...rock. They are our only connection to the truth of what's happening in the Middle-East. Fisk is a good western connection as well. Most westerners are forming opinions with absolutely no real perspective of the real world; provincialism rules, IMO.

Al-Jaz does actually have at least one correspondent on the ground inside Israel - however, he was wedged on the border with Gaza along with most of the rest of the international press corps, spectating.

This, from Calderwood, I find interesting:

After several days of following the Al-Jazeera coverage of Gaza, I've never seen a live interview with an Israeli, neither a politician nor a civilian.

I rather suspect that it's worth one's political career to talk to al-Jaz out of school and they sure don't seem to have to wanted to talk to them in school. Additionally, I know I did see some of their analytical/debate pieces that had Israelis (and also some hardline American folks) participating - can't recall any man on the street stuff, but there were a number of reasonably well known Israelis that I recall at various points.

Me, personally, I tend to think that al-Jaz has a goodly bit of coverage, particularly the debate-based pieces, that requires a much higher degree of knowledge and familiarity with the issues than any western outlet. It's not trying for "balance" by mouthing words of the spokesmen of side a vs. side b - it focuses on the story of the folks in Gaza, without buying into the notion that the story of the folks in Sderot is of equal importance. However, when they're talking about the political context and meaning, their coverage is very different in that they have tons of long format coverage that actually talks about stuff in detail.

One thing that I have seen them do that I object to pretty strongly is blurring the issues through the use of un-sourced archival footage. In their reporting on the use of WP I personally saw footage that I know came from YouTube showing demonstrations of old types of shells (that use much larger amounts of WP than do modern shells - making them much more dangerous) used in a ground burst mode - this is much, much different from how WP was actually used. Similarly, they've flatly stated things as fact that have not been established regarding the legality of weapons use. That specific issue is a lot more complicated - for good reason - than presented.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

"Maybe they don't show Israeli injuries or deaths because the ratio was so out of proportion?"

I saw the Washington bureau chief appear on (was it Colbert or Dailyshow) in the last few days, and he said that the Israelis have always let their bureau in Israel operate.

Additionally everyone should check out you can get a very high quality stream of Al Jazeera English via the marvelous http://www.livestation.com/ - which ought to be the honorary global Internet TV station engine of the Agonist!

Al Jazeera English basically has a BBC+Arab tone to it, in both accent and flow. Logical since so many of them are BBC exiles.

Interesting piece though. the whole cognitive dissonance that 'war is yummy' is specifically meshed with exactly what all of this is about - and the failure of the guy to handle the reality of war itself, he thinks it an episode of American Idol, indeed! Splendid catch, a good one for the perception management / PSYOPS playbook.
--
Hongpong.com

He really does have his head wedged up his frame.

Al-Jazeera's brand of news - you could call it "blood journalism" - takes war for what it is: a brutal loss of human life.

How about we just call that what it is - "journalism" - and save the coining of neologisms for *non-journalism*. Like, say, something attempting to pass itself off as journalism yet trying to cover war as if it *weren't* a brutal loss of human life?

Forget it, it's already been done. It's called "infotainment". Entertainment with a bit of chewy news center. You get to watch a sitcom *and* kid yourself you stayed informed.

Like having a "muffin" for breakfast at Starbucks that's actually a slice of cake.

Al Jazeera may not show pictures of Israeli deaths or injuries but it certainly reports them. I can't say the same is true of much of the US press and Palestinian deaths. These go by and large unreported. Find me a report in the US mainstream press of the November 4 attack that killed several Hamas leaders.

...adequately describes American journalism?, it sucks, IMO.
http://www.iauthorbooks.com

those American journalists who weren't complete morons knew they were probably being "watched" - mouthed platitudes about the Constitution notwithstanding.

Whistleblower: NSA spied on everyone, targeted journalists
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Wednesday January 21, 2009

Updates: Sen. Rockefeller believes NSA may have spied on him; Ex-NSA analyst believes program a remnant of 'Total Information Awareness'

Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.

"The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications," Tice claimed. "It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."

Tice further explained that "even for the NSA it's impossible to literally collect all communications. ... What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata ... and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected."

According to Tice, in addition to this "low-tech, dragnet" approach, the NSA also had the ability to hone in on specific groups, and that was the aspect he himself was involved with. However, even within the NSA there was a cover story meant to prevent people like Tice from realizing what they were doing.

"In one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them," Tice told Olbermann. "What I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7 and 365 days a year -- and it made no sense. ... I started to investigate that. That's about the time when they came after me to fire me."

When Olbermann pressed him for specifics, Tice offered, "An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists."

