It is easy to understand if you stipulate that conservatives assume all news is propaganda. Certainly it's easy to argue they employ propaganda and deliberately skew coverage, as in the case of Fox,  Rendon Group activites, and the buying of friendly journalism in Iraq.

Given this, the Powers That Be would not trust viewers to watch Al-Jazeera--competing propaganda is not acceptable.

I've read al jazeera for a couple of years, and I have never noticed that they have a bias. They just report stuff. Of course that is the threat to Bush and the neocons(fascists). I imagine they will be successful in keeping it off the air. Israel prevents the broadcast for the same reasons.

First of all, Al-Jazeera is not the Arab's FoxNews.

I watched both channels. Al-Jazeera is really the BBC of the Arab world. Let's not forget that the founding staff of Al-Jazeera came from BBC Arabic.

Al-Jazeera doesn't defend any Arab government the way FoxNews defends the US government (and CNN too by the way).

CNN, FoxNews and the rest hide the real cost of the US-led wars on innocent people (especially when the victims are Arabs), so Al-Jazeera's job is to expose that.

That's the news agenda that Al-Jazeera will set.

Showing a dead child killed by Israeli bombs is not propaganda.

The propaganda is to hide that from the viewers and to highlight instead Israel's claim that it doesn't target civilians even if the facts on the ground point to the contrary.

One hopes (and hopefully not in vain) that some cable company will decide to add Al-Jazeera to the smörgåsbord it offers the American Public.  I'm not holding my breath.  I suppose this is commercial timidness, coupled with a reality check which actually confirms that it is safer to offend some Americans than it is to offend others. 

The sad thing is that this timidity rejects one of the oldest core values America possesses:  Freedom of Speech, which, after all, has its corollary, Freedom to Hear.  Both serve the highest end of all, Freedom to Think. 

I slogged my way through Milton's Areopagitica when I was in college, and a very hard slog it was.  But I was changed by it, and I encourage my students to slog through it now.  Milton wants us to see Al-Jazeera:

Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which God hath stirred up in this city. 

So let reasonable people use their brains to sift the truth out of the error.  John thought we could do it.  I provide a link to the essay for those not familiar with it and willing to wade into it with lexicon and guide to the ancient philosophers in hand.  :-)

aMike

In the July/August 2006 issue of Foreign Policy magazine there was an article called, Think Again: Al Jazeera with this summary:

It is vilified as a propaganda machine and Osama bin Laden’s mouthpiece. In truth, though, Al Jazeera is as hated in the palaces of Riyadh as it is in the White House. But, as millions of loyal viewers already know, Al Jazeera promotes a level of free speech and dissent rarely seen in the Arab world. With plans to go global, it might just become your network of choice.

As to Al Jazeera's bias:

Just as Al Jazeera has proven willing to present al Qaeda’s “perspective,” it has also devoted airtime to and welcomed another regional pariah—Israel. The network was the first Arab channel to allow Israelis to present their case in their own words, in Hebrew, English, or Arabic. This move was a major departure from past practices and truly shocked the Arab public. Until Al Jazeera arrived, most Arabs had never even heard an Israeli’s voice. Al Jazeera regularly airs clips of Israeli officials within news bulletins and conducts live interviews with six to 10 Israelis each month. The network covers Israeli affairs extensively and is widely watched in Israel. In fact, Al Jazeera gives more airtime to Israeli issues than any other channel outside Israel itself.

"I don't want to say that George Bush is a lame duck, but this morning, Cheney shot him". Bill Maher

casa

I don't buy it. While true that American politicians have ulterior motives imbedded in their policies, the same cannot be said of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why does Al Jazeera not cover the good things that American soldiers are doing in the region; namely, acting as policeman (which, we can all agree, is not what they were trained to do).

In other words, Al Jazeera opting to focus on the death of an innocent girl is the same as Fox News opting to show progress made by the Iraqi Assembly.

There is a great documentary being aired on the DiscoveryTimes Network this week called Media Jihad! This cable network is the New York Times' cable network, so you know it must be good!

The documentary, "Media Jihad," is all about the jihadist, Al Jazeera network and how they are the, "Most important media outlet for spreading the goals and ideals of fundamantalist, radical Islam in the world today!"

Thats right, according to the New York Times, Al Jazeera is a front for radical Islamist groups who, "Spread the ideals of fundamentalist Islam throughout the world, dirctly passing terrorist information freely through the airwaves" "Compromising known anti-terorist efforts by law enforcement agencies throught Europe, North America, and Australia"

Okay, we can all concede that fundamentalist Islamic groups have the right to free speech like the rest of us, but at what point does that free speech include:

1) Anti-western messsages intended to whip up jihadists to attack the "decadent masses" who reject the teachings of Muhammed? and

2) Coded messages to jihadist terrorists, awakening them to attack Western targets, killing us "infadels" who deserve death because we do not follow the teachings of "Allah the Merciful"???