

But now: US viewers seek Al Jazeera coverage - aj700
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201121121041735816.html

======
mmaunder
Al Jazeera is producing some of the finest global news coverage in the world
today. I became a regular viewer recently so I could keep up on political
debates with my family based in South Africa who have AJ on satellite.

Watching AJ reminds me how human-interest and emotion-centric the local news
has become. The Egyptian coverage on CNN is nauseating. Yesterday a caller
phoned in from Cairo and was falling over his words just spilling massive
amounts of useful data and the anchor woman interrupts him to ask him about
his feelings.

~~~
adscft
That's only because AJ is still produced in a male-dominated society.
Emotional news is one of the consequences of feminism, prevailing in the West.

~~~
mmaunder
I'm guessing you were born after Margaret Thatcher left office.

~~~
philwelch
I'm guessing you haven't argued with very many feminists. Thatcher isn't
exactly a feminist icon (WP: "Many British feminists regarded her as "an
enemy".") and a lot of feminists I've encountered consider rationalism and
emotional reserve to be artifacts of patriarchal oppression. adscft is
overstating the case, perhaps, but his point isn't entirely baseless (and your
response is quite the non-sequitur).

~~~
jhamburger
Speaking of non-sequiturs, I'm still waiting for someone to establish this
link between 'emotional news prevailing in the west' and 'feminism'

~~~
philwelch
Had feminism not prevailed in the West, the West would be a male-dominated
society, and things like the news would be controlled exclusively by men.
Additionally, men would have continued to abide by traditional gender roles
(which would have not been questioned or undergone change[1]), and the
traditional male gender role is less overtly emotional. Hence, the news would
be less overtly emotional.

That's a perfectly reasonable and straightforward argument which raises
eyebrows only because it hints at the idea that feminism had some negative
effects.

The comparison to Al-Jazeera might not be sound, however--masculine emotional
reserve is a characteristic of Anglo-Saxon/Germanic/Northern European culture,
not necessarily Arabic culture.

[1] Feminism, as a natural consequence of advancing the position of women in
society, questions gender roles by necessity. This is what makes the reference
to Thatcher so inept--Thatcher advanced in a male-dominated profession by
following a masculine gender role; Thatcher's Britain was willing to accept a
_woman_ PM, but only so long as she governed like a man. This is a far cry
from what feminists would like to see.

~~~
jhamburger
Allow me a counter-point:

In a male-dominated society, the news is still controlled not by men or women
but by money, in the form of advertising revenue.

In a male-dominated society women are stay at home housewives, with time to
flip through the channels and shop for household goods, making them a very
important consumer demographic and a prime target for advertisers.

Therefore, television news would be 'emotional' and targeted to women.

I don't see how my argument is any less baseless conjecture than yours.

~~~
philwelch
That's a decent argument, but my point isn't that feminism _did_ lead to
emotional news reporting, it's that the idea is something reasonable people
might believe.

Plus, your counterargument is still pretty flawed--under traditional gender
roles, most news is of no interest to women, and wouldn't be targeted to them,
which is why news was traditionally aired during evenings, and nights when men
were home, while soap operas and talk shows were aired during the day when
housewives were home alone. (Come to think of it, your local network affiliate
schedule _still_ looks a lot like that.)

------
iamelgringo
As the vast majority of news networks have been scaling back "expensive" forms
of journalism like having dedicated foreign bureaus, Al Jazeera has been one
of the precious few news agencies that has been rapidly expanding it's foreign
bureaus. The move is really starting to pay off for them.

In an increasingly globalized economy where we need much better coverage of
international events, US news networks are going to find themselves scooped
and out reported by Al Jazeera again and again. It's an impressive news
agency, and to think, we bombed their offices twice in the last 10 years by
accident[1].

ref:

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War#Attack_on_Al_Jazeera)

~~~
cliveholloway
Do you really think that was an accident? Heh.

------
russnewcomer
Anyone wanting greater understanding of the regional dynamics in the Middle
East should read al Jazeera regularly, just like anyone wanting to really
understand local politics should read their local newspaper for a year,
instead of reading an NYTimes article about their local politics. Watching it
when there is a crisis really doesn't help understand, it just helps give you
more information.

Similar to how a pipe fitter in West Texas reading HN once a month wouldn't
really help them understand the culture that exists in the
Y!Combinator/startup world, watching AJ when there is a crisis without
watching it regularly leads you to impose your own cultural lens on the
issues. I lived in a Central Asian country for three years, and it took me
about two years to really understand how much I didn't understand the local
culture.

------
fwez
Does anyone know if cable carriers in the US don't carry AJ because of lack of
demand or is there documented evidence of active exclusion for business or
political reasons?

Please don't take this question as conspiracy theory flame bait. I'm just
curious about what is known about this.

~~~
jhamburger
Let me put it this way- If I were running a cable company, and I had to make a
pure business decision on whether to carry AJE, I wouldn't do it. People were
up in arms over a "mosque" several blocks away the WTC site...People were
outraged at our President's middle name. there would be a HUGE uproar if cable
operators started broadcasting "muslim propaganda" in our homes. I'm talking
mass boycotts.

~~~
fwez
They can watch it and make up their own mind. Can't they?

~~~
RK
Maybe if we had a la carte cable, but we don't...

~~~
derleth
If we had a la carte cable, they'd offer what they seriously thought people
would specifically seek out and buy. FOX News is a shoo-in, but PBS and Al
Jazeera would be much riskier bets.

~~~
jhamburger
People have been 'buying' PBS for many years now.

~~~
derleth
True, but how many of those people are there in a given cable provider's
market?