"To what purpose?" Olbermann asked. "I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every email sent by all the reporters at the New York Times? Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York?"

Tice did not answer directly, but simply stated, "If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything." He added, however, that he had no idea what was ultimately done with the information, except that he was sure it "was digitized and put on databases somewhere."

Gets tougher to pursue a career as a journalist when you're on a no-fly list.

Ethan Bronner | January 24

NYT -...
It turns out that both narration and mediation require common ground. But trying to tell the story so that both sides can hear it in the same way feels more and more to me like a Greek tragedy in which I play the despised chorus. It feels like I am only fanning the flames, adding to the misunderstandings and mutual antagonism with every word I write because the fervent inner voice of each side is so loud that it drowns everything else out.
more at the link

_{Yes, I can come up with a post-election signature, just... not... yet...}

(Replying to JPD's comment here)

It would take a long time for me to list my specific problems with New York Times’ reporting on Palestine over the last few years, but I might as well start with a recent Steven Erlanger article of January 17 (see link below)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/world/middleeast/17israel.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=print

Despite the article’s nominal effort to cite opposing claims and weigh ethical considerations relating to potential war crimes, you’ll notice that the Israeli sources (for the most part military) generally receive more elaboration than their opponents’ and are given the last word, especially at the end of the article. Overall, the article implies that the criticisms of Israel don’t hold much water and yet barely touches the evidence to the contrary compiled by numerous other sources (many linked by Agonist contributors in the past few weeks).

While there are too many specifics in the article to cite without taking up undue space in my response, I’ll mention a few:

The article characterizes Hamas as a terrorist organization violating international law and yet omits references to the evidence corroborating not only Israel’s long standing provocations (including the blockade and economic strangulation by Israel – downplayed in the article as “a reduced diet”) in Gaza’s recent history and also reported instances of Israeli “terrorism” (targeting civilians, using civilians as human shields, in pursuing militants, etc.) in its long standing occupation of Gaza and beyond.

Implicitly tipping the journalistic balance in favor of Livni’s claim that “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza” and lamenting that the “rockets did not stop” even though Gazans supposedly received the “minimum calories required for daily subsistence” but at the same time not acknowledging in more depth the diverse reasons why so many reputable sources violently oppose this interpretation is simply reprehensible journalism.

Regarding the question of Israel’s claims (to which the article appears to give the most credibility) that Hamas was firing from or very near the UN school, no mention was made, for example, of reporting from other publications that the photo the IDF provided to prove its point turned out to be a year old and that Israel eventually had to retract its claims. On that note, there was also no mention of the use of phosphorous (legal as a smoke screen but not for use in civilian areas), an issue well known by other investigative reporters at the time of the article. Let’s add to that the observation that, with no journalists allowed into Gaza, any self-respecting reporter is going to regard IDF testimony with some healthy skepticism.

More importantly, focusing on the technicality of legal versus ethical war conduct in isolation of previous historical context and totally omitting the question of whether, in light of Hamas’ past peace overtures, the rockets might never have fallen, and this invasion might never have been necessary, certainly appear to me as misleading the reader. This consideration is especially significant, since only the most dire, unavoidable circumstance should justify the full scale bombing of one of the most densely populated areas in the world in which the elected government can hardly isolate itself definitively from civilians.

While the NYT may appear to be more even handed than , say, Fox News, the question always to ask is what conclusions the uninformed reader will likely walk away with after reading an article. I think anyone who consults other sources, be they the Guardian, Haaretz, the Nation, Counterpunch, Uri Avnery, or even the McClatchy news bureau, will find that the Times falls short in providing the big picture, and I won’t even go into such columnists as William Kristol and Tom Friedman.

I realize there could be some legitimate responses to my criticism of the Times, but I feel that, at the very least, the core issue is selective evidence.

Americans turn to Al-Jazeera for coverage of Gaza conflict

Al-Jazeera English saw a 600% jump in its online viewership, with 60% of that growth from US viewers

McClatchy newspapers
guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 January 2009 19.52 GMT

The most comprehensive coverage of Gaza came from Al-Jazeera's English-language station. While international reporters were barred by Israel from freely entering Gaza during the fighting, Al-Jazeera had its Gaza correspondents on the ground.

And Americans apparently took notice.

According to the Associated Press, Al-Jazeera English saw a 600% jump in its online viewership, and 60% of that growth came from people watching in the US.

The station is only available on three small cable stations in the US, so most people who want to watch it from America have to go on the internet.

"Gaza ... was a breakthrough opportunity to make an impact with people who are less aware of Al-Jazeera than we'd like," said Tony Burman, managing director of the English-language channel in Qatar.

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