According to USA Today, the Arab news network, Al-Jazeera will be shown in "70 million housejolds worldwide" in its English format starting this Wednesday. Al-Jazeera understands the importance of a news network with no ties to the government. They cater to the people's thirst for knowledge, and nothing else. They will certainly cover underdeveloped countries, which has been ignored by most mainstream media.
However, the response from the White House and the Pentagon has been cool at best. In addition, "in the USA, most cable firms have refused to give [Al-Jazeera] channel space." In other words, it will be mostly available here. Unfortunately, this isn't much change to those who already surf its homepage.
Why isn't the West more accepting of an Arab channel?
After all, there are a few Caucasian Al-Jazeera correspondents like Dave Marash. If 9/11 never happened, would most Americans still feel this way? Then again, I think that it was 9/11 that sparked most people's interest in international news in the first place. Yes, it was that fateful day that stirred hatred for Arab nations, but it's also possible that if 9/11 never happened, most people wouldn't even be remotely interested in the Middle East. Al-Jazeera will, at the very least, help us know our "enemy" as well as they know us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Oh I already got the tickets for the Damien Rice show in Oakland lol!! Yeah I LOVE The Cannonball song, its beautiful, you should check out the new CD. lol
and I agree with you 100% that if 9/11 didn't happen Americans would continue to be ignorant of the middle east, as they are with the rest of the world around them.
nice post. thanks.
Post a Comment