“Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news. You may not agree with it, but you feel like you’re getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners.” – Sect. Hillary Clinton (via ABC News)
Revenge is a dish best served unemotionally, with vast evidence to back up your charges, and delivered from a place of power.
Sect. Clinton talking about the U.S. losing the information wars and damning the programming of traditional and cable news isn’t a new charge. However, it is new coming from her and especially salient when said at a Senate hearing.
The State Dept. has attempted to do many things in new media to help win the information war.
But let’s not forget that in 2009 Dipnote was completely silent on Iran’s Green uprising. On the Palestinian Papers, Al Jazeera revealed some very uncomfortable truths coming from State, including that Clinton said the Palestinians were “always in a chapter of a Greek tragedy.” Beyond that they didn’t give credence to their veracity.
And as someone who has been a “talking head” on Al Jazeera, they’ve got plenty of babbling political and other expert analysts, so on that statement Sect. Clinton is simply incorrect. The day before they released the Palestinian Papers, all day long they had opinion makers on to discuss what hadn’t been released yet. I commented on it in this column.
Also on the topic of the information wars, where Wikileaks is concerned Sect. Clinton is adamantly against this type of transparency, which is where the competition for information will be:
“Let’s be clear: This disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests,” Clinton told journalists in the Treaty Room, an ornate Wedgewood-blue salon near her office. “It is an attack on the international community – the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.” – Hillary Clinton: WikiLeaks release an ‘attack on international community’
As someone who has praised Al Jazeera several times, Sect. Clinton’s statements are appreciated.
One of the worst aspects of American media goes well beyond Clinton’s well delivered critique. It begins with how men dominate women across the board, especially as hosts, but also on Sunday shows. However, the real problem with the U.S. media is that too many anchors are ass kissing camera muggers looking for their next million. Al Zazeera’s anchors are working stiffs who don’t get paid anything close to the U.S. media stars who are elevated higher than they’ve earned to be.
In America, news is subjected to the Hollywood treatment. We don’t know any other way anymore.
Sect. Clinton was delivering an important point and she’s correct, Al Jazeera is effective, very effective. Like when they stripped the bark off of the State Dept.’s own P.J. Crowley for going on air unprepared.
I’m pretty sure I’ve written this before, but the only two television news shows I watch with any regularity are the BBC and Al Jazeera. I’d watch the CBC if I could get it on PBS, but that’s not possible.
There isn’t an American TV news show these days that doesn’t lie to us on a regular basis, either by what they say or what they fail to cover.
It’s nice that there’s someone in authority who recognizes that.