The sale of Al Gore’s Current TV to Al Jazeera is apparently more than just a business deal in which the world’s most prominent critic of fossil fuels made a fortune with an oil-rich emirate. According to the New York Times editorial page, the creation of a new Al Jazeera America is a blow struck for diversity in journalism. The Times feels Time Warner Cable is wrong to drop the new channel from its broadcast lineup. The implication is that those who have expressed shock or outrage about the spectacle of a former vice president of the United States becoming not merely a business partner but an advocate for a network that is well known for its anti-American and anti-Israel bias are either narrow-minded or in some way prejudiced against Arabs and Muslims.
The idea that the general disgust about Gore’s $100 million Arab oil windfall is more evidence of American parochialism or prejudice is absurd. No one is trying to censor Al Jazeera. If there are enough American viewers who want to watch news broadcast from the perspective of the channel’s Qatari government owners, then cable providers will give it to them and they are welcome to it. But that doesn’t obligate Time Warner or any other distributor to give it valuable space on a list of available channels if there aren’t enough viewers to justify such a decision. After all, those who want to look at the world from the point of view of those who promote 9/11 truther myths and who sympathize with those who fought the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan can always watch Al Jazeera on the Internet or find other outlier niches to hold their attention.
The real issue here is not a false argument about diversity. It is instead one about what it means to be a liberal in today’s media environment. As Alana noted yesterday, Gore refused to sell his channel to conservative Glenn Beck saying that he didn’t wish to see his vanity project fall into the hands of those who disagreed with his politics. Fair enough. But the fact that Gore sees Al Jazeera as a good match for his brand of American liberalism speaks volumes about the nature of that set of beliefs.
Most Americans still think of Al Jazeera as the network that was Osama bin Laden’s outlet to the world in the years after 9/11. Since then, it has earned a reputation in some quarters as the best source of news about the Arab and Muslim world, especially during the Arab Spring protests. But its perspective remains one in which the United States and Israel are routinely pilloried and where terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are depicted as freedom fighters.
I don’t worry about Al Jazeera being able to persuade most Americans to buy into this skewed view of the world. What is worrisome is that Gore and other liberals such as the editorial writers at the Times seem to think there is a connection between this perspective and contemporary American liberalism.
Though the overwhelming majority of Americans reject this point of view and are strong supporters of Israel, polls have consistently shown us that liberals and Democrats are less likely to back the Jewish state than conservatives and Republicans. At the beginning of his career Gore was seen as the leader of the next generation of Scoop Jackson Democrats. That Al Gore would never have gotten into bed with Al Jazeera. But in his current incarnation as hypocritical environmental huckster and profiteer he seems to reflect the way the left has abandoned the principles that once united Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy. While conservatives and liberals have plenty to argue about, one would have hoped that they would be united in their revulsion against the kind of bias that Al Jazeera exemplifies. If indeed there is a connection between Al Jazeera’s views and contemporary liberalism, there is a sickness on the left that ought to trouble all Americans.
I would watch it, simply because many times foreign media covers news that the media herd in America does not cover.
It would be the only network other than Fox that isn't Jewish-dominated, and Fox might as well be. n nAJE doesn't seem particularly anti-Israel to me. But then any modicum of accuracy on the subject seems anti-Israel to hasbarists like the author. n
OK, Mr. Mearsheimer – hey, I've got a well-used copy of The Protocols up on eBay. Interested? nYou are a fool, sir.
Yeah, Grumpy, but we still got the banks and the stock market! And Congress! and the entertainment industry! And the international arms industry! n nAnd just wait until you need a doctor and have to go to either a Jew or to a Jew-trained doctor that we secretly indoctrinated — bwahahahahaha! n n/sarcasm off n nBut I bet it cost you blood to remember to say Jewish-dominated and not Jew-dominated. n n
You both are over reacting! nOld Grumpy has some points here.
Really? I cannot tell whether you mean that the networks are in fact Jewish dominated, or whether you are saying that Al Jazzeera is in fact more accurate in its Israel reporting than the networks are. Either opinion is at best delusional.
