damage can be restricted to being perceived as the wrong doing of the other political party.
 
Ducman69 said:
American media outlets both left and right have been very hesitant to portray the US in too poor a light, and generally have only done so when the damage can be restricted to being perceived as the wrong doing of the other political party.
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Just like news in every other country in the world. I hate how this is always made out to be some "American" thing. No country's news outlets are going to portray their country in a poor light if they can help it.
 
Koolthulu said:
Just like news in every other country in the world. I hate how this is always made out to be some "American" thing. No country's news outlets are going to portray their country in a poor light if they can help it.
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True, but it goes deeper than that. There is something very special about American media, and I wouldn't be surprised they aren't keen on Al-Jazeera
 
Ducman69 said:
I support Al Jazeera for the same reason I support Fox News.

ALL news organizations are biased, and before Fox News came along (clearly right biased), the media was almost entirely left biased to varying degrees with some virtually being controlled by the Democratic party as a branch of their political arm.

Fox News, even though it was just one outlet against many, at least brought balance to that.

We need more BBC / Al Jazeera now to bring balance to the pro-American slant of news. And for those that don't believe its that bad, remember that sometimes what you DON'T report is even more important than how you report something. American media outlets both left and right have been very hesitant to portray the US in too poor a light, and generally have only done so when the damage can be restricted to being perceived as the wrong doing of the other political party.
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Eh... even if I liked Fox News... this is about as bad as "bringing balance" to the other side of the argument that the world is indeed flat despite tons of evidence that it is not. The facts do not have two sides to them, only opinion and spin do.
 
Ducman69 said:
I support Al Jazeera for the same reason I support Fox News.

ALL news organizations are biased, and before Fox News came along (clearly right biased), the media was almost entirely left biased to varying degrees with some virtually being controlled by the Democratic party as a branch of their political arm.

Fox News, even though it was just one outlet against many, at least brought balance to that.

We need more BBC / Al Jazeera now to bring balance to the pro-American slant of news. And for those that don't believe its that bad, remember that sometimes what you DON'T report is even more important than how you report something. American media outlets both left and right have been very hesitant to portray the US in too poor a light, and generally have only done so when the damage can be restricted to being perceived as the wrong doing of the other political party.
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Balance in this instance isn't brought in by adding an additional biased source, it just makes things worse and turns it into escalating war of stupidity and misinformation.

The only way to restore balance and journalistic integrity in the US is to burn the whole damn thing down and start fresh.
 
I have respect for Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera took a lot of heat early on from the Arab/Muslim world because they offered the real news and not some government fantasy BS (think of the Iraqi information minister during the war). A lot of Arabs got a rude awakening, a lot of leaders got pissed. If you are pissing off Muslims/Arabs and Americans, you are doing something right.

Yes, our news outlets are broken. CNN, and MSNBC are just stupid, FOX is ignorant. I tend to lump liberals as stupid, and conservatives as ignorant. Al Jazeera and BBC are welcome in my house.
 
Ducman69 said:
I support Al Jazeera for the same reason I support Fox News.

ALL news organizations are biased, and before Fox News came along (clearly right biased), the media was almost entirely left biased to varying degrees with some virtually being controlled by the Democratic party as a branch of their political arm.

Fox News, even though it was just one outlet against many, at least brought balance to that.

We need more BBC / Al Jazeera now to bring balance to the pro-American slant of news. And for those that don't believe its that bad, remember that sometimes what you DON'T report is even more important than how you report something. American media outlets both left and right have been very hesitant to portray the US in too poor a light, and generally have only done so when the damage can be restricted to being perceived as the wrong doing of the other political party.
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Makes sense. Supposedly they will cover more middle America issues as opposed just east coast/west coast stuff that dominates news today.

At least for online news to read I do like a little British commentary on news in America.
 
