Contributors

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Hillary=Correct

Recently, I have joined the ranks of the millions who own iPhones. I am not ashamed to admit it: I am addicted. There are so many cool apps that I can hardly control myself. The main ones I love are the music related apps (like iConcertCal, Concert Vault etc) but I also love the news ones, of course, being the current events junkie that I am. I think I have about a dozen or so apps that are news related. One is the Al Jazeera app and I have to honestly say that Hillary Clinton is 100 percent correct.

Ms. Clinton said last week that Al Jazeera "real news" and lambasted the American media for being distracted by the bright, shiny object of Charlie Sheen for an entire week. She's absolutely right. The app that I have on my iPhone lets me stream the live feed of the network, staffed mostly by ex-BBCers, which (gasp!) actually reports news of significance to the world. Ms. Clinton noted the United States is losing the information war in the world and it's due to the fact that our news...well...sucks.

"Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it's real news," Clinton said. "You may not agree with it, but you feel like you're getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners."

Media critics like Jeff Jarvis have also contrasted Al Jazeera with American news networks. "Vital, world-changing news is occurring in the Middle East and no one-not the xenophobic or celebrity-obsessed or cut-to-the-bone American media-can bring the perspective, insight, and on-the-scene reporting Al Jazeera English can," Jarvis wrote in January.

Exactly true. I will say, though, that CNN is at least attempting to provide real news with the less of the divisive WWE wrestling themed programming of Fox News and MSNBC. In what is sadly reflective of our culture, CNN's ratings are in the toilet.

Al Jazeera may, at times, be the Fox News of the Middle East but that's changing. There is a growing number of people (myself included) who want real, hard news and are tired of hearing Lawrence O'Donnell talk about his latest tiff with Glenn Beck  Now they can have it streamed right to their iPhones.

5 comments:

juris imprudent said...

Since it is my nature to be a contrarian, let me play with this a little.

How vital is it that you know what is going on in some place where you don't know a single soul, you don't understand the language or culture and you are very likely to never even visit? How is that any more relevant to your life than the Sheen saga? But let us then suppose that you have some mild curiosity about this place, and you get news - as described by a single person (though also shaped by a few editors behind the scenes). How much have you actually learned? I suppose in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king sense you know more, but what if that single source was broadcasting with a particular bias - would you still consider yourself better informed? Or are you merely a willing receptacle/conduit for propaganda?

Santa said...

Well, I'm not sure about Mark but for me in the case of the Middle East it's oil. I would think that would be obvious.

juris imprudent said...

Well, I guess its no wonder why you all accused Bush of invading Iraq for oil, if that's your first and foremost concern.

Just for fun, do you have any idea how much of U.S. total oil consumption comes from the Mid East?

drudge said...

MARCH 19, 2011
OBAMA: 'Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world'...

MARCH 19, 2003
BUSH: 'American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger'...

Anonymous said...

Did AlJazeera cover the Fogel Massacre?