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Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

nytimes.com

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Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#251

Post by thirdsun »

mcv wrote: post #249
thirdsun wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore are cable customers really Al Jazeera's target audience? Those folks sticking with cable are probably older, more traditional people - do they regard Al Jazeera as legitimate news source or is it "that terrorist news channel" in their eyes? Honest question, I've always enjoyed Al Jazeera, but as a european I don't know if they are mainstream enough to succeed in US cable networks.

I did wonder if perhaps its name and anti-Arabic prejudice held held it back. It would be a shame if it did, because Al Jazeera seemed like a remarkably sane and thoughtful voice in the otherwise short-sighted and highly partial media landscape of the US.

Yes, that's what I meant - I remember it was an issue when they started to gain traction in the US market. For someone not familiar with them, Al Jazeera likely doesn't sound a like a legitimate news source. I wondered if that's still the case. Persoannly, I found their reports to be excellent in many cases.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#253

Post by paublyrne »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #155
virtuabhi wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBC is not considered trustworthy in India. We listen to BBC for English language but also recognize that BBC still suffers from colonial-era mindset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Indophobi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Anti-Hind... "Writing for the 2008 edition of the peer-reviewed Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Alasdair Pinkerton analyses the coverage…

The BBC is not seen as a trustworthy news source by all in the UK either, but its biases are harder to spot than some other outlets. Generally speaking, you only get a clear picture of their news manipulation when you're on the opposing side of the messages they put out. To give a recent example, there was a story a week or two ago where they held back on an interview with a politician they knew was going to resign u…

Although there is no such thing as complete objectivity in news reporting, the BBC news department tends to try to give all political parties an equally hard time, with the possible exception of extreme right parties like UKIP, who they are a little harder on.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#254

Post by KineticLensman »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #181
KineticLensman wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BBC also is state sponsored, but generally considered to be trustworthy. Brit here: The BBC is state-funded, but it's output is not state-driven. The news team (IMHO) generally takes an editorial view that is to the left of the current Tory government. For once I think the BBC is to the right of the current Labour opposition, whose new leadership is the furthest left it has been for a generation. And perhaps worryi…

> "worryingly non-electable" I find it baffling that people still believe this rhetoric, especially after Corbyn winning the Labour leadership election by a huge margin. The whole 'unelectable' thing certainly gets repeated enough in the media, but I'd hoped more people would've seen through the concerted effort to attack him by now.

Yes. The BBC isn't pro-govt but it isn't neutral either. IMO

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#255

Post by geff82 »

avn2109 wrote: post #158
rogerbinns wrote: post #7

The 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 thought Al Jazeera was run at a loss as a propaganda expense by the Qatari government. Is that untrue?

Might be. But it does not matter that much. A sheikhdom is something else than your regular dictatorship. As long as you stay away from critizising the ruler directly, you can talk about pretty much everything (depends on country of course). Dubai/VAE, for example, feels like an "ok" free country to me, even if it is an absolute monarchy.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#256

Post by gotchange »

mikeash wrote: post #235
gotchange wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Al-Jazeera just means "The Island" in Arabic. What's off putting about something called "The Island"?

The Arabic is what's off-putting.

Do you feel the same when you hear "Alcohol, Algebra, Alchemy, Algorithm, Albuquerque ...etc" or you're just turned off by "Aljazeera"?

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#257

Post by jon-wood »

jon-wood wrote: post #246
JimboOmega wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does multicast see any actual use? I was under the impression that while it's theoretically great for a live video stream, nobody ever actually uses it.

The last time I checked a few UK TV channels were doing multicast streaming, but none of the big ISPs actually supported it. I have no idea what's involved in making it work but I find it really sad that it's not used more.

Out of curiosity I dug into this a bit more. The BBC's multicast trial (which has been a trial for at least ten years now) is still running, but I assume at this point isn't going anywhere.

However BT (one of the big ISPs) uses multicast to deliver their TV service, so I assume BT their connections are capable of receiving multicasts if properly configured.

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#258

Post by grokys »

wyclif wrote: post #239
virtuabhi wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBC is not considered trustworthy in India. We listen to BBC for English language but also recognize that BBC still suffers from colonial-era mindset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Indophobi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Anti-Hind... "Writing for the 2008 edition of the peer-reviewed Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Alasdair Pinkerton analyses the coverage…

BBC is not considered trustworthy by lots of people in the West, too. They're very left-biased, and very poor at presenting opposing viewpoints.

Do you have anything to back this up? To me, they are biased to the establishment/center right, which seems borne out by at least one study:

http://www.newstatesman.com/broadcast/2013/08/hard-evidence-...

Re: Al Jazeera America to Shut Down in April

#259

Post by lmm »

No1 wrote: post #120
brightball wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever people talk about the money in college football right now, I generally tell them to blame Tivo (and subsequently Netflix). Tivo started it with the ability to record and watch later while fast forwarding through commercials. Netflix with it's mountains of commercial free content followed next. That put a huge advertising premium on content that people NEED to watch live like sports or hit shows like Walking…

> It's just a question of scalability that gets complicated if millions of people all want to watch the same thing at the exact same time. That's a nice use case for multicast. Worked for me over a decade ago. I can only assume the technology has gotten better since.

Unfortunately more and more people seem to think connecting through NAT is acceptable.
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