More on Al Jazeera, Egypt & US Media

As I’ve posted previously, there’s been a lot of talk about why Americans should start paying more attention to Al Jazeera English.  I’l be adding links here throughout the day.

  • Outside The Beltway – Why all the American networks are the same when it comes to news from Egypt
    Don’t know I completely buy into this, but James Joyner has an excellent point – that the news from the American networks is more alike than it is different.  Fox, CNN, MSNBC… they aren’t all that different. Joyner quotes Steven Taylor:American television news puts “too much focus on talking to pundits and politicos and not enough of an attempt to talk to actual experts.”
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Al Jazeera, Egypt & the United States

In his book Three Blind Mice,  media journalist Ken Auletta talks about how the first Gulf War brought CNN to prominence.  He writes:

It wasn’t until the war in the Persian Gulf began in January 1991  that the cable revolution became dramatically apparent.  Viewers  realized that CNN, not the three networks, was a primary source  of up-to-the-minute news.  And they were getting the news the way  they wanted it — instantly and without interruption from soap  operas.  For as long as the war held their interest, viewers  could choose for themselves when to watch the news as easily as  they could flick to an HBO movie, an ESPN basketball game, or a  Disney cartoon.”

Although much has changed over the last 20 years, world events are still capable of bringing new channels for news to the forefront of American attention.  This last week the riots and protests in Egypt brought the Qatar-based Al Jazeera English (AJE) to our attention with irresistible images of protestors throwing tear gas canisters back at police, buildings and police vehicles burning, and praying protestors attacked with spewing fire hoses.  The best Western media could do was rebroadcast Al Jazeera’s video.

But if you wanted to watch AJE yourself, chances are you had to go to the network’s website because virtually no American cable companies carry the channel.  Why?  Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post calls it “corporate censorship.” In essence American cable and satellite providers are afraid that there will be a backlash targeted against them for presenting an Arab-owned news channel.

I’ve found some indication that both DirectTV and Dish carry or have carried AJE, but it’s not clear to me how available it is there.

As of Sunday, Egypt had revoked Al Jazeera’s license to broadcast from Egypt and had pulled the accreditation of the network’s reporters.  While Al Jazeera is still actively covering the news from Egypt, this obviously limits what they can do.

I hope this doesn’t mean that America will stop paying attention to AJE.  While I certainly would not want it to be primary news source, I value it the same way that I like getting the BBC and CBC on my satellite radio, and C-SPAN on cable.

Of course, with the growing power of streaming video over the Internet, perhaps it no longer matters what the cable companies do.  According to the Huffington Post, AJE’s web traffic was up more than 2,000 percent this week.

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Al Jazeera English provides stunning coverage of rioting in Egypt

Al Jazeera screen capture from Egypt

When I got into the office this morning and logged into Twitter, the news was flowing fast and furious about the anti-government rioting taking place in Egypt.  American cable networks were giving spot coverage of the story, but the national media reporters, such as Brian Stelter and David Folkenflik,  were  pointing us to watch the Al Jazeera English (AJE) webstream for first-rate continuous coverage of the protests.  I immediately fired up my browser and was greeted by stunning coverage.  AJE was showing protestors throwing tear gas canisters back at police, throwing gasoline bombs at armored personnel carriers, and national police being knocked down by thrown objects.

Al Jazeera English has multiple reporters on the ground and multiple video feeds coming in.  One of the most interesting bits was the comparison of Egyptian Television showing a section of the Cairo at peace, while next to it was the AJE showing sections of the city in flames.  (If you watch AJE, you will see scenes of violence and scenes of quiet.)

AJE was not limited to Cairo.  The network also has reporters on the ground in Suez and Alexandria.

The ironic thing is that although we have no official censorship in the United States, AJE is virtually unavailable on American cable providers.  They simply don’t carry it.  Why?  Apparently we don’t need to know how the Arab world views the news…  In 2009, Tony Burman, who was managing director of AJE, told NPR:

“Part of the challenge has been the lack of awareness within the U.S. of Al-Jazeera English. Obviously, another aspect has been the political stigma that’s been attached to Al-Jazeera Arabic, and a kind of assumption on the part of some people that what they’ve heard about Al-Jazeera Arabic (a) is true and (b) applies to Al-Jazeera English.”

