Despite an embargo by the corporate cable systems, as Secretary Clinton noted, “Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news, like it or hate it, it is really effective.”
Clinton speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. is losing the “information war” in the world. Other countries and global news outlets, she said, were making much more inroads into places like the Middle East than American media were. One of the reasons she cited for this was the quality of channels like Al Jazeera. The channel, she said, was “changing peoples’ minds and attitudes.
“Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news,”
The contrast with American media is even more telling here at home. During the last several weeks I have turned to Al Jazeera for news (via the net) because the simple coverage of facts by the American media has been abysmal. The best the American media seemed to do was to teleport in its star anchors. Acting like Olympian Deities in the Iliad, the Anchors came with large staffs, pontificated on what “they” saw and … left. In contrast Al Jazeera had and still has reporters on the ground.
Even discussion on the US media was and still is superficial. Over and over again, Al jaeera runs panels with politicians, experts, and involved citizens. These panels are not comprised of its own talking heads or of the networks panel of paid contributors. Even in the US, AJ panels have experts from opposing think tanks and political groups.
This failure of the corporate American media has not escaped the attention of the business world. From the Business Insider site:
(Clinton says) “Al Jazeera is winning. The Chinese have opened up a global English language and multi-language television network, the Russians have opened up an English language network. I’ve seen it in a couple of countries and it’s quite instructive.”
She warns that Republicans want to cut the State Department budget by half.
Jeff Jarvis of the Buzz Machine Blog makes an important contrast:
What the Gulf War was to CNN, the people’s revolutions of the Middle East are to Al Jazeera English. But in the U.S., in a sad vestige of the era of Freedom Fries, hardly anyone can watch the channel on cable TV.
He goes on:
It is downright un-American to still refuse to carry it. 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.
Yes, we can watch AJE on the internet. But as much of an internet triumphalist as I am, internet streaming is not going to have the same impact–political and education impact–that putting AJE on the cable dial would have. I can watch AJE in the Zurich hotel room where I am now; I want to be able to watch it on my couch at home.