I wouldn't call any of these cables channels "News" channels because as far as I'm concerned they spend all their time just talking about politics and are concerned the most with making sensational claims/statements because that's what people respond to. I don't watch any of them because it's frankly a waste of time. No matter what your viewpoint is, you can find one channel that you mostly/sometimes agree with and another channel that makes you angry because of all the BS that's coming out of the mouth of the presenters. In the end, no one's opinion is changed and no one is really informed of anything factual. Preexisting opinions/stereotypes remain unchanged and a ton of time is wasted.

Everyone bemoans newspapers/cable channels for being slanted one way or the other. The only reason they do that is because that's where they get the most paying customers.
Cities are filled with many liberal people, NY is the largest city, therefore NYTimes hires reporters who mostly write form the liberal perspective. What a shocker.
The owner also plays an important role in the slant. Rupert Murdoch, highly conservative. Therefore founds a cable channel to espouse his general views.

Doesn't seem like that great of a move to block their channel. Distributors have known for a long time that Al Jazeera wanted to broadcast a cable channel in the US by buying CurrentTV and only moved to block them after the new channel went live because that makes the most sensational news story.
 
I regularly read Al Jazeera, but I must say I wish they would create a bigger separation between their editorials, which tend to be very liberal, and their news. I must confess I feel a bit nervous when reading it sometimes, because of our government's monitoring and some peoples ignorant reaction to anything Middle Eastern. But they are a much better source of news than any American outlets.

When Fox News came on the scene, I really like the idea of a more conservative media outlet, but now they just make me sick. I just want the news, not someone's opinion on it. Especially people who spew such idiocy that I find it insulting they call themselves conservatives. NPR can be a bit boring, and has those hippy segments, but their news generally has no slant. Unfortunately people have gotten so used to being fed slanted media that when they listen to NPR or the BBC, they think they are biased against them.
 
Cable news isn't news, hell the only things with journalist integrity left is in Public Raido even Printed Press has become pretty influenced.
 
Need more canadian news broadcasters, they aren't afraid to rip anybody a new one

I don't even believe the BBC anymore because of the shit they've covered up in the last few years
 
EchtoGammut said:
NPR can be a bit boring, and has those hippy segments, but their news generally has no slant. Unfortunately people have gotten so used to being fed slanted media that when they listen to NPR or the BBC, they think they are biased against them.
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What I like about NPR... is that you know the interviewer is slanted, you can tell by their questions... but at the same time they are generally respectful and allow their subject to respond to their "slanted" questions without interruptions.

Personally I think this is great, while we all would like to have an unbiased new source, honestly that is almost impossible. Though if we can get adult discussions going allowing explanations of view points and positions so each "side" can at least layout their points so the consumer can be educated and make a decision even against well thought out counter-points... that is a win win.

Right now both the left/right news-"entertainment" just cherry picks quotes, drowns out the opposition and just yells from their soapbox.
 
Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern based news service,
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This is not quite phrased right. It's incomplete. It should be:

Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern based news service, known to be supportive of with Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other terrorist networks,
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Put it this way...I've watched streaming of Al-Jazeera for sports coverage not available in the USA. Say what you will about AJ politically, but they run a FAR more watchable channel than any US broadcast station simply in terms of the ration of advertisements/content.
 
I fucking hate our news. It's either biased far right, far left or covering pointless shit like Hollywood.

Bring on al Jazeera. It couldn't be any worse. Could it?
 
This country is in desperate need of truth, truth they won't get watching MSM.
 
Nevermind. Dgingeri is right. I remember Al Jazeera supporting all those middle eastern terrorist groups in the past. Fuck them too.

Next please.
 
Al Jazeera is an "old school" propaganda network. Many younger people today have no idea what that is, so they impute the constant, deliberate misinformation to simple bias. I can barely tolerate MSNBC because their points of view are generally so lame-brained and stupid (Chris Matthews should have stuck with his shovel and the peace corps)--but Al Jazeera very closely fits the bill of real "evil," imo. It's the most blatant propaganda I've seen since the days of the USSR and the iron curtain.

