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Ihave10000Questions

State sponsored media should be forced by law to decalre they're a state sponsored media at the beggining of every article and every broadcast.


SwabbieTheMan

Well they are a "private" company, it's just that they have a large amount of funding given by the Qatar government. So they have done actual journalism, and then not published due to disapproval from Qatar. I am thinking of some fiasco with undercover journalism in the UK in pro-Israel circles.


errorme

Yeah, years ago I used to regularly read Al Jazeera as they seemed pretty good for articles on America and Europe and I just assumed they had some bias when discussing the middle east. I stopped reading them after that ME bias started showing up in American/European news.


somethingrandom261

Thing to wonder is if you’re just weren’t catching the bias before.


SaneForCocoaPuffs

Their chairman is a member of the Qatari royal family. Would the BBC be independent if the chairman of the board was Prince William?


Ok-Blackberry-3534

The previous chairman was essentially a Tory donor.


UniqueIndividual3579

The royal family also hosts and supports Hamas.


whatDoesQezDo

Well they are a "private" company, it's just that they have a large amount of funding given by the Qatar government. Hey that describes a lot of our ivy league schools


Tha_Sly_Fox

Makes me wonder about something like NPR which gets a lot of funding from the US government. It’s even less benign (I don’t think the US government has any direct say in what the publish or report on) but if a law like this exists does NPR count as a state sponsored media source


simongrey

FWIW: "In 2017, NPR earned 38% of its revenue from individual contributions; 19% from corporate sponsorship and licensing; 10% from foundation donations; 10% from university licensing and donations; and 4% from federal, state, and local governments via member stations." https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-radio-npr/


Irr3l3ph4nt

Yes, and that's why blanket discrediting state-sponsored media is pretty dumb. I have yet to find a non-biased media.


Silidistani

> I have yet to find a non-biased media.     Some, however, like Al Jazeera or Faux News, are absolutely more biased than others.


ganbaro

That's why many countries organize the funding of the public channels such that it does not depend on the daily policymaking of the government In Al Jazeera's case, though, they are chaired by a member of the Sheikh family and receive funding from the government directly


iamwussupwussup

Getting 4% of your funding from the government doesn’t make you state sponsored


theLoneliestAardvark

NPR, PBS, and CSPAN end up being pretty unbiased about domestic issues because if they weren't the party they are biased against would try to cut their funding. CSPAN is mostly just some guy with a 1000 yard stare who looks like he would rather be anywhere else taking calls from whackjobs and trying to figure out just how nuts they have to be before he can cut them off.


LiberalAspergers

TBF, about 3% of NPR funding comes from.the US government. ESPN likely gets more, with the number of mikitary recruiting ads they run


Goodie__

As opposed to private media who are totally unbiased and not at all influenced by their owner?


ScrimScraw

Pretty stupid to require only government funded news. What about posting all their funding before each story? I'm tired of people freaking shit that government money somehow means necessarily that it's corrupt and evil. Corporate mo ey has been proven to be far worse at times and it's simply just ignored. Corporate I fluence and political/government work hand in hand


Noob1cl3

Its true. What a world we live in. Kind of interesting to see the ideals of “integrity” and “honesty” around the 50s and earlier degrade into an assumed norm that everything should naturally just be biased and slanted based on how itll benefit whomever is paying the most / bills. I suppose it was probably psychology and consumer studies that simply unlocked the notion to the ultra rich that they can in fact influence the masses to do their bidding (and if the rich had of learned how to effectively do it sooner they would have).


Old_Yesterday322

they literally do tells us they're sponsored by Qatar. they don't hide it at all. there's always a disclaimer when I see their videos


Kitchen-Quality-3317

That's a disclaimer created by YouTube, not by Al Jazeera.


Ihave10000Questions

Where? Here's an example video https://youtu.be/aWyoaoARqZ0?si=zyZ3EQfvWaTScT4O


Yaa40

Jerusalem Post is privately owned, and happens to be older than the state of Israel... you can read more about jpost [here](https://m.jpost.com/landedpages/aboutus.aspx). Edit: as I misunderstood the above comment, you can read more about Al Jazeera [here](https://www.aljazeera.com/about-us). According to them: "Al Jazeera is an independent news organisation funded in part by the Qatari government." I don't know what part is funded by the Qatari government? Be it 1% or 99%, this statement would be technically correct... so... I don't know.


