Al Jazeera

Israel declared against Al Jazeera today, which surprised me. I wasn't surprised by the move from Saudi Arabia. Firstly Al Jazeera is the most effective competitor against Saudi state TV and secondly they were passionately supportive of the Arab Spring, cover Saudi massacres in Yemen where no one else will, and have been reasonably positive in their coverage of Iran in Syria.  And of course Egypt has jailed an Al Jazeera journalist for years so they are no surprise.

But Israel, they are at least nominally on the side of liberal values e.g. a free press and also there's no other Arabic news source which is so balanced on Israel. Not balanced mind, they're very pro Palestinian, but like civil and they seek comment from Israel etc. It's not heathen devil coverage anyway. 

Anyway I wouldn't have thought that a news organization that contains like 30 percent ex BBC journalists would come under this kind of fire. Especially basically without western support and with some western aggression. I knew the west supported Saudi Arabia despite its human rights violations but I didn't expect this kind of acceptance of an overt attack on one of the most effective journalistic institutions in the world.

So I guess with that in mind...

Why I watch Al Jazeera

1.) Journalists on the ground.
It's no secret that pundits talking in your newsroom is a lot cheaper and makes just as many ratings as getting someone out to where the story is to cover it. Al Jazeera is one of the very few organizations that still funds field reporting in a major way someone actually on the ground talking to people.

2) Worldwide coverage
Al Jazeera does have a bit of a Muslim world focus but it's truly international and they cover the whole planet mostly equally.

3) Coverage of Africa

You might think this is the same as 2 but most outlets have a real blind spot when it comes to Africa and I seek out coverage specifically. That's actually how I got into Al Jazeera to start with. I was trying to understand the DRC or something and they were the only ones doing any kind of regular coverage so you could follow a story from one week ( or month) to the next.

4) Focus on poor people

If Al Jazeera has a bias I think it is less pro Muslim or pro Arab and more pro poor. It is literally the only news outlet I can go to in print audio or TV that regularly covers ordinary people or people's movements, and good news stories as well. I saw a thing about new solar cookers going into villages there, an in depth piece on a woman raped repeatedly who had made a farming commune on marginal land for rape victims, artists in this slum in India who the government was trying to shift. For both stories like that about changes to people's lives and just interviewing civilian individuals living through the big stories there's no beating them.

5) They take in depth reporting to a new level.

I always tell the story of one of my favourite stories Al Jazeera covered about Somali refugees who were fleeing to Yemen (that's right folks to Yemen in case you thought Somalia didn't suck) and the reporter got in with the refugees and interviewed a bunch of them on the docks and then get this smuggled himself on one of the dodgy fishing boats run by not nice pirates. He got like threatened and semibeaten by these people along with the refugees and then thrown off the boat into the waves off the coast of their destination.

You can't get the story at the coal face like that any other way and it's a whole new dimension to really see it rather than like the journalists embedded with friendly troops.

6) Balance of coverage

All my other news sources are western and they have blind spots when it comes to stuff done by the west or its allies. So you hear lots about Isis but never about Yemen or Bahrain. And the Turkish connection to Isis is hushed a little. Socialist leaders in Latin America who don't play ball are strongmen. And you hear a lot more about human rights atrocities in the siege of Aleppo than the siege of Mosul.

Al Jazeera has it's blind spots too, but they're different and so I feel like I get a more complete picture having coverage from more than one different alliance grouping.

7) They're "objective"

Ok so I know no one's really objective and everyone comes from their own perspective and blah blah blah but I think there's still a difference between organizations that may have a view but let the facts speak e.g. BBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, Le Monde, the Economist, prolly still NYT and Wall street journal, the Guardian places where the story is the story and places where the story is largely created to serve the ideology like Fox news, MSNBC, the leftist rags I get on the street, Saudi and Chinese state TV. Ok so I don't really have a lot of experience with Le Monde or Chinese state TV but you get the point right?

So in conclusion they're not my only news source but they're a source for good and the free press and people having a voice that otherwise wouldn't and they sure as hell have a lot of hate for the terrorist organizations they're being accused of supporting.  More than that, they will interview both those terrorists and their victims and the Muslim civilian population that fears and hates them in a way few other people will and that I think is more damning than just calling them evildoers from across an ocean.

And if you've only ever heard Al Jazeera talked about on US news, you should check them out.  They stream online live round the clock.