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jayeff · 04-09-2004, 02:13 AM

If you want real anti-US bias, check out the Saudi newspaper Al Arabiya, or Abu Dhabi TV.

Al Jazeera is an arab (Qatari) media organization, so it looks at the world from the arab perspective. Would you expect CNN to look at the world from anything other than a US/western perspective?

Given that proviso, Al Jazeera is as balanced as most western media, although unlike western media, it doesn't achieve balance by sanitising its output and dumbing everything down. Instead, AJ allows a full range of views to be expressed. Sure it carried interviews with Osama Bin Laden but Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell have also had air time. Its talk shows and debates are open to the full range of arab opinion.

At any rate AJ is balanced enough for the Israelis to claim it is pro-Palestinian while several Arab countries (including Iraq when SH was still in charge), have banned Al Jazeera for being too pro-western (or at least unsympathetic to their regimes). And despite 35 million viewers (for the TV station) they have a problem finding advertisers who fear a backlash from Saudi Arabia if they do business with the station.

04-09-2004, 02:13 AM
jayeff Confirmed User Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 2,944	If you want real anti-US bias, check out the Saudi newspaper Al Arabiya, or Abu Dhabi TV. Al Jazeera is an arab (Qatari) media organization, so it looks at the world from the arab perspective. Would you expect CNN to look at the world from anything other than a US/western perspective? Given that proviso, Al Jazeera is as balanced as most western media, although unlike western media, it doesn't achieve balance by sanitising its output and dumbing everything down. Instead, AJ allows a full range of views to be expressed. Sure it carried interviews with Osama Bin Laden but Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell have also had air time. Its talk shows and debates are open to the full range of arab opinion. At any rate AJ is balanced enough for the Israelis to claim it is pro-Palestinian while several Arab countries (including Iraq when SH was still in charge), have banned Al Jazeera for being too pro-western (or at least unsympathetic to their regimes). And despite 35 million viewers (for the TV station) they have a problem finding advertisers who fear a backlash from Saudi Arabia if they do business with the station.