The news that Qatar-based Al-Jazeera has agreed to purchase Al Gore’s Current TV has stirred controversy throughout the mediasphere. For the most part the debate has been driven by conservative xenophobes worried that Sharia law would be imposed on American viewers via x-rays emanating from their television screens.
The usual suspects on the right have issued their predictably alarmist warnings about Al-Jazeera plotting to brainwash what they must regard as a gullible American public. Obviously their assessment of gullibility is based on their experience with Fox News viewers. The rest of us are quite capable of discerning fact from fiction and developing informed opinions from diverse news sources. But the censorious right-wingers insist on having only one mindset available to the U.S. television audience.
Some of the knee-jerk reactions from conservative critics include Bill O’Reilly saying that “Gore has shamed himself simply by selling to Al-Jazeera.” Frequent Fox News guest Matt McCall saying of Gore that “To me, he’s now associating himself with Al-Qaeda.” Glenn Beck complained that his own sham attempt to bid on Current was dismissed and therefore Gore is un-American. Stuart Varney of Fox News defended Beck by castigating Gore for rejecting Beck but saying “Okay [to] big oil, the sheikhdom of Qatar.” The uber-rightist Media Research Center’s Dan Gainor alleged that “lefties love Al-Jazeera” and then whined that “The purchase is part of a larger trend of foreign media outlets.”
There is a lot there to chew on. First of all, the trend toward foreign ownership of media outlets was never more pronounced than when Rupert Murdoch crossed the Atlantic to launch Fox News. And it is absurd to suggest that Gore is somehow more pro-Big Oil than those at Fox who defend foreign oil corporations while vehemently condemning the development of renewable, domestic energy sources, and disputing the scientific reality of climate change.
Much of the criticism aimed at Gore was directed at his having cashed out to a state-based media enterprise. For some reason these alleged free-market proponents are all of a sudden opposed to a businessman making a profitable deal that will advance economic activity and create jobs. As for the involvement of the nation of Qatar as the financial backer of the new network, these small-minded critics conveniently forget that the second largest shareholder of News Corp, outside of the Murdoch family, is Alwaleed bin Talal, a prince of the Saudi royal family. And therein lies another hypocrisy. The critics complain falsely that Al-Jazeera is aligned with terrorists, but if they are intent on forming ludicrous associations between news networks and terrorism, they might do better to recall that the plotters and hijackers on 9/11, including Osama bin Laden, were from Saudi Arabia, not Qatar.
[Note: Qatar is friendly to the west, is a major supplier of natural gas to the U.S., and has been an ally in American military endeavors including in Libya and Syria, as well as providing bases for the United States Central Command in support of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan]
What’s more, Fox is engaging in their own unique brand of terrorism by literally inciting terror in the minds of their viewers. The demonstrably false allegations that Fox continues to spread about President Obama are designed to create a sense of dread. They have built a fear factory that alleges that Obama is deliberately trying to destroy America on behalf of the extremist Muslims they believe he was invented to represent. They assert that he will become a tyrant who will abolish the Constitution, confiscate guns, criminalize religion, and condemn dissenters to prison camps. It’s a brand of fright-inducing journalism that has the potential to result in actual hostilities. In fact, it already has. (More examples: the murder of Dr. Tiller; the mass shootings at the Wisconsin Sikh Temple; and the Beck-inspired gunman who was apprehended on his way to kill people at the offices of the ACLU and the Tides Foundation).
There has also been a great deal of commentary about the quality of the journalism produced by Al-Jazeera. Most of the conservative echo chamber has trashed the network. But as that haven of Islamic propaganda, the Wall Street Journal, has noted, the network “has gained plaudits for its international coverage.” Indeed, it has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Polk and Peabody awards. They have also been honored by the Foreign Press Association and the International Emmys. Compare that to the recognition received by Fox News from these organizations that judge journalistic excellence – which amounts to zero awards.
In conclusion, Fox News is more closely related to actual terrorists than Al-Jazeera. Fox News is not as highly regarded for their reporting as Al-Jazeera. Fox News is more biased in favor of Big Oil than Al Jazeera. Fox News denigrates successful business transactions more than Al-Jazeera. By virtually every standard that Al-Jazeera’s critics use to disparage the network, Fox News is worse. The one thing that Fox News excels at is distorting these facts, promoting themselves, and slandering their competitors. But I don’t think anyone is giving out awards for that.
Spot on correct.
But somehow I must shame human audiences for going along with it all. Fox is just running the barkers at a media carnival. And people are stuck shooting rubber ducks for stuffed animal toys. After a few minutes of flashing colored lights, what is there?
Al Gore is as big a liar as Obama. I do not believe a word either of them say. Sick & tired of all the bull that is on TV, radio & e-mails. We need a complete clean out of the entire Congress,
I trust only a few that actually speak the truth. Where are all the Bush haters? He cared about America & did all he could to keep us safe. I do not feel safe anymore.