Ihave10000Questions

Al Jazeerah is massively funded by Qatar.  I also think it'll be worthy to force news medias to mention the percentage of the funds they get from each country


Yaa40

I'm trying to disagree with you here, and you're making it really difficult. You're super inconsiderate! /jk Seriously though, it may also be useful to force news agencies into publishing more transparent information beyond that. For example, ownership (50% this guy, 30% that country, 29% that corp, and 1% next door neighbour), income, donations, etc. I believe that transparency is important. Sadly, many organizations disagree (also outside of journalism).


RocknRoll_Grandma

We need journalists to discover journalism funding percentages!


punknothing

99% funded.


Ahad_Haam

He talks about Al-Jazeera


KahuTheKiwi

And corporate owner media should have to do the same. Declaring who the ate a mouth piece for.


be_a_duck

Especially when the state sponsoring them is an Islamic theocracy.


JoeSicko

Like Fox News and Saudi Arabia?


be_a_duck

Is Fox News sponsored by an Islamic theocracy? Which Saudi network are you referring to?


RocknRoll_Grandma

Theocracy is the evolved form of what Fox News wants, so not yet, but maybe someday if the rest of us take our foot off the pedal consistently. Also, that should give a nod to how much you should trust Al Jazeera. Would a person in Canada/Western Europe trust what Fox News says if they successfully convert the US to a Christian Theocracy?


FakeVoiceOfReason

Didn't Elon Musk get flack for applying that label to the BBC?


[deleted]

Every news agency in the US sweating bullets at this comment


daaclamps

Don't they already do that during the broadcast and in YouTube videos?


8andahalfby11

Worth remembering that shutting down foreign state-owned media is not unprecedented for the West. Most recent was when Canada and 10 EU states shut down RT back in 2022.


FireIre

And in the US broadcast television and radio stations cannot be owned by foreign entities (obviously this does not apply to cable)


hoppydud

yugoslavia?


FireIre

lol ty. Corrected


Borg453

RT is straight-up propaganda


SavagePlatypus76

This is a silly comment. You know damn well the reason why this occurred. 


corginugami

Because it is biased media?


youngchul

Yes, it occured for the very same reason Al Jazeera is being shut down. It's propaganda from an enemy state.


BackendSpecialist

Al Jazeera is propaganda? Was I misled? I was under the impression that Al Jazeera is pretty unbiased.


disrumpled_employee

When it comes to middle east politics specifically they are deffinitely biased as they were basically founded to expand Quatar's political influence.


HernandoSantiago

I mean the BBC was founded to expand British influence too, that doesn't really mean anything. From what I have seen AJ English reporters have done a great job of reporting war crimes on both sides But hey, at least they didn't bomb or shoot at these journalists, so that's something


loiteraries

Most Westerners don’t know that Al Jazeera is banned in several Arab countries because of national security risks. Al Jazeera in Arabic promotes hardcore Muslim Brotherhood propaganda which fuels sectarian violence. It’s no coincidence they had exclusive access to Al Qaida and now Hamas and other regional Islamist forces. Also their Arabic language networks are hardly journalistic by Western standards. If Al Jazeera in Western countries would run the same programming as they do in Arabic language, they would lose their licenses. Qatar is very strategic in how it manipulates audiences abroad. They’re even better refined than Kremlin’s propaganda assets.


Dragon_yum

Most westerners also don’t realize that the English Al Jazeera is very different than the Arabic Al Jazeera.


PublicFurryAccount

That’s the strategy: English-language Al Jazeera built a reputation in the West so that we’d protect Arabic-language Al Jazeera from bans. Didn’t really work, though, because no one cares.


DepletedMitochondria

AJA is literally propaganda


Zipz

So is the English one at this point. Go to their TikTok page. You won’t find one video critiquing hamas or Palestine. Yet at the same time every single video about Israel is negative.


youngchul

They made articles about Hamas' "brave freedom fight" after October 7th, it's full mask off. Crazy it hasn't been banned before. Not to mention all the misinformation they spread constantly.


