Thursday, October 05, 2006

World: Bees in the bonnet 3: Read Al-Jazeera

If you want to see a reasonably true measure of how well –and how ethically – the western world is engaging the eastern, I suggest you read Al-Jazeera Online regularly.

This is predicated on the fact that every news source reflects the values of its owners and/or managers – through how it reports, and what it chooses to report on.


(Be careful with the spelling, however: aljazeera.com is totally unrelated. Use one of the links here.)

Al-Jazeera has been referred to by the New York Times as “the freest, most widely-watched tv channel in the Arab world”, although the US government claims it has a strong anti-American bias.

Some may be disappointed to find, however, that Al-Jazeera Online is relatively measured. It may take a little time to gain that useful perspective I mentioned. (Yesterday's front page was relatively bland, today it's more forthright, tomorrow ... )

4 comments:

Bazza said...

Yours is a voice of reason in an unthinking world, Stephen. It is a crime that your blog is not more widely read. If your are interested in gaining comments and readers I suggest visitings lots of other blogs and leaving comments. Thats how I built up a readership.

S Simmonds said...

Hi Bazza,

Thanks for your kind words.

Yes, you're right. It takes a bit of work to gain readership.

I'm interested in exchanging ideas, provoking thought and discussion - so that work is necessary.

On the other hand, I don't see too many blogs that have remotely similar interests - so if you see any, let me know.

On the other other hand, your blog is quite different in approach, but still very interesting, so there's no telling...

Bazza said...

You've got to kiss a lot of frogs! You might like Benny's blog at
http://thomasbenny-benny.blogspot.com

S Simmonds said...

Point noted. I'm doing this as I grab the time.

By a bizarre coincidence, at the same time, I got a comment posted by a different Benny - with a link to an entirely inappropriate site.

(that's why I enforce comment moderation on this site. I've had several comment spams and lurid links that might otherwise have been publicised here.)