Re: Re:No news is bad news in Motown

["Sean Smyth" <ssmyth@suscom.net>]

Sven Franklyn Weil said:
> On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Roger Kirk wrote:
>> just like Al Jazeera - totally unbiased - and you only need to watch
>> one
>
> Al-Jazeera is an independent commercial all-news channel, like CNN or
> MSNBC or Fox News Channel here in th USA and they sell commercial time.
>
> http://www.al-jazeera.net
>
> for those of you who can read Arabic. Although I wish they had an
> English  language section also, would be nice for those of us looking
> for a  perspective from the actual place where things are happening. :)

Ironically, al-Jazeera (critical of America) is controlled by the same
interests who control the Qatar government, and Qatar bases are supposed
to be where any attack from Iraq will be launched.

For the Middle East, al-Jazeera is relatively unbiased; they have
interviewed Israeli and American government officials. Now, I have heard
they sometimes misrepresent the stances of some of these officials and
aren't exactly unbiased reporters. However, considering the fact that most
of the media in the Middle East is government-controlled (or government-
sanctioned) and the only people who receive unfiltered news on TV are
those who get CNN, an Arabic all-news station providing a semblance of
balance isn't the worst thing in the world.