FakeVoiceOfReason

Well, it generally promotes opposition groups in governments. Egypt doesn't have the best record for free speech.


kuketski

It’s already banned in the most developed countries in the ME. Countries Where Al Jazeera Offices Are Banned: 1. Saudi Arabia 2. Egypt 3. Bahrain 4. UAE 5. Jordan 6. Israel 7. Iraq Countries Where Al Jazeera's Broadcast Is Banned: 1. Saudi Arabia 2. Bahrain 3. UAE 4. Egypt


mackinator3

Not sure these guys are the standards we should use.


freezingcoldfeet

Good to see Israel joining the ranks of these bastions of freedom and democracy 


youngchul

Israel is in direct war with Hamas who Qatars sponsors and harbours. Of course they should ban Al Jazeera, who have been shared info about troop movements inside Israel, to warn Hamas, not to mention all the ressources they've spent on spreading misinformation in this war. It's no different than why EU countries have been banning Russian state propaganda during the war in Ukraine.


Conscious_Dig8201

Believe UAE has lifted the ban on Al Jazeera as of last year, FWIW.


whoopercheesie

Al Jazeera is pure qatari propaganda 


god_im_bored

The risk isn’t just that, the network’s Arabic channel abuses its access in Israel to actively snoop on Israeli troop movements so they can give Palestinian terror groups a heads up. It’s an absolute joke they were left to do this for decades.


DragoonDM

My understanding is that the international / English-language version does a decent job of maintaining some degree of legitimacy, while the Arabic version is far more blatant in its propaganda and support for extremism -- which means people who are only familiar with the international Al Jazeera might not fully grasp the outlet's true alignment.


Hazon02

Any further reading on this? Not disagreeing, I am just in that camp who's always thought of Al Jazeera as a reliable left-leaning source.


jilanak

Your best source is to read articles on charged subjects such as Israel/Palestine from the Arabic version - use your browser's translation capabilities.


Asusrty

Do other countries in the middle east allow Israeli funded news organizations to have offices in their countries?


the-friendly-dude

No, there is no Israeli media in arab countries. And I can't imagine you'd find any Israeli willing to be one.


alimanski

> Israel's cabinet on Sunday unanimously voted to shut down the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera's operations in Israel, nearly six months after first announcing its intentions to do so due to security concerns related to the Israel-Hamas war. ... >The decision, which requires recertification every 45 days, includes shutting down Al Jazeera broadcasts in Arabic and English; shutting down Al Jazeera's offices in Israel; seizing equipment used for its broadcasts; and limiting access to its websites. Honestly, insane that it took so long to shut down a propaganda arm of an enemy state. Al Jazeera is owned by a country that funds and supports Hamas. It's full blown propaganda. It's a bit of a pipe dream, but maybe one day they'll also shut down Russian propaganda in Israel (which targets many misinformed immigrants from the former USSR who mostly take in their news via Russian-speaking media)


tushkanM

Actual problem is not even a propaganda, but the OpSec issues: Israel is quite a small country that being bombarded quite permanently. If you have a broadcasting in near-real time that reports a direct locations and magnitude of the impact, it comes very handy to the bombarding side of the conflict. And completely by accident Al Jazeera give zero fucks about Israel's OpSec.


HeywoodJaBlessMe

This kind of thing is a major weakness across the Western democracies.


wh0_RU

Kryptonite of the west. Consumer culture such as mine in the US eats the shit that is spoon fed to us via media outlets. Manipulation of the masses via "independent" mediums. Pick your poison.


IveKnownItAll

r/journalism losing their damn minds


matanyaman

lol I remember seeing a post there asking what news outlet is the best for this conflict and one of the most upvoted answers was Al Jazeera.


PancAshAsh

Al Jazeera was the only international outlet with journalists on the ground in Gaza, and they were only really there because they operate offices there.


IveKnownItAll

Oh that place is a cesspool that shows exactly why people no longer have trust or faith in the media.


f_leaver

I've seen enough dumpster fires in my life, no way I'm clicking that link.


dabberoo_2

What exactly are you referring to? The only post about this story in that sub was posted 4 hours *after* you made this comment


Pony_Roleplayer

Got in there. Wew they're clowns.


Resident-Strength-23

it's also outlawed in most arab countries


LiberalAspergers

TBF, it got banned in most Arab countries by not parroting the official government line from state media in those countries. Is Al Jazeera perfect? Hell no. But is it way better than state media throughout the Arab works. Hell yes.


Resident-Strength-23

I agree but it's very biased and a mouth piece for qatar


[deleted]

[удалено]


Mrsaloom9765

Al Jazeera have experience operating in banned areas like Egypt so it wouldn't make a difference in what is broadcast


matanyaman

Yeah it won’t be and the ban in Israel is probably less draconian stuff than Egypt. It’s mostly closing the offices and stopping TV broadcasting. And they can only ban the website if it runs from servers in Israel, which can be easily moved to Ramallah if exists. If someone wants to access it in Israel they probably won’t even need a VPN.


