If you like BBC World News...

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Then please visit this petition.

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i have not cared about the bbc since gb went all socialist and big brotherly on its citizens. i get most of my world news from nhk - the south korean world news network.

If you're interested in international news, you might also be interested in Al Jazeera English:

http://iwantaljazeera.net/aje


Website: http://english.aljazeera.net

Live streaming: http://www.LiveStation.com/aje

YouTube channel: http://www.YouTube.com/aljazeeraenglish

i am not at all interested in islamic propaganda.

iMark: I can kinda-sorta understand your views on the 'UK-gone-socialist', but they really aren't full-blown socialist. Private business is alive and well in the UK, it's just that they don't get away with as much as they do in the US.

EnglishLulu: No offence to you, but I find Al-Jazeera to be biased. Best example: they call the war in Iraq the war ON Iraq, implying that it was started to destroy Iraq in some way, shape or form.

This petition is part of a theory I have about American TV. TV in the US is dominanted by big corporations (I'm not naming names), and my theory is that if America gets a good international news channel, viewers will get more interested in the world outside the US. It would then create more demand for more diverse programming, and that would end not only the corporate control of media, but also end the 'copycat' cycle of programming choices.

Have you ever even watched it? Because I can tell you for 100 per cent certain it is not Islamic propaganda.

Did you know that Al Jazeera English is broadcast in Israel? But not in most of the United States - the land of free speech haha! - (except for Burlington VA and another place). Israelis are free to watch (or not watch, as they so choose), Al Jazeera English, but Americans who preach about freedom of speech are not currently permitted by their own government to watch it?

Did you know that Al Jazeera English is banned in places like... erm, Saudi Arabia? I'm not sure whether it's currently banned in Saudi Arabia, but their reporters have been banned in the past. And they've also been banned from Baghdad. If it was so pro-Islamic states, as you seem to infer, then surely they wouldn't have a problem with it? But Al Jazeera is equally critical of human rights violations and other political and social problems in Islamic states as it is in other non-Islamic states.

You might reflect on coverage of the Gaza war from an Israeli newspaper, praising an Al Jazeera English reporter:

Gideon Levy / My hero of the Gaza war
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054282.html

"My war hero is Ayman Mohyeldin, the young correspondent for Al Jazeera English and the only foreign correspondent broadcasting during these awful days in a Gaza Strip closed off to the media. Al Jazeera English is not what you might think. It offers balanced, professional reporting from correspondents both in Sderot and Gaza. And Mohyeldin is the cherry on top of this journalistic cream. I wouldn't have needed him or his broadcasts if not for the Israeli stations' blackout of the fighting. Since discovering this wunderkind from America (his mother is from the West Bank city of Tul Karm and his father from Egypt*), I have stopped frantically changing TV stations."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1058473.html

So, an Israeli journalist, writing in an Israeli newspaper, praises Al Jazeera English coverage of the war on Gaza.

Yet you -- an American, living in the US, who cannot even watch Al Jazeera English freely on satellite or cable because despite the freedom of speech provisions in your own constitution your government has prevented carriage -- have decided -- without even watching the bulletins and programmes in order to make up your mind based on the facts - that Al Jazeera English is nothing but Islamic propaganda.




*I think his nationality is dual Egyptian-American, he lived and studied in the US for quite some time.

No worries, no offence read into what you say.

However, I do wonder... your assertion that Al Jazeera *must* be biased because of the way they call it the war ON Iraq...

Does it never occur to you that you might have swallowed American propaganda from Faux or CNN or the Bush administration pronouncements about Iraq?

I mean, you do know, don't you, that Iraq wasn't responsible for 9/11? You do know, don't you, that no Iraqi citizen was involved in the hijackings on 9/11? You do know, don't you, that there was no justification based on 9/11 for an invasion, for a 'war IN Iraq'? And you do know, don't you, that Iraq had no 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'? You do know all that, don't you? Or have you been suckered by American propaganda?

You criticise the use of language, saying "they call the war in Iraq the war ON Iraq, implying that it was started to destroy Iraq in some way, shape or form."

American Airlines Flight 11
Hijackers: Mohamed Atta al Sayed (Egyptian), Waleed al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Wail al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Abdulaziz al-Omari (Saudi Arabian), Satam al-Suqami (Saudi Arabian).

United Airlines Flight 175
Hijackers: Marwan al-Shehhi (from the United Arab Emirates), Fayez Banihammad (from the United Arab Emirates), Mohand al-Shehri (Saudi Arabian), Hamza al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian).

American Airlines Flight 77
Hijackers: Hani Hanjour (Saudi Arabian), Khalid al-Mihdhar (Saudi Arabian), Majed Moqed (Saudi Arabian), Nawaf al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian), Salem al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian).

United Airlines Flight 93
Hijackers: Ziad Jarrah (Lebanese), Ahmed al-Haznawi (Saudi Arabian), Ahmed al-Nami (Saudi Arabian), Saeed al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabian).

[source: wikipedia.org]

Note: None of the hijackers were Iraqi. And I hope you will also accept that there were no WMD in Iraq (the existence of a 'dodgy dossier' has long been acknowledged).

So what was the justification for the war ON or IN Iraq? It wasn't a war IN Iraq, because the hijackers and the 9/11 plotters weren't IN Iraq. And it wasn't a war IN Iraq, because there were no WMD IN Iraq.

