Posted on 09/29/2005 11:06:05 AM PDT by drpix
It doesn't look good at all.
The more important and relevent question would be- would Pravda have maintained its usefulness to the Soviet Regime if it had been forced to compete with the BBC, CNN and other news sources inside the USSR? That's the better analogy. Pravda had no such competition during the era of the Soviets but this is the situation al Jazeera is in. Witness the mullahs in Iran and Afghanistan trying to ban satellite dishes. Think about the Chinese trying in vain to ban or even regulate the internet. Control of information is crucial to regimes that wish to control their people- once you lose your grip on the flow of information you will lose your grip on the people (if your hold on power rests on your ability to deny basic freedoms).
Al Jazeera will not change overnight, I'm not saying this. But given that they are a Pan-Islamic phenomenom they are immune to any single Islamic regime trying to direct their message or the way they handle news. We rightly perceive the network as being anti-western but as they struggle to compete over time with established news sources that also want a slice of the Arab/Islamic News Market their methods and objectivity will be transformed and with this transformation will come also a transformation of Muslim thought in general.
Quick pull my finger......
PPPPHHFFFFT.(Fart Noise).........There's the news for ya........it stinks doesn't it?
Quick pull my finger......
PPPPHHFFFFT.(Fart Noise).........There's the news for ya........it stinks doesn't it?
The military gave him the job of presenting the US view to Al-Jazeera.
But doing that same job once he is out of the military makes him a traitor worthy of revocation of citizenship, or worse.
OOOOOOkay.
Why should Al-Jazeera be any different from CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, NYT, LAT, PBS, NPR, etc. etc.?
Didn't Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg say kinda the same thing? He must be one of those who believe the President's "Religion of Peace" mantra.
Pravda is still around even if the Soviet Union is not. And they still spout BS. Some articles from this publication even get posted to FR from time to time.
Al Jazeera is already available in Canada (before Fox News was available to Canadians) and is "coming" to America. Do you really think that AJ will change to be able to compete with CNN and CBS?
Aye. But Pravda is no longer the useful tool it once was in shaping the opinion of the Russian people. This is the point.
Do you really think that AJ will change to be able to compete with CNN and CBS?
In a word...Yes.
They will have no choice. Keep in mind- I'm not talking about next week or next month. But over time, they will be forced to change by market pressure. They don't operate their network for free. Think how bad ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN would be if it were not for FOX taking away some of their market share. Those same types of pressures are just as relevent when it comes to al Jazeera.
And in that new job he will still be presenting the US view, is that correct?
The article says: But Rushing, 33, sees nothing wrong with going to work for the network. "I’ve given my entire adult life to the health and well-being of this nation,” he told USA Today. "I wouldn’t do anything to threaten that.
"What the Marines trained me to do was to represent the best of what America stands for to a foreign audience," he said. "That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
We shall see.
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