While American media are covering the story, they are far more limited in terms of resources compared to AJE.

According to Mohamed Nanabhay, the head of AJE Online, traffic to the network’s web site has been overwhelming, perhaps 200 times higher than normal.

In addition to being available on the web, AJE also has a streaming app for the iPhone and iPad.

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Presenting an argument

On Wednesday evening, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow opened her show with a series of arguments that claimed that current Democratic president Barack Obama is to the right on a number of positions of Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and even Ronald Reagan.  I’m not suggesting that you should accept her position or that she is correct.  Instead, I’m suggesting that she does a great job of presenting her argument with solid evidence.  The sort of thing editorial writers ought to do.  Her techniques can be used by any writer left or right.  No matter what you think or don’t think of her politics, pay attention to how she presents an argument.  Watch from the beginning to about the 3:50 point:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Is There a Conspiracy? Olbermann, MSNBC, GE, Comcast & Advertisers

The big media news last Friday was that controversial, popular and profitable MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann announced that show was at an end and that he and MSNBC would not be working together anymore.

The Twitterverse quickly exploded with talk about it, ranging from suggestions that Olbermann’s departure was some sort of Comast/NBCU merger conspiracy to the fact that it was a miracle that the mercurial Olbermann has lasted eight years at the network.

Today the debate started shifting to the question of whether there would be a negative economic fallout for MSNBC from the loss of Olbermann.

Here are a series of stories you should take a look at as we try to understand what happened and what it means for the media world:

And what might Olbermann’s plans for the future be???

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Copyright, Piracy & Free Speech

Here’s a quick roundup of stories dealing with copyright, piracy, and free speech issues.  Been a busy start to the semester:

Posted in Chapter 13 | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Blogs & Twitter Accounts for my JMC 406 Student

Here are the blogs and Twitter accounts for all of my Commentary and Blogging students.  Classmates, you should be following all of these Twitter accounts and reading the blogs.

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Sources of Editorials

For my commentary and blogging class, here are links to editorials from several major papers:

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Link Ch. 13: ‘Seven Dirty Words’ and Truth 3 – Everything From the Margin Moves to the Center

UPDATE: May, 24, 2012: On May 27, 1972, just about exactly 40 years ago today, George Carlin recorded his concert album Class Clown during a show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.  Among the sketches he performed was one destined to become a classic – the “Seven Dirty Words” you can’t say on television. I honor of this, The Atlantic took a look at the lasting impact of Carlin’s routine.

What follows below is a post I put up a year or so ago about Carlin and the Seven Dirty Words:

I was lecturing today on the Seven Truths “They” Don’t Want You To Know About the Media.  I got to Truth 4 – Everything from the margin moves to the center and was preparing to show two George Carlin video clips: The 7 Words You Can’t Say on Television and an excerpt from him playing Mr. Conductor on Shining Time Station.  A bit of static electricity crashed my computer, so I did the rest of my lecture the old-fashioned way, but for my students (and any of the rest of you) here is George Carlin.

Needless to say, the the 7 Words clip contains lots and lots of NSFW language (unless your job is talking about video clips containing harsh language…)

George Carlin – 7 Words

George Carlin Remembers Shining Time Station

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JMC 406 Commentary & Blogging Students Link Here

As I’ve mentioned before, this semester I’m teaching a course in commentary and blogging that includes a good dose of social media.  In the comments section for this post you will find links to the blogs and Twitter feeds for all my students.

Class, this is what I’m looking for:

Hi, I’m Dr. H.  My blog is located at http://ralphehanson and I tweet as @ralphehanson.

So, class, comment away with your blog and Twitter addresses. Don’t worry that it doesn’t show up immediately; I have to moderate the comments here to prevent spam.

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