So, surely, by process of elimination, it was a war ON Iraq, ON the Iraqi people, in order to oust its leader Saddam Hussein, and also to subjugate its people, in order to assume control of its oil supplies?

If you dispute this logic, if you want to argue that it wasn't a war ON Iraq, its leader and its people, then I, for one, would love to hear your argument and supporting facts. Because so far as I'm aware, linguistically, technically, correctly, pedantically speaking, it was a war ON Iraq, and not a war IN Iraq.

democracynow.org is a good source of regurgitated news and interesting views. i like it.

i have watched it.

it is islamic propaganda - subtle most of the time but propaganda nonetheless.

it is all propaganda. bbc presents the british socialist view point of global news. voa promotes the american brand of patriotic imperialism. tbn illuminates everything (and i mean everything) with a stark christian light. even nhk tends to slant their domestic news to make south korea seem utopic.

it is all a matter of which poison a person chooses to pollute their mind with. i have simply chosen to not partake of islam's particular venom.

I would be interested it (BBC World News), mainly for a Non-US viewpoint. Infact, i watched a good chunk of the last election on BBC America.

All the American News networks are well known for being really bias. I'm sure BBCWN is bias too, but it will be refreshing to find out how instead of knowing automatically.

That being said, the other two mentioned would be interesting too.

Perhaps you just stick to Fox news then?

Perhaps you just stick to Fox news then?

ALL news are biased. looking for unbiased news is a waste of time.
for news to be unbiased, they have to report absolutely everything worth reporting, and all at the same time, to avoid a ranking of what to tell first and what to tell last, and what to skip alltogether.

bbc IS a good source.

al jazeera IS ALSO a GOOD source.

CNN is as good as al jazeera.
just because al jazeera are arabs, and arabs are supposedly our all enemy, doesnt mean that theyre all evil, rubbing their hands, eagering to fool everyone (iMark... )

Fox is utter s**t.
my observations are based on... observations.

personally i watch NRK news. :]

no. but i do enjoy the simpsons on the fox network.

please make no more assumptions about me. it is really unfair because you really do not know me.


that much i agree with. any news source that is owned by a government (bbc, voa, voc) will tend to present news in a way that is favorable to its owners. same for news sources under control of religious leaders (tbn, al-jazeera). they will tend to promote the positive aspects of their religious controllers (women in burkas saying how wonderful their lives are) at the expense of how things really are (women being executed by their brothers on the mere suspicion of having been raped).

fox news sucks because its owner has a very narrow viepoint of how the world should be run.

for even further information, there is always the shortwave. amateur radio operators all over the world have few qualms about speaking the truth.

I'm just wondering here, why is it okay for you to make assumptions that all the journalists working for Al Jazeera English are Islamic propagandists?

But if someone makes an assumption about what kind of news 'journalism' might be more suited to your prejudice and taste and intellect, then you begin to cry about how unfair it is that another person makes assumptions about you.

Ditto. Don't make assumptions about Al Jazeera English journalists and the journalism they practice, as that's equally 'unfair' to those journalists and their individual integrity and professionalism.

Tbh, from what you say about representations of women in burkhas and women being executed, then I'd actually hazard a guess that either you haven't watched any Al Jazeera English news and programmes at all, or if you have watched any, then you've watched so little as to make your opinions lacking in context and thus invalid.

Al Jazeera English has reported critically on the subject of so-called 'honour killings'.

For the record, the managing director of Al Jazeera English is a Canadian who isn't a muslim. And many of the management and mid-level journalists are European and American. The organisation's staff are from around 50 countries, and the staff are of all faiths (muslim, jewish, christian, rastafarian, hindu, sikh, there are probably buddhists and bahai too), and there are people who don't have any particular faith.

You're just making assumptions and projecting your own prejudices.

it is only natural that an employee will follow the policies and preferences of his or her employer. especially if he or she wants to continue being an employee. and nationality makes no difference. the owners of al jazeera are moslem. the owners of tbn are christians. the owner of fox news is so conservative as to make ronald reagan look like a socialist. the news that their properties broadcast - even though it is the same news - is slanted to reflect their views.

it is not propaganda to report the beating of an unarmed fifty-year old black man by a half-dozen white cops as an unjustified crime. but when his injuries are presented as justifiable simply because that black man once did time for possession of drugs that is propaganda.

there is no propaganda involved when a murder is reported as a murder. but when the cold-blooded murder of an 11-year old girl by her brother is reported over and over as a matter of honor (as if using the word honor makes the crime any less heinous) then that is propaganda.

besides, claiming that al jazeera is not an islamic propaganda machine because it occassionally criticizes the darker aspects of islam, or that tbn is not a christian propaganda machine because it occassionally criticizes the darker aspects of christianity, is like claiming that fox news is not a propagandist machine because it occassionally criticizes the darker aspects of the bush administration.

finally claiming that any organization never engages in propagandist tactics simply because it happens to be someones favorite organization or employer is in itself propaganda.

al jazeera, bbc, cnn, fox, nhk, and all the other news organizations all share this one characteristic: they can not help but portray the news as their owners would like to see it portrayed. in this respect they are all propagandist machines.

***

(the owner of al jazeera is qatari emir sheikh hamad bin thamer al-thani - a devout moslem.
the chairman of al jazeera is sheikh hamad bin thamer al-thani, a distant cousin of the qatari emir - also a devout moslem. they make sure that their favorite news service present the news according to their standards.)