I noticed a good amount of people talking about Al Jazeera in the BBC paywall thread and that make me ask, why!?
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There are places (Ground News is a good one IMO) where you can see how biases are broken down by factors like factual accuracy and political alignment.
how biases are broken down by factors like factual accuracy and political alignment.
Which they determined based entirely on their own biases.
How about you give your supported and and reasoned opinions for why it is an untrustworthy source?
Every news source has bias, Al Jazeera has over 3000 staff, over 400 journalists and access that comes along with being that massive of a news agency. Obviously they are biased towards reporting that favors the government of Qatar who funds them. Particularly if a lot of stuff is happening in the middle east and Al Jazeera has more journalists in those countries with better connections to those countries they are gonna be first to cover a lot of things in the region. They are also much less likely to use passive voice and other qualification when talking about things like Palestine in their reporting. A lot of people don’t want to read “50 Palestinians are shot” instead of “IDF battalion kills 50 Palestinians”.
I have been wondering about this for so damn long…
Cherry pick a few topics you know incredibly well and look at their published articles on those subjects.
Did they cover your area of expertise correctly with nuance and giving the appropriate context?
If yes, now you have more confidence that the articles in other areas are also well written and researched.
If no, now you have less confidence in them
You can apply the above strategy to any news source. For many people the above protocol gives good results with aj.
Cherry pick a few topics you know incredibly well and look at their published articles on those subjects.
If they ever write an article on the In N out secret menu I’ll let you know
I’m not sure I consider them a trustworthy source per se. I don’t think they’re necessarily less trustworthy than the BBC. BBC is propping up a Western colonialist perspective. (Not trying to beat up on the Beeb specifically. Major trusted U.S. news sources tend to more specifically support U.S. nationalism … even the “liberal” ones.)
I think if a viewer / reader in a Western mindset, the difference in the blind spots between Al Jazeera’s perspective and Western media will complement each other in a way that will give readers / viewers a more well-rounded perspective on history. At least as compared to sticking only to Western perspectives.
Very well-put. AJ helps me get the ‘Eastern’ perspective of world events, which can get sanitized by the West. Taking the Gaza War as an example, BBC/any US media outlet is almost always going to take a pro-Israel bias—even inadvertently. I think it’s important to hear from groups who don’t have incentives to portray israel in a good light. Again, tho, that’s one example, and you should always consult multiple news sources.
Can’t speak to anything but Al Jazeera America. Short lived, but they promised unbiased news. And gods was it unbiased, flat as paste. Really woke me up to how I’d come to expect entertainment in my news and not simple facts.
News shouldn’t be entertaining; it should be factual and unbiased.
almost all the current MSM in usa, is entertainment, they are basically fox-lite, so its heavily sensationalized, or basically a tabloids to get click and viewers.
Yes and that’s a damn strong argurment on why it’s a bad idea.
Al Jazeera is the mouthpiece of a hostile foreign power (to me). Its also sickeningly, cloyingly coated with hate for the US throughout any segment. I will on occasion read something that’s been generically reposted, recognize the writing style, and then confirm that it came from AJ. Its so tilted that it reminds me of Fox News. And I don’t watch Fox News either.
Their original staff was a bunch of pretty serious journalists sourced from the BBC.
Its a large organization. There’s Al Jazeera, and then there’s its Al Jazeera English subdivision which operates with widely different team. The latter has a reputation for high quality journalism and has won multiple awards for it - the former exhibits more bias in its reporting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_awarded_to_Al_Jazeera_English
I would say the BBC is no more trusted and should not be any more trusted than AJ English. Each have biases and each are capable of very high quality investigative journalism.
You need to receive news from a broad variety of sources, not just those that agree with your viewpoint or have a particular agenda.
Al Jazeera obviously have a pro-Qatari but less so than Fox News for example or any billionaire owned newspaper/TV channel have biases.
Aggregate from all sides and the truth will be somewhere in the middle.
This kind of question is similar to proving a negative in logic.
You’re asking why people think it’s trustworthy, implying you believe it isn’t.
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*Which people think it’s trustworthy? You used an ambiguous “many people” - I’d need to see something supporting this assumption.
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It would be more useful for you to give examples of why you don’t find it trustworthy, as this is what really matters with regard to any source.
I don’t trust any one source, and instead try to piece together a likely truth by considering the different sources and how a story is told. I’m surely wrong as much as I’m right, but it’s the best any of us can do.
The question asks for reasons people who consider it trustworthy do so. That’s nothing like trying to prove a negative. That’s just giving input on why you (may) believe something different from the asker.
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You made this a question about Al Jazeera but I think at the same time it should be a question about you. What type of media are you trying to consume about what topics with what goals? Depending on that answer, the utility of Al Jazeera to your life would massively change.
One general approach to understanding national domestic policies is to read one or two papers from your country and then to read one or two papers from a different country, or preferably two different countries, and see how the information stacks up. if you want English language media, maybe you have something like BBC and then … Gosh it’s hard to think of any decent US newspapers … Seattle Times? … Maybe something Canadian, and then maybe something Qatari? Why not.
That type of media consumption avoids some common pitfalls, but it’s not perfect. Most mainstream media outlets tend to be pro-establishment, whatever that may mean.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted for providing good advice about avoiding media bias.
Al Jazeera is funded by the Qatari government. Make of that what you will.
Removed by mod
It’s not about being exactly more reliable than the other big ones. More about being a second perspective, filling in the gaps of the western ones.
Yeah, read a couple of sources and take the average.
Always bear in mind who funds it.
Be careful with the taking average mindset. It’s a default human one, and it’s being abused. A lot of media outlets (particularly American right wing) are mouthpieces for the same few groups or people.
Instead, try and look at their biases. Do they have a reason to mislead you. What akin do they have in a particular game. E.g. the BBC is still fairly unbiased on a lot of world news. They are far less unbiased on middle eastern politics now.
It’s an annoyingly complex problem to solve, on the fly.
E.g. the BBC is still fairly unbiased on a lot of world news.
No? Why do you think this?
They are far less unbiased on middle eastern politics now.
Have you considered that you may have only noticed that they’re aren’t unbiased on the middle east.
Ya. A nuanced media net is the only real answer. Trying to balance one liar against another rarely results in balance.
