AT&T Playing Politics with Al Jazeera America?

al-Jazeera has a history of supporting terrorists. It is in no way un-slanted or unbiased, and in many ways is much worse than even the organization formerly known as MSNBC. Adding al-Jazeera to the list of news channels available would result in a net degradation of quality, which at this point would be a pretty amazing achievement.

Cerulean said:
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.
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What does any of this have to do with "truth and facts"? Reporting something true is not the same as reporting something grisly or emotionally disturbing. The news media isn't shielding their viewers. Besides, the news media has always been a business, and the profit motive is not a bad thing. Your scenario is absurd.

The problem with the news media is its content. Not the ratio of clean to graphic stories, or disturbing imagery, or anything you claim. The problem is that no one trusts any channel or newspaper or any other outlet to give them straight knowledge of a sequence of events. There's also a disconnect between commentary on the news media and the actual consumption of news media. For all the "Faux News lololol" that the Internet loves to eternally repost, that particular channel has been winning in the ratings for years, while those who tend to mock the channel wind up getting their news from... the Daily Show, at least according to research studies. Given that Jon Stewart is basically a less taciturn version of Keith Olbermann, it's not surprising how that particular meme has grown up.

It'll be interesting to see what Jeff Bezos does with The Washington Post. It's an awful newspaper and Bezos is unlikely to flush the stables (since Bezos agrees with the Post's editorial viewpoint), but if anyone is going to maybe figure out this whole "let's suck less as an institution" thing, Bezos has a better chance than anyone else right now.
 
mainstream media viewpoint:
the earth is round, like so many other celestial objects, due to the equalization of mass around a center of gravity

fair and balanced viewpoint:
you might have heard in the mainstream media that the earth is round, but some people say that the earth is flat, and there is growing evidence to support this fact. next up, doctor sculelos explains why.
 
Ocean said:
mainstream media viewpoint:
the earth is round, like so many other celestial objects, due to the equalization of mass around a center of gravity

fair and balanced viewpoint:
you might have heard in the mainstream media that the earth is round, but some people say that the earth is flat, and there is growing evidence to support this fact. next up, doctor sculelos explains why.
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Sadly, not too far off the truth with that one. Some news DOESN'T have "another side."
 
Terpfen said:
al-Jazeera has a history of supporting terrorists. It is in no way un-slanted or unbiased, and in many ways is much worse than even the organization formerly known as MSNBC. Adding al-Jazeera to the list of news channels available would result in a net degradation of quality, which at this point would be a pretty amazing achievement.
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By terrorists, do you mean the United States Government? Because pretty much every news channel in the United States is nothing but a state-run propaganda outlet for the terrorist state.
 
timta2 said:
15 things everyone would know if there were a liberal media

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/...yone-would-know-if-there-were-a-liberal-media
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lol, Daily Kos.

The liberal media doesn't like to talk about things like Glass-Steagall because Bill Clinton pushed to end it and signed the repeal for it. Bill Clinton also cut capital gains taxes more than Bush did. I bet most people haven't heard that from the "we're not liberals" media.

More Democrats voted to bail out big banks and corporations during the collapse than Republicans did. You won't hear that from the liberal media, either. Democrats secretly love big banks and big corporations, including ones that pay zero taxes. They also love Democrat Presidents who do the same or worse things than Bush did, whom they previously ranted about.

And then there are things like "taxes favor rich people more." Well, of course, because those are the people who pay the most taxes. You can't decrease someone's 0% income tax rate even further. Well, you can, and that's why some people get refund checks even after paying $0. Paying zero income taxes I guess isn't "fair," so we have to pay people on top of it.

Really, though, it's all more "corporate media" than it is "liberal media." Most of them are basically on the same team for the most part. That's why Americans get a choice of a giant douche or a turd sandwich every four years.
Skripka said:
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.
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CNN and MSNBC even disprove when their own journalists do actual journalism. Benghazi, for one example.
 
Bamboo said:
Nevermind. Dgingeri is right. I remember Al Jazeera supporting all those middle eastern terrorist groups in the past. Fuck them too.

Next please.
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The U.S. government supports middle-eastern terrorist groups, so now what?

We'll have to wait and see how Al Jazeera America is. In the meantime, everyone can watch RT.
 
Deadly Ramon said:
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which owns Fox News, donates more to Democrats than to Republicans. In 2008, it donated $380,558 to Obama's campaign and $32,740 to McCain's, and in 2012, it donated $58,825 to Obama's re-election campaign and $2,750 to Romney's. In light of that, I really can't see this right bias in Fox News that everybody seems to be complaining about.
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Why? Because a Democrat in the white house means more ratings in the long term for them. During the same time period of that post Fox was probably showing packages that stated that businesses were donating in droves to the GOP because of liberal policies and taxes. They excel when there's conflict, be it manufactured or implied.

You can also safely bet that in 2016 if News Corp donated more to Democrats Fox would report that it's confirmation of Liberal Bias in printed news too, since it's now a separate company.
 
OGOC said:
The U.S. government supports middle-eastern terrorist groups, so now what?

We'll have to wait and see how Al Jazeera America is. In the meantime, everyone can watch RT.
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They're slanted against the US, but at this point, they tend to focus on things that are buried or ignored by the US media. A few other 'pseudo reporters' (?) are also popping up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XaddYE61fA
This one is a directed at conservatives continuously referencing the bible to justify whatever they do. Hey, with the bible, you can justify anything!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hiRC5ZDTXk
A bit on how how mass media as it is now is doing their reporting.

If Al Jazeera has the balls to dig up the dirt on US government and politicians, and present it, clear cut, with no sugarcoating, that would be great.
 
The problem with Cable News (IMHO) is that the watchers and the networks have lost the ability to distinguish punditry from factual news reporting.

One of my biggest peeves is misreporting data by leaving parts out, or focusing on a final number without looking at what goes into it. Big example is the unemployment percentage.

Another is identification of politicians, if a network leans one why or the the other is it is bad news for a politician for their side the political party will not be reported, if it for the opposing view they will always preface the persons name with the party affiliation.

Al Jazzeera is just another opinion pushing news organization. Take it as such.
 
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