Think Global, Act Loco

The Webby Awards, that annual reminder that Internet culture has its roots in and around San Francisco, has named Al-Jazeera.net as one of its five nominees for best news site.

Comments

[Jennifer]

You have to admire a Website with a section titled “Conspiracy Theories.”

[Stephen Macklin]

I’m only surprised the forums at the Democratic Underground weren’t nominated for anything.

[joe]

Where are the resident Fox News supporters, I wonder? They’re usually so eager to argue in support of self-consciously biased news programming. I’d expect them to commend Al-Jazeera for rejecting objectivity as a journalistic ideal.

[JimInNOVA]

“I’d expect them to commend Al-Jazeera for rejecting objectivity as a journalistic ideal.”

Right, bcause we all know the other major news outlets are bias free and run with nothing but the best interest of the people at heart.

I’m not saying I want to give Fox News any objectivity awards, but lets not pretend they’re doing something that CNN and MSNBC are not.

[Andy]

Here I am!!! 😉

What I have to say about FoxNews is that their OPINION pieces are clearly conservatively biased (can an opinion be biased – isn’t that the whole point???), but their news seems to my eyes and ears to be as objective as can be expected from journalists who have a world view. There’s my biases opinion.

But why the heck are libertarians hammering FoxNews so hard for? Libertarians get a helluva lot more play on Fox than anywhere else that I’ve seen. Am I wrong about that? Cato and Heritage guys are on about every day.

[Brian]

Libertarians bash Fox News because it’s hip to bash Fox News. Or so it would appear.

Brian, libertarian and closeted Fox fan

[joe]

Jim,

NBC, PBS, CNN et al do fall short of their ideal of objectivity, but at least they try. Fox and Al Jazeera are purposely pulling for the home team.

Now, there are arguments for against an avowedly partisan press. My point is that those people most eager to praise Fox for being up front with its biases, rather than cloaking them in a shroud of objectivity, are the same that are most eager to chastise Al Jazeera for doing the same thing.

[Dan]

Where are the resident Fox News supporters, I wonder? They’re usually so eager to argue in support of self-consciously biased news programming.

Fox News supporters generally argue that it’s nice to see a network that’s biased in a non-lefty direction for a change, not that bias itself is inherently good.

NBC, PBS, CNN et al do fall short of their ideal of objectivity, but at least they try.

What a load of horseshit!

[Fox Smox]

Fox gets the badmouth because its a 24 Hour opinion channel that calls itself News.

The only difference between the Daily Show and Fox is, the Daily Show admits that they arent news.

Just about every ‘jounalist’ in the Fox lineup has his/her roots in the Tabloids. If Barbara Walters first gig was writing for the National Weekly News or The Star, im sure her credibility would be nil.
Yet, Fox supporters hold Bill O’Reilly up as some kind of champion for news. Heres a news flash for you, Bill O’Reilly’s only claim to fame before Fox dug him out of the gutter was reporting tabloid celebrity worship ‘news’ on Hard Copy, not exactly award winning jounalisim and hardly qualifies him to speak about political or world events as some kind of expert. Unless you consider digging in Sharon Stones garbage can for old recipts a prequalifier for expertise in electoral process.

[fyodor]

Joe,

Can’t say I’ve even read much less could remember each and every comment to Hit & Run, but the one time I remember someone overtly dissing the whole concept of espoused objectivity in journalism, it was Kevin Carson, and my guess is that he’s no big fan of Fox News.

That said, my very first reaction to Welch’s post was that “best” may not necessarily mean “most accurate.” The Webby Awards may be citing Al-Jazeera for similar reasons to why Time chose Adolph Hitler Man of the Year, that they’ve had a big impact, or some such. But THAT said, I haven’t read their reasons or criteria, so I really don’t know….

[Warren]

their news seems to my eyes and ears to be as objective as can be

HA HA HA HAHAHAHA HEE HEE HEE AHHHHHH HAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HEHEHEHEHEHEHE

That’s the funniest shit I’ve read all day

[Joe Majsterski]

Andy,

Okay, I think the Cato Institute is great, but the Heritage Foundation is a straight up conservative group. I’m not exactly thrilled with their views on a lot of subjects. Still, Fox News is the only station I’ve seen do an interview with Gary Nolan so far. He had an awesome quote when asked what he would be able to do if he were president and he still had to contend with a Democrat/Republican congress:

“Just think of me as your designated driver in a room full of drunks.”

Brilliant stuff. Has anyone else seen him anywhere else?

