It's sad that it won't be easy to find news in the United States that represents the view of the Emir of Qatar.
Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
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Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
#12I like AJ news quite a bit, their election night report is often the best IMHO (no real bias) but once they launched you couldn't get english streams of their content and our TV plan didn't include them... Maybe now I will be able to get streams again and start watching it more.
Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
#13Did Peyton Manning bring them down?
Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
#14The article did not mention Al Jazeera deciding to remove their Internet streaming, and requiring that you can only view via your local cable provider. See this page with the big note to US people: http://www.aljazeera.com/watch_now/201146152255537258.html I used to check in on their coverage on the Roku channel, but they made a business decision to prevent that. I can understand their decision to make their success…
This. Moving away from service chord cutters at this point was just odd. Embracing alternative media has done wonders for outlets like Russia Today (Though that's state sponsored so it might not be the best comparison).
Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
#15The article did not mention Al Jazeera deciding to remove their Internet streaming, and requiring that you can only view via your local cable provider. See this page with the big note to US people: http://www.aljazeera.com/watch_now/201146152255537258.html I used to check in on their coverage on the Roku channel, but they made a business decision to prevent that. I can understand their decision to make their success…
I can personally attest to the impact of this change. I used to watch their English language coverage, but have not done so since the launch of their cable channel. If this decision means I can stream the international feed from the US again, I won't complain.
Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
#16This comes as absolutely no surprise at all. It doesn't matter if you are the most accurate, informed, respectable news source in the world, because almost no Americans know what Al Jazeera is, and the name evokes the image backdrop of a middle eastern city most Americans can't find on a map, discussing topics of primary interest to American Muslims and few else, while the female anchors are veiled. Not to mention it sounds like a group Americans are more familiar with that starts with "Al-".
This is almost as bad as the Latin American failure of the Chevy Nova (Spanish: no go). They could and should have named it anything, but they really seemed to think their brand would carry any weight at all.
One may say this is proof that Americans don't want truth and reason, just entertainment in their news. We do, but the simple fact is that if you fail to appeal to people's simple desires, fears, and impulses, you will fail entirely.
Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
#17This is unfortunate but expected. Al Jazeera has a severely unfair reputation in America, and most people probably had no idea of the difference between AJ(Qatar) and AJ(America). Hopefully they will continue to have coverage in America, and this doesn't actually mean their total exit of America-based reporting.
My cable company bundled it away with the expensive foreign language channels, guaranteeing that almost nobody watched it. Add in their retreat from online streaming and it is no mystery why people were not watching.
Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
#18I think it would have been a real challenge to get to the mainstream with their logo and their finances [0] with financing from the deep pockets of the Qatar government when the sentiments being purported by Fox, CNN et al were in stark contrast. [0]: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/business/media/al-jazeera-...
Even without that financing, and without the logo, the financing itself is a good reason to not trust them as a source.
I'm sure there are other news sources that should be de-legitimized due to their funding, and it would be nice if they too go away. Due to the current nature of how people consume their news it creates echo-chamber bubbles that only reenforce misinformation or misleading perspectives.
Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
#19This is unfortunate but expected. Al Jazeera has a severely unfair reputation in America, and most people probably had no idea of the difference between AJ(Qatar) and AJ(America). Hopefully they will continue to have coverage in America, and this doesn't actually mean their total exit of America-based reporting.
I don't think AJ had much of a reputation at all in the US. I wouldn't even know where to find it.
>“Most Americans associate Al Jazeera with Al Qaeda”[0]
[0] http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/americans-associate-al-j...
Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April
#20This is too bad. They were one of two sources of serious news on cable TV [1] and their global breath of coverage, including many important, original stories I didn't see elsewhere, was exceptional.
I always held my breath a little, expecting some propaganda because Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar, but I never noticed any even in Middle East coverage. That doesn't mean it wasn't there - the point of propaganda is to convince the audience that it's legitimate.
[1] IMHO: The other serious news on cable is Bloomberg. Some of their content is obvious shilling or advertorial (bring on the CEO and give them a platform and t-ball questions), much is over-stylized, and their priority obviously is business and not other news. However, at least they address serious topics, and provide sophisticated analysis and valuable knowledge. Fox, CNN, MSNBC are a complete waste of my time - all I learn is various political groups' talking points. BBC's analysis is too superficial and too many stories are not hard news, for my taste. As always, print/text news are by far the best sources.