A la carte seems like a huge incentive for the cable companies to drop
channels, and offer a lesser product for what comes out to be a higher price.

~~~
pyre
If that's the case, then why don't they do that now? Carrying less channels
would reduce costs, while raising the price would increase profit. One would
think that we wouldn't have to force them to move in that direction it what
you say is true.

~~~
derleth
When the cable industry itself says that that's going to happen, I tend to
believe that they will make it happen.[1]

"# Forcing cable operators to sell each channel separately (a la carte) would
reduce the size of the potential audience for each channel, adversely
affecting a network’s ability to attract the same level of advertising
dollars. Networks would also incur much higher marketing costs to persuade
customers to purchase their programming. As networks lose the advertising
revenues that make up the bulk of their programming and operating budgets and
face higher marketing costs, they would need to increase the license fees paid
by cable operators in order to continue to deliver high quality and diverse
programming.

# These higher license fees would be reflected in higher retail cable prices.
To the extent that customers were unwilling to pay the higher a la carte
prices for certain networks, those networks would have no choice but to reduce
the quality and attractiveness of their programming or go out of business."

Also:

"Mandatory a la carte could cause the demise of many existing basic
programming services and hinder the creation of new ones, reducing choice and
diversity."

[1] <http://www.ncta.com/IssueBriefs/ALaCarte.aspx?view=2>

I don't usually parrot industry group talking points. However, in this case,
we're debating about what the cable industry would do if a la carte were
forced on them, and I think they've already answered that question.

------
Alex3917
Even if All Jazeera is seeing a huge traffic spike, it's still only a small
percentage of Americans who are trying to seek out real news. The vast
majority of Americans don't even want an uncensored media.

~~~
nhangen
Do you really believe Al Jazeera is uncensored?

~~~
Alex3917
Let's compare their coverage of U.S. politics to CNN, NYT, and Fox:

<http://alexkrupp.com/picture_library/rp/rp.html>

~~~
derleth
How about comparing it to the BBC, NPR, and PBS?

~~~
Alex3917
NPR does a great job at talking about stuff that's already in the news, but
they aren't really a news service.

BBC has reasonably good coverage of American politics, but it's not written
for Americans so there's a lot of cognitive overhead. Because of this it
doesn't really make sense to read it like a newspaper, though their take on
specific issues is often good, albeit brief. Many of their article are barely
more than headlines.

And PBS is decent, but it's mainly targeted at people 60+ and retired. Waiting
until 7pm for news from last week just isn't viable for people who actually
need to know what's going on.

~~~
tkahn6
> And PBS is decent, but it's mainly targeted at people 60+ and retired.
> Waiting until 7pm for news from last week just isn't viable for people who
> actually need to know what's going on.

I'm sorry that's just ridiculous. Not only do they have a website that's
constantly updated, the news they present is timely according to the
importance of the event. They usually have a mix of a) news that happened that
day, b) follow up stories from events from the past few days or week and c)
long term international news (Haitian recovery, Peru's economy, etc.). And
then they have ~5-7 minute rundown of the headlines from that day. Recently
they've been devoting almost the entire program to Egypt.

I seriously cannot understand HN's infatuation with Al Jazeera English. It's
simply a more sophisticated version of CNN or BBC. I guess if you're looking
for a 24 hour news, then yeah, go with Al Jazeera English. I've watched it for
their live coverage of Egypt, but I can't imagine watching AJE every day.

------
pmorici
Hm, it strikes me that there are absolutely zero advertisements of any kind on
that page.

~~~
tkahn6
That's because Al Jazeera English receives its funding from the Qatari
government.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera#Editorial_independen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera#Editorial_independence)

------
RK
Maybe Al Jazeera should just run with being a 21st century, Internet delivered
news channel.

I mean, I don't get Al Jazeera on my TV because I don't have cable or
satellite anyway. I do have Netflix, etc, though.

~~~
jarek
Satellite gets them a _lot_ more viewers in the developing world than either
internet or traditional cable. It's also a lot harder to block.

------
kingkawn
I am not watching Al Jazeera because of their underlying ideology, but because
they are doing the best reporting on Egypt. If they were to continue to
provide such powerful reporting on other topics I would watch them for that as
well.

~~~
alexqgb
Um, I think their "underlying ideology" is doing the best reporting on Egypt,
and everything else they cover.

These are seriously hardcore journalists with a very global perspective. I
suspect they're currently being flooded with resumes from disgruntled /
disgusted / dismayed reporters at CNN, MSNBC, and even FOX - all of whom would
give up their first-born to get back into real reporting, instead of the
dreadful corporate infotainment that's busy getting relegated to the sphere of
complete irrelevance and risible self-parody.

~~~
aheilbut
The guy in charge of Al Jazeera English used to run news at - wait for it...
the CBC (that's the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).
([http://english.aljazeera.net/aboutus/2007/12/200861501043226...](http://english.aljazeera.net/aboutus/2007/12/200861501043226986.html))

~~~
gruseom
That surprises me. CBC news is terrible. Even its once-great flagship _As It
Happens_ on CBC radio has degenerated to the point that I just get sad.

~~~
tomjen3
CBS News was once hosted by Walter Cronkite. It's very likely that may have
had inspire people who really wanted to do journalism to join CBS.

~~~
aheilbut
CBC != CBS

------
PaulHoule
I'd like to get Al Jazeera on ivi.tv

~~~
pella
Al Jazeera English: Live Stream

<http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/>

~~~
PaulHoule
This is good on my work connection but doesn't quite work on my third-rate
rural DSL connection from Frontier.

ivi.tv will give you a stream with bandwidth requirements that works on any
connection, degrading all the way to a slide show if it has to.