[Douglas Fletcher]

“Where are the resident Fox News supporters, I wonder? They’re usually so eager to argue in support of self-consciously biased news programming.”

They must still have the hiccups from laughing about the Al Franken network.

[Jennifer]

Al-Jazeera is the only news site I know of where English speakers can hear about the bad side of our Iraq occupation.

I have heard a lot of people criticize Al-J for only reporting the bad part of the invasion (a true-enough charge) but nobody has been able to demonstrate that they are lying. Basically, the complaints boil down to “Huccome you keep talking about all the Iraqi babies we’ve killed? Why can’t you mention the good stuff, like the fact that satellite TV dishes are now legal in Iraq?”

Al-Jazeera is biased against the occupation; Fox News is biased in favor of it. Put the two together and perhaps you’ll have the Truth.

[Joe Majsterski]

Jennifer,

Good point. Al-Jazeera has had some major scoops in the last year, also, that no one else mentioned/knew about.

[MALAK]

To further J’s point: Isn’t that what most people do? Listen/read/watch the various arguments on any issue, and then make an informed decision about the issues?

[Dan]

Al-Jazeera is the only news site I know of where English speakers can hear about the bad side of our Iraq occupation.

Try Indymedia. You’ll love it.

[Douglas Fletcher]

NPR?

[MALAK]

Oops. That damn sarcasm button again . . .

[dj of raleigh]

Just this week Dan Rather and NBC Nightly News
told of the sudden death of a McDonalds executive,
and used that tragedy to lead into a Fries-are-bad story.
They then used french fries as the focus of a cancer causer food,
when in truth many other, unnamed, foods were carcinogenic,
and none of them determined by a valid process or study.
CBS is worse than ABC is worse than NBC is worse than Fox,
but CNN is the worst of all.

[joe]

I think Fox is worse than CBS is worse than CNN is worse than ABC and NBC (tie), all of whom are miles worse than the Jim Lehrer Newshour.

[Matthew]

How the hell does Drudge not make the top 5 news sites? Like him or not, he’s hugely popular and has a knack for getting news first. Strange.

[dc]

Under the Activism Category, the only website that’s not lefty is the Institute for Humane Studies’ aWorldConnected.org, a pro-globalization, free trade educational site for students.

The others – including scamster Morris Dees’ tolerance.org and Indy Media’s San Francisco website – are all left or way-to-the-left.

[joe]

What’s wrong with Morris Dees?

[dc]

From Harper’s

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1806_301/66680491/p1/article.jhtml

Also The Nation has written about him. He’s made millions off the civil rights movement.

[Don]

“NBC, PBS, CNN et al do fall short of their ideal of objectivity, but at least they try. Fox and Al Jazeera are purposely pulling for the home team.”

“they try” should be changed to “they lie”.

[Don]

“Al-Jazeera is biased against the occupation; Fox News is biased in favor of it. Put the two together and perhaps you’ll have the Truth.”

Al-Jazeera is more than biased: “The Times obtained documents from top secret Iraqi intelligence files that cover the period from August 1999 to November 2002. The files show three Iraqi agents worked inside the network. Their mission was to secure favorable coverage by the network for the Saddam Hussein regime.”

And: “Iraqi intelligence also claims that it dissuaded the network from airing footage of a 1988 Iraqi chemical attack on the Kurds.”

http://www.aim.org/publications/media_monitor/2003/06/18.html

And even if such symmetry in news exists, my guess is that it is largely unavailable in the Middle East.

It is also quite possible to tell what is essentially the truth (including dubious eye witness accounts), while doing so in a very missleading way. The BBC’s bad reporting of the Pvt. Lynch rescue mission comes to mind.

[Andy]

“HA HA HA HAHAHAHA HEE HEE HEE AHHHHHH HAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HEHEHEHEHEHEHE

That’s the funniest shit I’ve read all day”

Good comeback Warren. I’m intellectually devastated….

The implication of my comment was pretty clear. All journalists have opinions which affect their coverage. Some journalists conceal them better than others. Anyone who stays abreast of news can watch 10 minutes of ANY network and see what is left out of a story. My point is the NEWS (as opposed to opinion for those of you have have the moron twins O’reilly and Hannity in their heads) coverage that FoxNews supplies is pretty good.

A previous poster disputes my suggestion that Heritage Foundation is a libertarian-friendly group. Fine, I’ll grant that. But Cato Institute – those guys are on FoxNews damn near every day, it seems!

[joe]

Actually, Fox News does some really great reporting. They’re biased as hell, but you’re a lot less likely to stupid water skiing dog stories there than anyone except PBS.