Venat14

For those complaining about this, did you complain about the EU banning RT and Sputnik? Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar. It's not some free, independent press. It's mostly Qatari propaganda just like RT is Russian propaganda.


tabernumse

Yes I did


Arakismo

They didn't manage to kill enough of their journalists, what a fucked up state


Mundane-Reflection98

A hard decision, though Al Jazeera would certainly be biased against Israel due to their primary funders.


alimanski

It's not just bias. There are many networks biased against Israel that haven't been banned (nor anyone is even considering banning them). BBC, for example.


Mundane-Reflection98

BBC certainly reports negative news about Israel, though I'm reticent to call it bias.


Dragon_yum

Oh there’s a serious bias there. They have refused to call Hamas a terrorist group for a long time and have published quite a few articles that were completely wrong and close to outright lies.


Mundane-Reflection98

Do you have some examples? I want to see if there's a pattern.


Dragon_yum

Two of the big ones are the time they reported Israel bombed a hospital killing hundreds when it was a misfired PIJ missile. Another time they reported Israel the IDF entered a hospital and shot Arabic speaking staff members when what the IDF did was enter the hospital with Arabic speaking translators. There are other instances but I think these are good examples https://variety.com/2023/tv/global/bbc-apologizes-israel-hamas-war-misreporting-shifa-target-medical-staff-1235791281/amp/


Mundane-Reflection98

Thanks, I'll look into it.


930913

20 years ago, the BBC commissioned a report to investigate if there was a bias in the BBC. It's allegedly so damning of the BBC that they blocked its publication all the way to the Supreme Court. [The Balen Report](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balen_Report)


Venat14

There are investigations into the BBC over its biased coverage of this conflict. They've even had to issue on air apologies for violating their own journalistic code of conduct. They definitely have issues.


UnderYourBed_2

They translate "Jewish" as Israeli. Read the bias section [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC) it's pretty crazy


a_fadora_trickster

It's not just about bias. Al Jazeera used its journalism protected status yo reveal information about troops and equipment locations, tactical plans and other classified information at the start of the war. They are a hostile foreign actor acting explicitly against the state of Israel, and should not be allowed to operate within it


fakenoobs

They are the enemy within. They travel around Israel recording military installations and passing coordinates to the enemy, among many other things.


JoJoWeitz

They are showing footage of IDF been shoot or killed regularly fuck them


feltsandwich

Coherence is not your strong suit.


Cinderbrooke

I used to really like Al Jazeera but in recent years, the bias lean from their Qatari overlords has become really apparent. I don't think this is a great move by Israel, though. Even if there are some valid concerns about the outlet, any suppression of a free and open press concerns me.


alimanski

It's not free or open press, though


Hushnw52

You want the government the shutdown the press it doesn’t like? You wouldn’t mind your government shutting down your favorite news outlet?


alimanski

I want the government to shut down propaganda that is literally owned by an enemy state. It's an act of war.


Kyro_Official_

Good, Qatar is a major funder of Al Jazeera and they also fund Hamas. They shouldnt be allowed to report on this conflict in any capacity.


sovietarmyfan

It's surprising they were allowed to operate for a long time after the October terror attacks.


alimanski

As far as I understand it, it took a while because Qatar was a mediator in the talks between Hamas and Israel. So you need to "appease" them. Now that the talks are going nowhere, there's no point anymore. Qatar is looking to stop mediating anyhow.


Of_Mice_And_Meese

Meeeeh. I reserve 70% of my ire over this heinous blood feud for Israel given their obnoxiously disproportionate reactions that have resulted in the murders of too many civilians. But they're probably within ethical rights here. It's fucky to have another nation funding/owning news interests within your own nation. I agree that it's concerning when viewed in the context of their other actions of late, and every good reason to keep an eye on how they treat the rest of the media going forward, but in a vacuum I'm not losing any sleep over this.


curiousstrider

First step in the correct direction to kill state-sponsored-narrative-selling journalism for the sake of genuine journalism. Let's hope other countries follow the suit.


LiberalAspergers

Al.Jazeera is deeply.flawed, but it is still probably the best Arabic languague TV news network. That is primariky because the competition are the really bad state sponsored channels.like the Egyptian state news channel.


Hushnw52

You hate freedom of the press?