It does seem a little odd that most Americans don't have access to the best coverage of breaking news in the Middle East, doesn't it?

Hauling four boxes that contained the printouts of 13,000 supportive e-mails, Al Antsey of the Al-Jazeera network came to the Comcast building on Tuesday looking for a major U.S. platform for the 24-hour, Qatar-based news channel that at one time was viewed as just a mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden.

It's time, he told officials with the nation's largest cable operator, to cast aside misperceptions of the Arabic news station as tainted with anti-American bias, and join the rest of the world.

About 250 million households around the globe have access to Al-Jazeera English - arguably the most sophisticated English-language news organization covering the Middle East - but fewer than three million of those households are in the U.S.

The network has viewership in three U.S. markets: Washington; Burlington, Vt.; and Toledo, Ohio.

With viewership on its Internet site up sharply because of Al-Jazeera's news coverage of the political upheaval in the Middle East, Antsey says this is a "turning point" for the news channel, and he is making the rounds of the U.S. pay-TV operators.

"We had a very fruitful meeting," Antsey said, adding that during his talks at the Comcast Center, the tallest U.S. building between New York and Chicago, he had "a fantastic view of the city over which we would like to broadcast our news."

A Comcast spokeswoman confirmed that the cable operator met with Al-Jazeera officials but would not comment on programming negotiations or discussions.

Now here's an irony: Bill O'Reilly accusing Al Jazeera of being anti-Semitic because it includes guests who clearly fit that description. Meanwhile, the Glenn Beck Anti-Semitic Elephant in the room goes politely ignored.

Of course, what this was really about was, once again, right-wing Fox talkers like O'Reilly and Monica Crowley using unrest abroad as a way to smear liberal Americans as insufficiently patriotic. And so when Alan Colmes called them out for it, his reward was to get the BillO the Bully Full-On Nasty treatment.

It happened last night on O'Reilly's opening "Talking Points Memo" segment:

"Talking Points" could provide hundreds of examples of anti-Semitism and "hate America" rhetoric displayed on Al Jazeera, the network Sam Donaldson admires.

And he's not alone. Here's what Brian Stelter wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday: "As recently as Friday, the conservative Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly branded Al Jazeera as 'anti-America.' … But that view has been largely drowned out by people like [Sam] Donaldson who have hoisted up Al Jazeera English for its protest coverage."

Totally absurd. Any fair-minded person who follows Al Jazeera knows it is anti-American and anti-Semitic. Only on the far left can it find acceptance.

Sure. And it's true that it's there are many examples of anti-Semitic guests on Al Jazeera -- just as it's true that Fox has had on its airwaves a broad assortment of nativists and other far-right extremists over the years as well.

But even more important, one of Fox News' leading anchors -- and a frequent onstage and on-air cohort of O'Reilly's -- is under siege from Jewish rabbis outraged by Beck's anti-Semitic slurs of George Soros and his obscene overuse of Nazi and Holocaust comparisons and metaphors.

Oh well. That -- like any criticism of the network at all -- is NEVER mentioned at Fox.

Because as the segment that followed with Colmes and Crowley amply demonstrated, this was less about bashing Al Jazeera and was really all about bashing liberals -- as Crowley made explicit. And that set off the fireworks:

CROWLEY: Well, I -- I don't want to attribute this directly to Sam Donaldson but I would say to make a broader point that the far left in this country is essentially anti-American.

COLMES: Oh please, now that's disgusting.

CROWLEY: They are -- and so a lot of their -- a lot of their philosophy.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: That's disgusting. That's sickening.

CROWLEY: I'm not saying you, Colmes, I'm saying the broader far left has an anti-American agenda that in many ways dovetails…

Continue reading »

I've been frustrated by the fact that I can't get Al Jazeera on cable broadcast, only Roku and via my iPhone. While I know there's a movement afoot to petition cable networks to add it, I have my doubts it will happen. Why? Well, simply put, because the Department of Defense under the Bush administration was offended by their more objective reporting during the invasion of Iraq.

Someone pointed me to this 2003 New York Times article with details. Shortly after their official launch, they were attacked non-stop by hackers on the web. They inked a deal with Akamai to serve their content, only to see it abruptly terminated.

The English version of Al Jazeera's Web site was shut by hackers roughly 12 hours after it went online on March 25. For a time, Web users trying to gain access were directed to a Web page bearing an American flag. Akamai, whose clients include MSNBC and CNN, maintains a broad network of servers that provide protection from hacking attempts. It was for that reason, Ms. Tucker said, that Al Jazeera hired the company.

"Basically this was our answer to the hacking that has been nonstop and pretty aggressive," she said. "We had a done-and-dusted deal on March 28. Then yesterday, we get a letter from them terminating the contract."

While the Akamai deal was for web services, cable companies have found a myriad of reasons to keep them out of cable listings. Beginning in 2009, Al Jazeera undertook a grass-roots effort to petition carriers to add them, but to little avail.

Continue reading »

I don't think there's any question that the news cycle yesterday belonged to Al Jazeera, whose exhaustive coverage of the events across Egypt dwarfed the efforts out of CNN, MSNBC and the networks. It was an astounding and historic day, and thanks to the relentless efforts of AJ, people around the world felt like they were there.

Maybe it's time the cable carriers start carrying them:

The protests were the top story on every major news outlet in the Middle East, but the day belonged to Al Jazeera. The station was the first to report that the governing party’s headquarters were set on fire. Breathless phone reports came in from Jazeera correspondents in towns across Egypt. Live footage from Cairo alternated with action shots that played again and again. Orchestral music played, conveying the sense of a long-awaited drama.

