Yes, al-Jazeera is being criticized for this, though they are owned and broadcast out of Qatar and not Bahrain. But I have found that al-Jazeera's coverage of Bahrain has generally been as straight as their coverage of other Arab countries. For example, today's Bahrain coverage is pretty direct in stating that the governments actions in condemning several demonstrators are being challenged as unprecedentedly harsh and in violation of legal procedures. See, for this, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/201142881322769709.html
Past al-Jazeera articles will, I think, bear out my thought that its coverage of Bahrain has not been mushy. I did an analysis earlier this year about the media and the Arab Spring events: in summary, the international media can only cover, say 3-4, of these events at any one time. Yet the demonstrators depend on international media coverage 1) to protect them from excessive regime reaction and 2) to bring pressure on the regimes to reform or quit. So the demonstrators have to "line-up" to get the coverage they need, while the media deals with the 3-4 events elsewhere first. This does result in uneven coverage. This said, I think that al-Jazeera has done a better job of reporting evenly across the Middle East than the other media I read. Coverage of Bahrain has had to compete with coverage of Egypt, Libya, Syria, etc. It could be argued that Bahrain has actually received a disproportionately high amount of attention, compared, say, to Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, etc. where active pro-democracy efforts are moving forward only fitfully in the absence of media attention. The relative emphasis on Bahrain is particularly true when you compare the populations, IIRC, of these countries: Bahrain: 1.2 million; Jordan: 6.5 million; Morocco: 31 million; Algeria: 35 million. After al-Jazeera, the BBC does in my opinion the best job of spreading their coverage acorss the Middle East (once you get past their delight in sexcapades and murders on the moors). Cheers, Lawry On Apr 28, 2011, at 8:37 AM, Michael Gurstein wrote: > Interesting... > > I guess you know that there has been a lot of recent criticism of Al Jazeera > for being rather mushy in their reporting on Bahrein (because of their > owners in the Emirates... > > (BTW, I've suddenly become a fan/addict to Canadian polling re: the upcoming > election... No single best go to place that I can find but tracking things > through http://www.threehundredeight.blogspot.com/ is a lot of fun > especially when they go into the intricacies of their "model" and why it > seems to be si out of touch with everyone else's findings (including those > that they themselves are quoting/analysing... > > For those who are not subjects of his Imperial whatever S. Harper, it looks > increasingly possible that Canadians (and the world) might wake up on May 3 > with a minority social democratic (NDP) government in waiting in Ottawa! > ("waiting" because the peculiarities of the Canadian constitutional system > will mean that the Governor General will need to invite one of the parties > to form a government -- in the absence of a majority of members in the House > being of one party, the G.G. has the right to choose which party he invites > but the convention is that it is normally the party with the most > seats--which could, there is a not negligible possibility, be the NDP. > > A more likely scenario is aother Harper minority but this time with a very > sizeable NDP legislative opposition with the opportunity of defeating Harper > almost immediately. With the NDP then forming a government with the > (informal) backing of what is left of the Liberal party and being able to > govern without the need for support from the (likely) decimated Bloc > Quebecois. Such a development would have significant and long term political > repercussions in Canada (a possible re-alignment of parties on Left-Right > lines) and very possibly the jettisoning of the radical rightist Harper and > his neo-con allies from a re-positioned right centre Liberal/"Progressive" > Conservative party... Fun times... > > M > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of de Bivort > Lawrence > Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 8:59 AM > To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: <nettime> Middle East crises and Japandisaster > lead to an increase of online, TV viewers > > > Interesting trend. Thanks, Michael. > > Here on washington, Al-Jazeera has become the the essential place to go for > timely and in-depth coverage of events in the Middle East. Some Al-Jazeera > watchers are starting to suggest that their information on other parts of > the world are superior to that of CNN, the US broadcasters, and -- yes -- > even the BBC. > > With my interest in the Middle East, the public sources I I follow daily: > Haaretz, al-Jazeera, Guardian, Le Monde, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, > Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Al-Ahram, BBC, NYT, Christian Science > Monitor, Washington Post (despite its dramatic deterioration over the past > couple of years and now horrible website). > > Cheers, > Lawry > > > On Apr 28, 2011, at 5:56 AM, Michael Gurstein wrote: > >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] >> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Juergen Fenn >> Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 3:42 PM >> To: nettime-l mailing list >> Subject: <nettime> Middle East crises and Japan disaster lead to an >> increase of online, TV viewers >> >> >> >> The revolutions in Tunesia and Egypt and the civil war in Libya as >> well as the earth quake and tsunami leading to a nuclear catastrophe >> in Japan have lead to a sharp increase of users viewing TV on-line. I >> have just come across a blog post by web TV provider Livestation that >> says the number of users has risen by 1047 percent (sic!) in the first >> quarter of 2011, making it the first profitable one in the company's >> history. The blog post says there are some 10 million viewers per >> month now watching international news channels such as BBC World News, >> AlJazeera, or AlArabya on the peer-to-peer service, as access is free >> to everyone who installs the client necessary. Mobile sessions also >> increased to some 15 million in March 2011. >> >> <http://blog.livestation.com/index.php/2011/04/the-livestation-revolut >> ion/> >> >> Regards, >> Jürgen. >> >> >> >> >> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # >> <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # >> collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more >> info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l >> # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] >> >> >> !DSPAM:2676,4db9486040303383636737! >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Futurework mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
