I noticed a good amount of people talking about Al Jazeera in the BBC paywall thread and that make me ask, why!?
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Its a large organization. There’s Al Jazeera, and then there’s its Al Jazeera English subdivision which operates with widely different team. The latter has a reputation for high quality journalism and has won multiple awards for it - the former exhibits more bias in its reporting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_awarded_to_Al_Jazeera_English
I would say the BBC is no more trusted and should not be any more trusted than AJ English. Each have biases and each are capable of very high quality investigative journalism.
Why wouldn’t they?
It’s hard not to interpret this comment in a western chauvinistic light.
Even if you don’t like al jazeera, remember they’re some of the few who cover Gaza in person and a whole lot of Africa and other developing nations. I don’t blindly trust them, but many western news agencies are barely reporting on the same thing. If they’re not covering these nations, why are we complaining about one of the networks that do it?
You need to receive news from a broad variety of sources, not just those that agree with your viewpoint or have a particular agenda.
Al Jazeera obviously have a pro-Qatari but less so than Fox News for example or any billionaire owned newspaper/TV channel have biases.
Aggregate from all sides and the truth will be somewhere in the middle.
There’s a saying among BBC journalists that all who work there eventually end up at Al Jazeera.
Watch one of my favorite documentaries of all time, Control Room (2004) about coverage of the Iraq War.
Al Jazeera is far from perfect, and I’d argue has fallen from its peak in terms of quality. But it’s still worth viewing to get a more well rounded perspective.
Now do I believe they can cover topics that hit close to Qatari interests? Not necessarily. For those I take with a grain of salt.
As we quickly learned during the George W Bush era, no news media agency can be trusted. To counter this, check reporting of the same incident from multiple news agencies and find the consistent facts. Everything else is suspect.
In a hurry, see if Reuters or AP has covered it, but verify when you have the time.
Done this way AJ is perfectly viable as a source for news, in that the bias can be filtered out.
FOX and OANN are known to lie or misrepresent facts entirely, but that gets filtered through cross-checking.
Trust, but verify.
Their original staff was a bunch of pretty serious journalists sourced from the BBC.
Imo it’s not about saying this or that org is least biased or less biased, it’s acknowledging the biases present in all news orgs and comparing the reporting from multiple sources.
Becuase it was founded with the same journalistic practices as the BBC.
I’m not sure I consider them a trustworthy source per se. I don’t think they’re necessarily less trustworthy than the BBC. BBC is propping up a Western colonialist perspective. (Not trying to beat up on the Beeb specifically. Major trusted U.S. news sources tend to more specifically support U.S. nationalism … even the “liberal” ones.)
I think if a viewer / reader in a Western mindset, the difference in the blind spots between Al Jazeera’s perspective and Western media will complement each other in a way that will give readers / viewers a more well-rounded perspective on history. At least as compared to sticking only to Western perspectives.
Very well-put. AJ helps me get the ‘Eastern’ perspective of world events, which can get sanitized by the West. Taking the Gaza War as an example, BBC/any US media outlet is almost always going to take a pro-Israel bias—even inadvertently. I think it’s important to hear from groups who don’t have incentives to portray israel in a good light. Again, tho, that’s one example, and you should always consult multiple news sources.
It’s not about being exactly more reliable than the other big ones. More about being a second perspective, filling in the gaps of the western ones.
Yeah, read a couple of sources and take the average.
Always bear in mind who funds it.
Be careful with the taking average mindset. It’s a default human one, and it’s being abused. A lot of media outlets (particularly American right wing) are mouthpieces for the same few groups or people.
Instead, try and look at their biases. Do they have a reason to mislead you. What akin do they have in a particular game. E.g. the BBC is still fairly unbiased on a lot of world news. They are far less unbiased on middle eastern politics now.
It’s an annoyingly complex problem to solve, on the fly.
E.g. the BBC is still fairly unbiased on a lot of world news.
No? Why do you think this?
They are far less unbiased on middle eastern politics now.
Have you considered that you may have only noticed that they’re aren’t unbiased on the middle east.
Al Jazeera is funded by the Qatari government. Make of that what you will.
The BBC is funded by britain
Scepticism should always be applied to any state-run media.
Private media is not any more trustworthy than state run.
Please refer to the other comment where I address this.
Where?
The second comment of mine you replied to.
?
Is it better for media to be privately owned by billionaires?
No, definitely not. I don’t think there is any news source I would trust 100%. You need to seek out multiple sources and try to sus it out yourself. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. I don’t claim to have all the answers but in my experience state media tends to be less than trustworthy. I’d say BBC is okay but they’ve had some big fuck ups before.
in my experience state media tends to be less than trustworthy.
How did you determine that?
I’d say BBC is okay
You haven’t been watching their year and a half of genocide support?
I’d be happy to consider your argument. First I ask you to pease refer me to some trustworthy state media.
Did you reply to the wrong comment?
I don’t believe so.
Ok. Seemed odd that you’d leave a comment with no relation to mine in response.
You made this a question about Al Jazeera but I think at the same time it should be a question about you. What type of media are you trying to consume about what topics with what goals? Depending on that answer, the utility of Al Jazeera to your life would massively change.
One general approach to understanding national domestic policies is to read one or two papers from your country and then to read one or two papers from a different country, or preferably two different countries, and see how the information stacks up. if you want English language media, maybe you have something like BBC and then … Gosh it’s hard to think of any decent US newspapers … Seattle Times? … Maybe something Canadian, and then maybe something Qatari? Why not.
That type of media consumption avoids some common pitfalls, but it’s not perfect. Most mainstream media outlets tend to be pro-establishment, whatever that may mean.
How about you give your supported and and reasoned opinions for why it is an untrustworthy source?
