Comments on: No barbecue for Al Jazeera. Plenty of death metal, though.

By: johne

johne — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:34:46 +0000

“No one forces you to watch a particular channel.”
Quite right — we’re offered a choice, from moderate right to far right.

By: Jillian C. York

Jillian C. York — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:43:51 +0000

Paul,

I disagree. Al Jazeera English provides much more global news than CNN, and is perhaps equal to BBC World or Euronews (the latter being my personal favorite). I personally think that AJEnglish downplays the Middle East intentionally, and perhaps focuses on Asia a bit too heavily.

And yet, they’ve still been mostly blocked out in the U.S. based on assumptions that they’re just like their Arabic counterpart.

Jillian

By: John

John — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:26:14 +0000

Brett – they probably went with Arabic al-Jazeera because the English-language channel’s audience isn’t Arabs or people in the middle East – it’s intended to reach English-speakers elsewhere, and is programmed separately, so it wouldn’t be accurate to present it as an example of Arabic media.

By: Nota Bene: Today’s Reading Assignment « PoliSci@UST

Nota Bene: Today’s Reading Assignment « PoliSci@UST — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:00:20 +0000

[...] No barbecue for Al Jazeera. Plenty of death metal, though — Ethan Zuckerman, My Heart’s in Accra Blog [...]

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 02:39:02 +0000

Why would AlJazeera replace BBC World and CNN International?

It carries too much news on the middle east, whereas BBC and CNN do look at the world.

I got tired of the region, important though it is.

But with cable and satellite TV, there is room for all of them, and there is no reason not to let anyone broadcast.

No one forces you to watch a particular channel.

By: Jacob Smith, Mayor of Golden

Jacob Smith, Mayor of Golden — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:49:27 +0000

Thanks for the thoughtful post, Ethan. I want to clarify that the barbecue still took place but at another location. Neither the city manager nor I anticipated the vitriolic reaction from some members of our community (and quite a few outside of Golden as well), and he asked to change the venue because he felt it wasn’t appropriate for him in his role as the city manager to create the kind of divisiveness that obviously resulted. At least 17 people in the community subsequently volunteered to host the event at their own homes, and Al Jazeera found one that worked for all of their technical needs and made it happen. From the city’s perspective, this was primarily a First Amendment issue, and we were unequivocal from the time Al Jazeera first contacted us until they departed this morning in our commitment to affording them all the same courtesies we afford other news agencies. Likewise, the protesters were afforded their First Amendment rights to protest. I’m disappointed that so many of the folks opposed to Al Jazeera’s visit were as disrespectful as they were, but as you write, Ethan, the news stories probably do capture something of the range of perspectives about Al Jazeera in our community and probably elsewhere in the States as well.

By: Jillian C. York

Jillian C. York — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:48:15 +0000

I would absolutely invite Al Jazeera to my house to watch the DNC, or anything else for that matter. I’m kind of jealous of Golden, actually.

Although it is somewhat bizarre, I’m glad Al Jazeera is giving this a try. What’s amazing to me is the “patriots” who believe that the U.S. should remain the ultimate superpower, yet don’t give a damn about what the rest of the world actually thinks of our leadership.

By: Brett Davidson

Brett Davidson — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:28:19 +0000

I was interested to see the other night, that CNN had a report on what the Arabic media is saying about the US presidential race. They featured Al Jazeera, but showed the Arabic-language channel (with CNN translating), even though there is an English-language channel. I wondered what that was about — maybe because it makes Al Jazeera seem more ‘other’?