PBS is a better fit to be compared to BBC. You can find low-brow entertainment based news in the UK and every other country with a free media. It's not like you can't access quality news in the US and Al Jazeera has to swoop in and save the day.
Which television news network in the US has had better coverage of the Egypt protests than Al Jazeera? I mean, MSNBC and CNN are using the Al Jazeera feed for their coverage in some cases....
>>There is a large subset of the US population that would distrust any information from an Arabic source.
There are reasons for that.
For example, the state controlled/censored media in the muslim world are infamous for antisemitic hate mongering. (State sanctioned racism... what does that remind you of?)
A second problem is that I have no idea about the spin in Al Jazeera (except for their host country). Does anyone? I can make good guesses on what to not trust in e.g. my local media and NY Times (mainly big advertisers).
Note: I'm not arguing that all (or even most) media in the US are more dependable than e.g. Bild zeitung.
Edit: I thought I should add a reference about antisemitic content in Arab media, so I checked Wikipedia and found a reference -- to Al Jazeera! (That isn't that heavily censored by any state. But fun enough that I added a separate comment with the quote.)
MEMRI is a Israeli non-profit organisation to "aid the understanding of the Middle-East". It is not by any means objective. Its goal is mostly to find inflammatory or antisemitic fragments in Middle Eastern media and provide them to a Western audience.
I looked at the fragment on the MEMRI site and it was devoid of any context. Airing a speech does not imply endorsement. (Most, if not all, American media outlets have shown Iran's Ahmadinejad tirades against Israel, for example).
tl;dr: Take Israel's PR department with a grain of salt.
Apparently the mere inclusion of Israelis (I recognize 3 Israeli names out of the 7 listed in its staff page) is enough to label it "Israel's PR department".
Al Jazeera, on the other hand, have received so far over $160m from the Emir of Qatar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera#Organization) - yet many commenters here seem to think that doesn't influence its coverage at all.
I thought MEMRI was accused of being Israel's PR department because it was founded by "ex-" Israeli intelligence officers, refused to disclose its funding, tends to distort meanings in its translations, is highly selective in translating inflammatory pieces while ignoring opposing pieces adjacent to them, etc.
Putting aside the completely unsourced FUD in your comment, clearly MEMRI does have an agenda. Personally I rarely visit that site and wouldn't get my news from it. But my question was why would you consider a network that is openly financed by Qatar objective, and an organization that is not financed by Israel "Israeli PR"?
Putting aside the completely unsourced FUD in your comment
Which of my claims are you questioning?
My question was why would you consider a network that is openly financed by Qatar objective, and an organization that is not financed by Israel "Israeli PR"?
I think Al Jazeera is relatively objective (compared to other news networks) because they often include people with opposing views on their shows. Beyond that, I don't think objectivity is the be-all and end-all of news networks. I can't watch CNN because its programming is directed towards children: lots of flashy opinion, idiotic conventional wisdom, a shockingly limited window of acceptable discourse, very little actual news content regarding issues that matter (as opposed to celebrity 'news'), etc. I'd hesitate to trust Al Jazeera's reporting on Qatar, but Qatar isn't a very important country and Al Jazeera has managed to piss off a lot of middle eastern dictatorships and monarchies.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera is openly funded by Qatar and you claim it's a good news source. So the mere possibility that MEMRI is funded by a government disqualifies it, while the known fact Al Jazeera is funded by a govt is fine. How come?
In any case, once again, I DO NOT consider MEMRI quality journalism. The argument here isn't MEMRI vs Al Jazeera, it's thinking independently vs. news consumerism. My point is that AJ fans, much like FOX fans, simply choose a source the confirms what they want to believe. I would recommend reading many sources, and automatically believing none.
Consider the millions of people in the west that can verify MEMRI, since the original tv programs are on the web. [Edit: Also consider that Wikipedia quoted MEMRI.]
So what can be said, is that the type of content exists in Arab media.
I don't really know about Al Jazeera and their spin. I seriously doubt most people claiming it is trustworthy do, either. The pro-Al J seem willing to vote up/down people for agreeing/contradicting, which is an interesting weighing of the importance...
Edit: It is fun when people recommend Al Jazeera without even knowing their agenda -- while other sources are dismissed, which are verifiable by many millions of people in EU/USA...
Right, god forbid we listen to anything other than pro-US and pro-Israel sources. And we all know that the BBC is a highly biased bunch of freedom haters, right?
Also, don't you love it when any group that is anti-Israel (ie. against the state) is labelled anti-semitic? Instant demonisation.
BBC, Reuters, and Al Jazeera are amazing compared to CNN/MSNBC/FOX.