Al Jazeera kept up its coverage despite serious obstacles. The broadcaster’s separate live channel was removed from its satellite platform by the Egyptian government on Friday morning, its Cairo bureau had its telephones cut and its main news channel also faced signal interference, according to a statement released by the station. The director of the live channel issued an appeal to the Egyptian government to allow it to broadcast freely.

Other broadcasters, including CNN, said their reporters had been attacked and their cameras smashed by security forces.

Al Jazeera’s news anchors often drew attention to the limits of their reporting, noting that they did not know what was happening in some parts of the country because phone lines had been cut. At one point, a correspondent warned that Egyptian security forces were poised to attack the building where the channel’s reporters were working. Anchors told viewers to switch to another satellite channel, and told them how to do it, in case its transmission was interrupted.

Still, there was little doubt that they provided more exhaustive coverage than anyone else.

“It’s clearly been more comprehensive, and they have more reporters in different parts of the country,” said Samer S. Shehata, a professor of Arab Studies at Georgetown University who was watching the day unfold on several different Arab satellite channels. “There is an urgency in their coverage that helps show the importance of these events.”

Russia Today also has more comprehensive coverage, not just of international but also United States news. It says something when news organizations that are mostly/only available online do such a better job.

The day's events also pointed out the danger of having an internet "kill switch". Not exactly a strong show of faith in democracy!

Progressive Alaska: A Planet-Wide Explosion of Religious Nutcases

Tom Scott: Journalism Warning Labels

BTC News: Thorsten Veblen hits the streets

The Brad Blog: The same touch-screen systems to be used by millions of voters this November are easily hacked, without breaking the 'tamper-evident' seals

Just An Earth-Bound Misfit: You have to wonder how the 'ground zero mosque' controversy is playing on al-Jazeera

Crooked Timber: EU-US convergence?

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, financial director for Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, has been killed in Afghanistan.

MSNBC:

One senior U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity told NBC News that Saeed was killed in an attack by a missile-carrying drone aircraft.

Another official said that "in terms of counterterrorism this would be a big victory," describing Saeed as "the group's chief operating officer, with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning. He was also the organization's prime conduit to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. He was key to al-Qaida's command and control."

In a series of interviews with Al Jazeera last year, al-Yazid swore that Pakistani nuclear weapons would be used against the US and allied countries if they obtained access to them. (See video above)

More information here about Al-Yazid and his involvement in terrorist training and Afghanistan.

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense for us to focus only on the humanitarian aid instead of bombing them? Yeah, I know there are huge logistical challenges - but are the challenges any worse than they are for trying to win a war?

Afghan refugees who fled the war-torn south have claimed they are so neglected by government in Kabul that their children are dying from hypothermia for want of the most basic supplies.

Families that left Helmand, Kandahar and other southern provinces to escape the fighting between US-led forces and a resurgent Taliban say the cold is much more lethal.

Living in a make-shift camp on the edge of Kabul, residents told Al Jazeera's James Bays that no government official has ever come to see how they have been forced to live.

The claim comes as UN officials say Afghan children are suffering disastrous levels of abuse and deprivation.

At a news conference marking the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child this week, officials said children’s rights were being neglected despite vast flows of Western aid into the country.

“Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world," said Catherine Mbengue, country representative for the UN children’s fund Unicef.

“Seventy per cent of the population has no access to safe drinking water. Thirty percent of children are involved in child labour. Forty-three per cent of girls are married under-age,” she said.

Billmon is back!

TBogg; Cry. Wolf.

The Pump Handle: Bayer CropScience officials repeatedly refused to give local emergency responders details about last week's explosion and fire,

Crooked Timber: Presidential speech wordles

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: CharlieHipHop, Mortaljive, Politicker, Olly's Onions

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: The media's other new crush...ABC, CBS aired no analysis from Dems during RNC...The state of journalism...WaPo death spiral watch...Maverick no matter what...Philly radio talker called NOW the "National Organization for Whores"...Fox recycling 2004 attacks...Obama is winning the Web...Discover what the world thinks about U.S...Al Jazeera covers the conventions...Journos should write what they know and think...How would NPR cover the emergence of a police state?...Covering religious views...Van Susteren plays PR agent for Palin...Brokaw warns Dems to lay off McCain, and tells a lie...Possibly staged news pics...

The Cunning Realist: One helluva gamble. It's hard to understand how anyone would trust another Republican to run anything.

First Door on the Left: Supporting the troops

Obsidian Wings: Is there any corner of the Bush administration that isn't hopelessly corrupt? Now it's Medicare officials who're caught not doing their jobs, lying about it, and costing us billions.

The Belgravia Dispatch: Thoughts on Georgia

Beat the Press: Why do reporters find it so difficult to understand protectionism for people like themselves? The atrocities continue below...

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: They print the propaganda first, because their good friends in the White House tell 'em to...WaPo or The Onion?...The Sleeping Media....Nearly half of Americans favor government mandated political balance on radio and TV...Lifting the ban on press photographing coffins of returning dead...The corporate media continues to operate as the propaganda arm of the Pentagon...Limbaugh: "Nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy"...Any press criticism of the Israeli government is off limits...Corsi frequent guest on White Supremacist radio..News Corp stock in the toilet...US targets Al Jazeera

Attytood: An open letter to George Stephanapoulos and Charles Gibson. Their jaw-dropping hackery was just the latest example of how our useless press corps debases civic discourse everyday. Complain about this atrocity...

Undercover Black Man: Prof. Cornel West on Al Jazeera English

Sadly, No! When you're living on wingnut welfare it's really hard to imagine how the other half 9/10s lives.

Arms Control Wonk: How many nukes to deter China?

James Wolcott: Comedy is where you find it...

The Bonddad Blog: More bad news on the inflation front.