People are funny for imagining that American news outlets "less pro-USA" might be more "accurate" or "truthful"...;) Every country on earth reports its news first, and the happenings in other countries, second. Geographically speaking, that's pretty logical when you think about it. In America, though, wide swaths of political speech are tolerated by the government whereas in other countries reporters routinely "disappear" for writing something that offends someone in power. In some countries--like for instance some of the Saudi-ruled countries in the middle east--making derogatory remarks about the ruling princes and kings is against the law and is a criminal offense--and you *will* go to jail for doing it. In other Mideastern countries, people are still stoned to death for "adultery" and other such "crimes"! Al Jeezera pretends that those things don't happen--at least during the times when I have unfortunately been exposed to the network for brief periods. The Jazeera network is not welcome in my home, and neither is the kind of political intolerance and inhumanity to man that seems so routine and acceptable in that part of the world. No thanks.
 
Ducman69 said:
I support Al Jazeera for the same reason I support Fox News.

ALL news organizations are biased, and before Fox News came along (clearly right biased), the media was almost entirely left biased to varying degrees with some virtually being controlled by the Democratic party as a branch of their political arm.

Fox News, even though it was just one outlet against many, at least brought balance to that.

We need more BBC / Al Jazeera now to bring balance to the pro-American slant of news. And for those that don't believe its that bad, remember that sometimes what you DON'T report is even more important than how you report something. American media outlets both left and right have been very hesitant to portray the US in too poor a light, and generally have only done so when the damage can be restricted to being perceived as the wrong doing of the other political party.
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This. I agree.
 
dgingeri said:
This is not quite phrased right. It's incomplete. It should be:
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no, it really shouldn't be.

That's some crazy conservative nonsense. Best I can tell, they try to be much less biased than our American media outlets.

Everything from the middle east isn't a secret terrorist boogie man out to get us.
 
Also, it's worth noting that this is a NEW network based in the USA. They brought on some high end executives from other networks. It will be US based news and supposedly won't be slanted by political parties.

As for supporting terrorists. How have they, source? By reporting both sides of a story? Not everything is so cut and dry when it comes to terrorism. There's two sides to every story. Take Israel for example - yes, the actions of the Palestinians can be disgusting, but their cause has a reason. Israel had no right to up and move them. Imagine if someone did that to the state of Florida. Maybe if we had this channel more Americans would have realized sooner what an absolute cluster f that Iraq was ..
 
WaltC said:
People are funny for imagining that American news outlets "less pro-USA" might be more "accurate" or "truthful"...;)
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Yeah, because the " 'Merikuh-fuk-yeah! " crowd are generally interested in the truth and accuracy.

:rolleyes:
 
I'm probably going to switch from AT&T to watch it. I've been hovering on just cancelling my AT&T contract all together because of their shenanigans anyway. Not to mention I miss the fast speeds of Comcast.

The biggest thing about Al Jazeera America is that its a local news organization that isn't being funded by the government and is largely staffed by very investigative minded journalists. That's pretty much what I've always liked about Al Jazeera, you get a lot of news from their reporters that are actually on the scene live.

Where was with CNN and the ilk, the reporters get vetted heavily and their reports are often not shown live. Plus its hard to watch the bs on those networks too, so many outright half truths.
 
WaltC said:
Al Jazeera is an "old school" propaganda network. Many younger people today have no idea what that is, so they impute the constant, deliberate misinformation to simple bias. I can barely tolerate MSNBC because their points of view are generally so lame-brained and stupid (Chris Matthews should have stuck with his shovel and the peace corps)--but Al Jazeera very closely fits the bill of real "evil," imo. It's the most blatant propaganda I've seen since the days of the USSR and the iron curtain.
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...

The Jazeera network is not welcome in my home, and neither is the kind of political intolerance and inhumanity to man that seems so routine and acceptable in that part of the world. No thanks.[/QUOTE]

Having substantial experience on both sides of the iron curtain, and reading your post qualifies me to say you're full of shit.
 
punisher said:
I have respect for Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera took a lot of heat early on from the Arab/Muslim world because they offered the real news and not some government fantasy BS (think of the Iraqi information minister during the war). A lot of Arabs got a rude awakening, a lot of leaders got pissed. If you are pissing off Muslims/Arabs and Americans, you are doing something right.

