Al Jazeera & Journalism

I've spent a bit of time watching Al Jazeera English. You can pick it up on a Roku box live streaming if you have one. It's got excellent and very in depth coverage. I was watching a show about the effect of the Libya revolution on oil prices and it featured three experts talking for almost a half hour. Something unheard of on US "news" today, but which reminds me of how things used to be.

But right now I'm listening to an NPR report babbling on about how AJ is doing this, they're doing that, they're doing the other thing. They're out on the streets. They're still collecting news despite the governments actively chasing them. They're out on the street talking to people and often having to shoot on non-standard cameras all the way down to cell phones. They're monitoring the internet and calling people who post things. And the commentator sounds a bit amazed by all of this.

Well, this is something called "journalism." It's something that we used to do here in the US, but which we haven't really done for almost 20 years. Even the best of the US outlets are still extremely biased to a mainstream media party line, but more importantly, they're lazy. They don't look for the news, they expect it to be delivered to them along with a sandwich platter.

Hint to US News: Never once in the reports about how Al Jazeera collects news did I ever hear about someone sitting in a Press Room waiting breathlessly for the government spokesman to report the truth which they would repeat verbatim without question.

Al Jazeera & Journalism

I've spent a bit of time watching Al Jazeera English. You can pick it up on a Roku box live streaming if you have one. It's got excellent and very in depth coverage. I was watching a show about the effect of the Libya revolution on oil prices and it featured three experts talking for almost a half hour. Something unheard of on US "news" today, but which reminds me of how things used to be.

But right now I'm listening to an NPR report babbling on about how AJ is doing this, they're doing that, they're doing the other thing. They're out on the streets. They're still collecting news despite the governments actively chasing them. They're out on the street talking to people and often having to shoot on non-standard cameras all the way down to cell phones. They're monitoring the internet and calling people who post things. And the commentator sounds a bit amazed by all of this.

Well, this is something called "journalism." It's something that we used to do here in the US, but which we haven't really done for almost 20 years. Even the best of the US outlets are still extremely biased to a mainstream media party line, but more importantly, they're lazy. They don't look for the news, they expect it to be delivered to them along with a sandwich platter.

Hint to US News: Never once in the reports about how Al Jazeera collects news did I ever hear about someone sitting in a Press Room waiting breathlessly for the government spokesman to report the truth which they would repeat verbatim without question.