Voice of America v. Al Jazeera

[George L. Singleton]

I have been following this thread and have found it a little confusing which may be due to my inability to speak, or read, Arabic. How different is Al Jazeera’s English output from their Arabic output? I have a TV package that gives me Fox news, BBC news and Al Jazeera but not VoA. I tend to get my news online, so do not watch any regularly, but have found the BBC and Al Jazeera similar and reasonably balanced (I tend to watch more Al Jazeera as they have more – and more in-depth - Africa & ME coverage). I occasionally watch Fox to see how a story is being packaged for a US audience but – having been brought up on BBC journalism – find it hard to stomach. I am used to seeing the moderator, in a discussion with politicians from opposing parties, trying to crack the weaknesses in both spokesman’s arguments not feeding soft questions to one and helping the other attack his opponent. Having no experience with VoA I have been reading, and watching, some of their output from their site over the last few days and find it much closer to BBC/Al Jazeera than Fox. In one discussion, on recent events in Basra, I thought they had a well balanced discussion including showing President Bush’s comments, which were criticised by all for showing a lack of understanding of what was going on.
If the complaint about VoA is that it is not overtly biased enough then those making that case must realise that a BBC like position will already viewed as ‘Western biased’ and trying to broadcast raw propaganda will just leave the VoA preaching to the converted. Might it not be more productive to look at the other sides arguments – which are being used to radicalise Muslims – and if they are false counter them. Better still adjust US foreign policy to make it harder for your opposition by giving them fewer easy targets and shooting yourself in the foot less often.

MountainRunner:
I read the Terrorist vs Freedom Fighter stuff and thought the explanation by the editors was unsurprising and the norm. I am not sure what other position they could possibly take unless their mandate changed to just re-broadcast White House press releases without any pretence at being a general news source. You are never going to win an Arabic audience by just saying Hamas & Hezbollah are beyond the pail because the US has put them on a terrorist list but the IDF (or even Abbas) are the good guys because we give them guns and money.
P.S. I loved the video very funny – and probably a fair reflection of how the rest of the world see the US’s attempts at democratising them – but I see that the VoA may not be happy if some of their staff were involved in its making.

I guess you are not aware of the so-called "new" Al Jazeera, the mouthpiece of the Taliban and al Qaida. Al Jazeera now has local, native dialect broadcasts in Pashto, Urdu, and numerous other unique to all areas of Pakistan dialect broadcasts. Pashto is also the major language of much of but not totally all of Afghanistan. Al Jazeera now has all dialects of both Afghanistan and Paksitan on both TV and radio, fyi.