Or maybe yamama thinks Fox might as well be Jewish-dominated? Hard to tell.
What? Anytime someone starts in with the "Jewish-dominated" or "Jew-controlled" schtick, it's time to tune out. Whatever points he may think he's making are lost in his anti-semitic idiocy.
You apparently have never watched it if you think it "doesn't seem particularly anti-Israel"!! nAs a resident of Tampa Bay, I am pleased that Time Warner Communications will no longer make it available to the 4.2 million residents of the area. For you to imply that Al Jazeera presents the news in an accurate and unbiased manner demonstrates your lack of familiarity with their broadcasts which I have watched via internet. n nAl-Jazeera takes two editorial routes: its English-language programs present a moderate version of its propaganda, different from what is broadcast by its Arabic-language programs. Nonetheless, its purpose seems to be to spread Islam and undermine secularism. They support: Hamas and have advocated the toppling of the PA in the West Bank, the Muslim Brotherhood's Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Jabhat Alnusra Al Islamiya in Syria, an al-Qaeda-affiliate which is gradually taking over the Free Syrian Army and is now being called out by international human right groups for mass slaughter of Syrian civilians who shaved their faces or who don't wear burqua's! n nSo before you endorse Al Jazeera and praise their news coverage, I would suggest that you learn a bit more about it. Yes, it isn't "Jewish dominated" (and neither is CNN, ABC, NBS and CBS) but if that's your reference point you truly are a grumpy old man.
It appears obvious to me that most on the left favor the Arab/Muslim side over the Israeli/Jewish side; which is pretty damn crazy when you think about it but there we are.
The first amendment is a shield not a sword. No one has the Constitutional right to be published by someone else. This is the same nonsensical rationale Holocaust deniers try to use. If Al Gore Jazeera is pulled from Time Warner then that's Gore Jazeera's problem no one else's.
The amount of hypocrisy in this story is all the proof we need that liberals are not serious about anything other than gaining power and using it to assist their own interest-groups. They have no moral compass. (Grumpy Old Man above is the perfect example of contemporary, vacuous liberalism.) nBut we already knew that, didn't we?
As Orwell's party member explained to Winston in 1984: "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
Great quote. Thanks.
Let Al Jazeera come. The Arab World is so monumentally incapable of hiding its primitive prejudices and general incompetence that we would all benefit by seeing them for ourselves, instead of allowing our regular media to select the least objectionable of these idiocies for us to see. The same for the predictable loonies who come to this site. Look at them, laugh and don't respond. They seem to have no idea of how stupid they sound.
the media? n nA Jewish man who was riding on the London Underground reading an Arab newspaper. n nA friend of his, who happened to be riding in the same underground car, noticed this strange phenomenon. Very upset, he approached the newspaper reader. n n"Moishe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading an Arab newspaper?" n nMoishe replied, n n"I used to read the Jewish newspaper, but what did I find? n nJews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through assimilation and intermarriage, Jews living in poverty. n n So I switched to the Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? n nJews own all the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world. The news is so much better!" n nheh
First told (AFAIK) about a Jew reading a Nazi newspaper, then about reading Father Coughlin's Social Justice newspaper, and later the Liberty Lobby's Spotlight, but always a reliable smile generator.
Is the New York Times referred to in this post the same NYT that wants to declare the Constitution irrelevant to the times we live in? If so, why would anyone take them seriously anymore?
Just say goodbye to your rights and freedoms as you know them now. We have lost many in the past 20 years, and when the next round of congressional seats appear on the ballot, Obama will have Americans so pissed off at the Conservative right, that there will be a Democratic majority in Congress during his last two years as President. Once this happens, every radical change that Obama wants will occur. Even amending the constitution so he can get re-elected in 2016. This wonderful country as we know will be destroyed. Wake up America……..you are so blind if you don't see it. You can Bush all you want, but the last two years of Bush's Presidency, there was a two thirds Democratic majority that Liberals want to ignore, and so Bush gets blamed for the problems we currently have. If every thing was Bush's fault, why aren't we doing better as a country now? May God Bless Us All. I can still say that……….for now.