U.S. Orders Al Jazeera to Register as a Foreign Agent
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
further thoughts at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477
> "If you agree with it, it's truth. If you don't agree, it's propaganda. Pretend that it is all propaganda. See what happens on your analysis reports."
The global weather is super intriguing. The resolution is so low that I can't figure out for whom it is useful, e.g., "It's raining in sub-Saharan Africa"
This is not to say that journalists should not strive to report without bias, they should do so, but rather that unbiased coverage is an ideal never rightly claimed as fully achieved.
Just an example: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/qatar-gul...
Western media are certainly no strangers to bias. The difference is that no matter where you are in the political spectrum you can find media sympathetic to your belief.
I agree that it is less bad than Fox and other Murdoch media.
I've seen individual Chinese accounts without any publicly known state affiliation marked as well.
Twitter claims their rule includes them, but if Voice of America doesn't count as "state-affiliated media" then what would?
If it walks like a duck and all...
[1] For anyone curious: https://ruptures-presse.fr
You can't classify a media source as state sponsored simply because its editors agree with an alternative viewpoint. That is just ridiculous.
then CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and NYT should be marked as state media as well by that measure.
True, and the same can be said of RT, and many others.
This actually seems to be the default configuration for the market in journalism (whether the funding comes from advertising or the state). Afflicting the comfortable even-handedly is a privilege very few news organizations have. There is almost always a hand that feeds them they are reluctant to bite.
The best we can reasonably hope for (WRT Aljazeera) is a competing org with a different source of funding.
If you want to be informed about the world, you aren't going to get there without reading radically different news sources, that don't share a common bias. If all you read is domestic news, your information sources have too much common bias for you to get a clear picture of what is actually happening.
That is, I'm sure there will be no shortage of people who will explain how Fox News and MSNBC are happy to talk about problems as long as they don't rock the boat. It's fine to continuously speak about crumbling infrastructure, but it's not as fine to speak about the economical benefits of war and that the society happily accepts the death of hundreds of thousands of foreigners for it, because that would become very uncomfortable very quickly.
I'm not sure what you mean with the last parts of your sentence. I've definitely seen stories from Fox News and MSNBC about the economical benefits of war or foreigners dying in war. Many of the anchors on those networks take great pride in making things uncomfortable for the powers that be, although they disagree on precisely who those powerful people are.
Al Jazeera suggested the move was part of a separate deal, signed on Tuesday and brokered by the Trump administration, in which the United Arab Emirates, a Qatari rival, normalized diplomatic relations with Israel. The Emirates ambassador to the United States said that was not true.
In a letter dated Monday that was obtained by The New York Times, the Justice Department said that AJ+, a network that primarily produces short videos for social media in English as well as Arabic, French and Spanish, engages in “political activities” on behalf of Qatar’s government and should therefore be subject to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Qatar, the letter said, provides the network’s funding and appoints its board of directors.
“Journalism designed to influence American perceptions of a domestic policy issue or a foreign nation’s activities or its leadership qualifies as ‘political activities’ under the statutory definition,” said the letter, which was signed by Jay I. Bratt, the chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, “even,” the letter added, “if it views itself as ‘balanced.’”
For all the talk about foreign meddling, we never hear anything about israel. You here endless propaganda about russia, china, etc, but never about israel. I'm sure putin and xi wish they had the influence in the US that israel has.
Has part of a presidential election ever kicked off in moscow or beijing like trump did with israel? Can you imagine the lunatic hysteria it would have kicked off in traditional and social media?
Is there any country, other than israel, that you cannot boycott as an american. You can boycott china. You can boycott russia. Heck you can even boycott america as an american. But you can't boycott israel.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/new-...
Trump, Pompeo and his administration openly state that Trump exists to save Israel.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/pompeo-suggests...
Not to save america, but israel. Imagine if they say they exist to save china or russia. We'd call that treason.
Yes, lets investigate russian and chinese foreign meddling. But lets not stop there. Lets go deeper. Saudi meddling and all the way up to israeli meddling.
Edit: Insta downvote. Interesting.
There are active measures to _prohibit boycott of israel_ in the US. This is A Fact. [0] Multiple states, as well as the ACLU, have issued rulings declaring this unconstitutional, but it blazes on. [1]
We are being pushed to give up FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTIES with almost no meaningful awareness, and anyone who speaks against it is immediately labeled an antisemite. As someone married to an orthodox jew, I will say openly: the fact that these are scary moves is even discussed within _our family_ and is by no means a dogwhistle for hate, so why is it so aggressively silenced outside?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Anti-Boycott_Act [1] https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/congress-laws-suppress...
He's an Evangelical Christian and believes in an imminent "Rapture" that can only happen when Biblical prophecies are fulfilled. Among these is the return of Jews to the Holy Land. [1]
In other words, the Secretary of State is literally trying to bring about the end of the world.
If this were Iran, people would be talking about a delusional theocracy.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/6959f506-6ee6-4d31-9372-ba34d5291...
The juxtaposition of gay marriage ruling and rapture in his speech is, to me, identical to saying "burn all gays".
The irony is this ideology is about as anti-Christian as it gets. Jesus had very few nice things to say about wealthy people, and yet Christianity Inc. loves to sell Americans on the idea of prosperity theology. The book of Job expressly states it's bullcrap. This is why I consider it a cult, they aren't that serious about the religious aspects at all, they just like the parts where some people are rewarded (physically taken to heaven, i.e. the rapture) and their non-believer enemies are all murdered.
