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Comment by aluminum96 | Hacker News Reader

Al Jazeera is an exceptionally disreputable source for coverage on this particular issue. It's not just their primary source of funding -- the Qatari state -- but also their abhorrent track record of running stories with no factual basis (such as in the wake of the Al-Ahli incident).

I can't point to anything specifically incorrect about this reporting. But you have to take a lot of primary-source-based reporting on faith, and why would I trust a source that has such a non-neutral track record?

We'd all be better served by sticking to sources that don't have obvious conflicts of interest.

Edit: I want to be clear that I don't have any specific evidence that the article contains falsehoods, and I'm not excusing any of the conduct alleged in the article. I just think Al Jazeera is a terrible way to start a constructive discussion, given its reputation.

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On HN, we've always gone by article quality, not site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....

Having a HN thread about an article does not imply endorsement of everything, or even anything, on the site.

In my experience, it's a mistake to make reliability judgements about major sources (such as news organizations) at site scope. To pick an unrelated example, we often get criticisms when HN has a thread about a Daily Mail link, but occasionally a good (for HN) article does appear there; and of course many bad (for HN) articles appear there too. If you don't like that example, substitute any other major source—they all have a mixture of good and bad articles, good and bad information. It's therefore important to make finer-grained distinctions about these things—e.g. article scope rather than site scope.

This is one of those cases where it's super helpful to have a single principle that one is optimizing for: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... – the moderation strategy I just outlined is derived from it.

Wow, thanks for responding dang! It's like a fleeting encounter with a celebrity.

I see the HN policy, and understand it generally. But I am vocally lodging my objection in this particular case.

To put a finer point on it: I don't think I'm the only person in my community who has an extremely negative opinion of Al Jazeera, and its historical lack of neutrality on this issue. Having a balanced and nuanced discussion underneath an article from Al Jazeera is, in my sincere opinion, impossible. So why choose this source, when many more reputable sources have covered the suffering in Gaza?

> So why choose this source, when many more reputable sources have covered the suffering in Gaza?

I am of the understanding that the people posting in the comments to this article did so because they chose to, not because dang decided this is what people should read.

Users should, of course, post on whatever threads they like. But I am implying that the OP's selection of publication serves one particular perspective, and readers should be aware of Al Jazeera's historical affiliation with that perspective.

It’s common knowledge that Al Jazeera is owned by the Qatari government, and that fact is brought up routinely in response to articles about Israel posted here. I’m not sure why anyone would assume that readers would be blind to that, especially considering how the discussions in the comments on these articles tend to go.

Thanks for the kind reply! (but please don't prize my comments that highly, they don't merit it)

Re your point: I hear you, but given the nature of this particular article, I assume there isn't a more primary source with this material, which mostly consists of quotations. No one has mentioned any evidence (so far as I know) that the quotes are falsified. (And yes, this is different from whether the things the quotes are saying are true, whether they've been selectively edited, and other things.)

I know it's easy for me to post things like my GP comment without understanding the impact that it can have on readers. I've been trained through thousands of iterations (if not tens of thousands by now) to think this way, when in fact it's not obvious and is even counterintuitive to most people. When the underlying topic is as painful as this one, that's a problem.

Just to be clear -- I'm not alleging that the quotes in the article are falsified or manipulated, as I have no evidence of that either.

I think my most salient argument is that this selection of article is not conducive to a constructive discussion, because some (many?) Jews have a reflexive distrust of Al Jazeera. Don't take that to minimize the substance of the article.

(Yes, that was clear, and sorry if I gave the impression otherwise)

> On HN, we've always gone by article quality, not site quality:

I don't think that's true, per the word of PG himself. HN has had site blacklisting and downranking. "Some submissions get automatically penalized based on the title, and others get penalized based on the domain. I observed that many websites appear to automatically get a penalty of .25 to .8: arstechnica.com, businessinsider.com, easypost.com, github.com, imgur.com, medium.com, quora.com, qz.com, reddit.com, rt.com, stackexchange.com, theguardian.com, theregister.com, theverge.com, torrentfreak.com, youtube.com."

It probably still does. (yes I know you're mod)

(PG) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499044

https://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-reall...

https://www.righto.com/2009/06/how-does-newsyc-ranking-work....

Sure, some sites are banned and some are downweighted. Most media sites, for example, are downweighted, including aljazeera.com. I've posted extensively about this over the years (sorry I don't have time atm to dig up links).

> I can't point to anything specifically incorrect about this reporting.

Then your comment is a genetic fallacy. You're highlighting a potential motive or potential for bias, but without anything substantive to say.

I absolutely said something substantive. But I'll make it even more explicit: Al Jazeera has an untrustworthy track record, and their unverifiable primary-source reporting should not be assumed impartial.

This is only the "genetic fallacy" if you assume that the trustworthiness of Al Jazeera articles is uncorrelated. My entire argument is that this publication is systematically not impartial, and wants to convince you of a particular (Pro-Palestinian) position.

Do you think the current report at all incredible given Israel abysmal track record concerning human rights versus the Palestinian people?

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