Yes, our news outlets are broken. CNN, and MSNBC are just stupid, FOX is ignorant. I tend to lump liberals as stupid, and conservatives as ignorant. Al Jazeera and BBC are welcome in my house.
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News for profit is just as bad as government censored news. I think we're finding this out the hard way. One type is just government run vomit and lies, the other is gross manipulation of the truth to garner viewers and ratings.

That's why a lot of TRUE balanced reporting doesn't sell well enough to stay in business.. You tend to piss of both sides, and people realize that 99% of news is boring unless you add fluff and a pinch of bullshit.
 
dgingeri said:
This is not quite phrased right. It's incomplete. It should be:
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Just because a news network distributes terrorist videos (which any American news station would whore out into a 2hr Friday Night Special Newscast), doesn't make them "supporters". They are capitalizing on reporting exclusive information that they were chosen to report, because they are the "most watched" and "most reputable" of the area. Would some US-grown terror group give BBC, Al J, or CNN/Fox a call first?
 
I'd really just like a news channel that gives me the news....no bias, no opinion, just state the facts. Instead we have american news channels that manipulate video and present as news (NBC). Channels that get caught doing that shit should have their FCC license pulled.

I think most of us are smart enough to form our own opinions - most people don't need to be told how they should think,
 
I have seen the commercials promoting this channel and found it secretive. I have never heard of them and they didnt explain what it was exactly but I came to the decision not to watch it based on the name and their commercial.
 
Scythe5 said:
I'd really just like a news channel that gives me the news....no bias, no opinion, just state the facts. Instead we have american news channels that manipulate video and present as news (NBC). Channels that get caught doing that shit should have their FCC license pulled.

I think most of us are smart enough to form our own opinions - most people don't need to be told how they should think,
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The problem you have today....

Whenever someone appears on TV and does actual journalism...those portrayed in an unfavorable light pull the "bias" or "balance" card impugning the journalist rather than necessarily disproving anything they say.
 
Ducman69 said:
I support Al Jazeera for the same reason I support Fox News.

ALL news organizations are biased, and before Fox News came along (clearly right biased), the media was almost entirely left biased to varying degrees with some virtually being controlled by the Democratic party as a branch of their political arm.
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Agreed. But we shouldn't have to settle for completely slanted news from both sides.
 
EchtoGammut said:
When Fox News came on the scene, I really like the idea of a more conservative media outlet, but now they just make me sick.
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I'm right of center but no way would I call myself a republican. Fox News was great a few years back but I can't stand it now either. Their website is littered with garbage and their commentary is just about as nauseating as MSNBC.
 
I would watch this if my carrier had the option. It is owned by the Sheik (not sure if that is the correct title for him) of Qatar. I find it to be on par with BBC, CNN Pacific and other multi national news organizations. I received a big education in the world when I deployed to Okinawa in 2000 for the first as to how retarded our news outlets are. If Americans actually took ten seconds to watch what is going on in this world we would be sick to our stomachs for living the way we do. At the end of the day the Govt, the media and the populace would choose to burry their heads in the sand than actually be informed. Oh and before I get attacked by the MERICAFUKYA crowd I am still an active duty Marine. I support this and I hope other News outlets see this as a way to break into the US market.
 
News media is a business. If they gave 100% truth and facts -- news what you would consider -- they'd likely go out of business. The majority of American people don't want to hear news about people being burnt alive, a young 17-year old being gangraped by a bunch of old men on a public bus, a highway being covered in human body parts and blood and intestines hanging off of signs, human and drug trafficking news at their rawest and finest, etc. This would demoralize the people, they'd stop watching, the news station would lose financial stability and shutdown and be replaced by another that 'does it right' (business-wise) so to speak, and thus you have modern day American news.
 
I've spent too much time in reddit.com/r/worldnews. I've had days where I have been unable to read /r/worldnews because of the things that are happening around the world. I'm willing to bet there are news-related subreddits other than /r/worldnews that are deeper and harder to digest [on a daily basis].
 
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