I read Left Behind, back in the day. I knew it was popular but am surprised it had such a lasting effect.
One reason you might be downvoted is because of this false equivalency. Yes, Israel is a big player in US politics. However they do it the old fashioned way of political pressure and negotiation. This has always been allowed. I'm not making a value judgement on that, just recognizing it is traditional foreign policy behavior. The accusations against Russia and to a lesser extent China are very different. They are being accused of a new and more nefarious meddling that has included accusations of hacking, compromising politicians, and massive grass roots style propaganda efforts (maybe Israel is guilty of these too, but I haven't seen any credible accusations of such behavior). I can certainly see how someone might think all the actions from all these countries are equivalent "meddling", but from a legal and tradition standpoint it is like comparing lobbying with straight bribery. One is much more acceptable than the other.
Jonathan Pollard would be the biggest contrary example.
Here's an article talking about all kinds of other spying that Israel done in the U.S., enough that: "The intelligence community would always be urging the highest level of threats, while the State Department would be saying, 'This is not going to go over very well, we can't give this kind of rating, because there will be certain consequences in terms of travel warnings and restrictions.'"
https://www.newsweek.com/israels-aggressive-spying-us-mostly...
We all know the reasons for the downvotes. And funnily enough I predicted "false equivalency", "israel is our ally" or "whataboutism" response. You guys never disappointed. Like robots writing off a script.
> and massive grass roots style propaganda efforts (maybe Israel is guilty of these too, but I haven't seen any credible accusations of such behavior)
No? Ever look in the mirror? You are right, the zionist movement doesn't exist. But the real worry isn't the grassroots, it's the political elites that israel has in their pocket. Not to mention all the pro-israel "american right" all over youtube and social media.
> However they do it the old fashioned way of political pressure and negotiation. This has always been allowed.
Right, if you can say one thing about israel is that they play by the rules. /s
Everything you accused china, russia, etc of, israel does, but "better". Not only that, they go beyond what china, russia, etc does. Including terrorism, sinking american ships, killing american troops, etc.
> One is much more acceptable than the other.
No, none of them are acceptable - but especially israel.
Funny, you rarely see defense of china or russia, but in traditional and social media, there is always people justifying and defending israel. Where are the china/russia/etc grassroots movement? Where is their influence?
The easiest way to debunk everything you wrote is the fact that we are talking about israel. Israel is nothing to america and to americans. Historically, economically, demographically, etc. But why are so much foreign policy, media, money, etc devoted to israel. It's easy to understand why russia or china or even north korea feature prominently. But why israel? But then again you already know all this so I'll end this here.
And it's not just the US, they are meddling in the UK as well ( but we all knew this anyway ).
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/07/israeli-dipl...
And I wonder, do israeli people feel the same connection with the USA?
The Middle East is an important region to the US. Israel has friendly relations with the US. Israel is also surrounded by hostile neighbors.
Why wouldn’t they have close relations?
Trump is the least interesting or relevant aspect.
The problem is that our news outlets are biased and politically motivated as well, it's just the pressure comes from money and "access". And we don't admit it to ourselves.
A simple example is a person or company will go to a specific outlet to break negative news so they can get a head start on the story. For access to the scoop, the outlet helps write a truthful but "friendly" narrative.
This happens all of the time with large businesses also, and it's evident in the headlines. Where did you think all of that PR consulting money goes?
Are we talking about the same Al Jazeera? I've never seen such glorification. I am an American living internationally for a long time now and, where I used to value BBC World, I have preferred Al Jazeera English for close to ten years at least.
(Although I didn't hear anything specifically about support for suicide bombings).
From my perspective with the pro Qatari bias in mind Al-Jazeera English is one of the only quality news stations available; especially since, due to their bias, they will focus on underreported stories such as the Rohingya.
Are the issues you mention relevant to the English language channel?
I've read AJE occasionally for years; I read BBC for the same reason: to get perspective outside of North America. I've NEVER noticed anything so egregious... I've considered the reporting and editorial to be at par with BBC. Can you provide examples? Is the english content significantly different from other languages?
I think it’s fair to say they are more directly aligned with Qatar and don’t do as good a job criticizing their owners as John Oliver with ATT. But, I cannot find anyone, not even BBC, that does as good a job at covering grassroots organization efforts and local stories from South America, Africa, the middle-east (particularly Palestinian stories), South Asia, and parts of East Asia.
It has been refreshing to see humanizing perspectives of people who are usually cast as ‘the other’ or ‘backwards’ implicitly or explicitly in western media.
I wonder if Australian, European, or Israeli news/media companies ever have to register as foreign agents.
Sorry but no, WaPo is absolutely not on the neutral/conservative end. I suppose some argument could be made for BBC being more neutral.
I would put WaPo on the liberal end, and WSJ on the neutral/conservative end.
Sure, they do cover lots of parts of the world, and do some really good in-depth reporting but there is a definite bias to their reporting and selectiveness in what they cover, and if it is a state influenced, good to call it out.
> why wouldn't they complain about it?
Wouldn't it be nice if journalists try to stay unbiased and do factual reporting and not be a broadcast arm for their state's interests. If they can't, it seems appropriate to brand them as a foreign mission.