Al Gore is as big a liar as Obama. I do not believe a word either of them say. Sick & tired of all the bull that is on TV, radio & e-mails. We need a complete clean out of the entire Congress,
I trust only a few that actually speak the truth. Where are all the Bush haters? He cared about America & did all he kept us safe. I do not feel safe anymore.
Rose- the reason you don’t feel safe is because of fear-mongering by Fox. Read the article.
At least you got one thing right about not feeling safe. To feel safe, you at least have to know idiocy for what it is. As long as you follow loopy propagandists a la O’Reilly, Beck and Limbaugh you cannot feel safe. They won’t let you.
Bush kept us safe? Under Bush’s watch we had the deadliest act of terrorism on American soil. Keep watching Fox, it has served you so well.
Wow. You don’t feel safe anymore after Bush, even though he was the one who was President when we were attacked on 9/11. Have we been attacked under Obama? What about Clinton/Gore? Exactly. Think before you type.
There was an attack on the WTC during the Clinton Presidency.
But yes, there were far more attacks on US citizens during the Bush Presidency even if you exempt the 9/11 attacks…
Could it be that Time-Whiner is worried that a first class news operation could give their Crappy Nonsense Network with Wulp Blister some competition? Will Murduck’s Dirct TV also kill them so that they can’t make even bigger fools of Faux News? Have been watching the Al-Jazeera Newshour on the web for about two years. They, and the BBC, are so far ahead of American networks as to be beyond catching. Honest, intelligent reporters with none of the Hollywood “fluff” or extraneous crap that passes for news coverage by American networks and with no more than two or three short commercials in an hour.
Right on Dayton. They are what news was in the US decades ago.
Gore does something that normally Fox would hail as Capitalism at it’s best. I suppose Gore took a hit for not saving some money on taxes by not inking the deal before the new year. Al Gore=Job Creator.
Once again, you are lying in spectacular fsahion.
“Fox News is more a terrorist network than Al Jazeera…”
Lie. Total bald-faced lie.
We will see if Al-Jazeera has stopped being so cozy with terrorists as it was in the past. I am not all impressed with whatever awards they may have received.
But here is where this thread really falls on its face. Mark is utterly silent about how conservatives have pointed out one exmple of hypocrisy after another about this deal. To wit: Al Gore tried to ram this deal through before the end of 2012 so he would save several million dollars in capital gains taxes. This is after he preached in November about how rich people should be “paying their fair share in taxes” – i.e. the new rates that Obama is foisting on us.
Next example: Mr Environmentalist Gore, who has been railing about how fossil fuels have been killing the planet, sold his glorifed public access channel to an outlet owned by the governemnt of Qatar. And Qatar gets its revenues from…ahem…BIG OIL.
This is almost as embarassing as Bill Press claiming that left-wing talk show hosts don’t spew out death wishes against conservatives and then spewing that John Boehner deserves to be struck dead by lightning. Oh well, maybe Press can get a TV gig on the Cooking Channel after Al-Jazeera fires him.
In terms of the fear it has spread, and which it continues to do so as well as it’s position on the actual terrorists which actually HELPS their cause (i.e, alienating Muslims), FOX has contributed lots to the fear in America and certainly has the potential to promote animosity against America from outside sources.
Examples of it being “cozy with terrorists”?
Oh really, you resort to something as inane as this? Well let me give you an alternative yet analagous scenario, the right wing, GOP and the propaganda arm, FOX news, have always denounced socialism, and have pretty much made it a bad word in America. They have also been staunchly in support of “America’s Greatest Ally Israel”.
However if you look at Israel, you will see that many of its domestic policies are based on socialists (indeed exactly the same principles as what the right have deemed as “socialist”) precepts. It’s pretty much a socialist country and possibly an example of the “nightmare socialist scenario”. Indeed a kibbutz is a system founded upon these very socialist principles.
So the right, the GOP, FOX, all of these buggers are HYPOCRITES for supporting Israel while denouncing “socialism” right?
Well let’s see the situation with Gore. If Gore and other environmental minded groups described Big Oil as Satan incarnate, and something one should not touch with a 10 foot pole, then one can rightly say they are hypocrites. But that’s NOT what they are saying, their focus is on the problems regarding the environment, problems which (some of it) they have linked back correctly to Big Oil. However they have never advocated a solution where big oil should be removed overnight, that this industry should be wiped out, no rather it is the progression towards non-reliance of fossil fuels which is the actual goal. No one is advocating the impossible scenario of complete removal of reliance on fossil fuels and the collapse of Big Oil overnight, that a caricature scenario that only the climate change denailists and big oil defenders. Indeed the best way to make this change is to gain the cooperation of the current leaders in the energy market, because they are the ones ultimately which will have to make the shift.
And one of these leaders is Big Oil.
Al Jazeera is a much more informative source of news and hence much better then Fox will ever be as long as Murdoch and Ailes run things there.