[kerkeslager]

At this point, if a person doesn't read Al Jazeera regularly, I can't take that person's opinions on global politics very seriously.

It's not that Al Jazeera isn't biased, or even that it's less biased, it's just that it provides a viewpoint which is so obviously missing from western news sources, and if you're not making an attempt to expose yourself to that viewpoint, you are only hearing one side of quite a wide variety of global political issues.

[yellowapple]

I agree with this, as someone who rolls his eyes at the vast majority of what Al Jazeera publishes. I have a similar attitude with RT and Fox News and Breitbart; I may strongly disagree with a lot of their conclusions, but I do recognize the importance of understanding the thought processes underpinning those conclusions.

[rjf72]

When you expose yourself to different news sources it also makes clear who is engaging in propaganda. It's only by comparing the information provided by various nations that one can clearly see who is manipulating the available information to push an agenda.

One extremely contemporary example of this is Hong Kong. In trying to find out what was going on, I was searching for videos of the police shootings. This [1] is the US cut of the first shooting. This [2] is footage of the exact same incident from ChannelNewsAsia, a Singapore news company. No need for commentary beyond that since I think the extreme difference between the videos, and the message they try to convey, speak for themselves.

I'd never heard of CNA before that. Seems to be quite a solid source of information [3]. Though I expect it may only a matter of time before that honeymoon fades. It wasn't long ago that I also used to think the same of Reuters.

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-anniversary-hongkon...

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN4MvOrPotk

[3] - https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/international

[kerkeslager]

Wow, yeah. The difference in impressions created between the two links is huge.

[pas]

What is your interpretation of the Reuters cut?

[rjf72]

This is the text from that article:

"Police confirmed that an officer opened fire at a protester, saying he was acting in self-defense. “A large group of rioters was attacking police officers in Tsuen Wan,” police said in a statement. “Police officers warned them, but they were still attacking police. A police officer’s life was seriously endangered. In order to save his and other officers’ lives, they fired at the attacker.” One clip posted on social media and verified by Reuters shows the protester, an as yet unnamed 18-year-old man, swing a baton at a policeman, brushing his right arm."

The article and video are designed to imply that the Chinese are claiming that the the officer who fired at the protester is the one who's life was in danger -- that brushing the officer's arm was placing his life in danger. Somebody only consuming that media would have no idea that in the middle of the group of protesters was a police officer who the protesters continued to beat, potentially to death. Note as the crowd disperses to the point that the beaten police officer laying on the ground would become visible, the video immediately cuts to a new frame - repeatedly.

This deception is made even more gratuitous by the inclusion of the police spokesperson's response. Without being able to understand the context of what was happening in that video, which is not provided, the spokesperson's comments sound completely absurd and basically like he's just overtly lying to justify shooting a protester. That in effect makes people think the officer's statement is simply propaganda. Somewhat ironic.

I think the whole propaganda war is idiotic. Let people see what's happening on both sides with complete context and judge for themselves. Real life is not full of Hollywood heroes and villains, it's invariably a million shades of gray. Debate and discussion these issues is healthy and productive for everybody. Most ironically, I suspect people would ultimately come to the same conclusion even with honest context. So why lie?

[kerkeslager]

> I think the whole propaganda war is idiotic. Let people see what's happening on both sides with complete context and judge for themselves. Real life is not full of Hollywood heroes and villains, it's invariably a million shades of gray. Debate and discussion these issues is healthy and productive for everybody. Most ironically, I suspect people would ultimately come to the same conclusion even with honest context. So why lie?

Well, which conclusion do you think they would come to?

In general, I agree with you that the media should strive to give an accurate impression of the truth and let the public form their own opinion. But this is a really gut-wrenching position to take sometimes, because the it's so clear that public opinion isn't capable of nuances like supporting a cause without supporting all the tactics of its supporters. Just as life is not full of Hollywood heroes and villains, it doesn't have Hollywood endings either. The good guys don't always win, and often the good guys don't win because the bad guys are willing to lie, and ambguity makes the good guys indecisive.

[vonseel]

You’ve just convinced at least one person to add Al Jazeera to his primary news sources.

[kerkeslager]

I'm glad!

The need to get my news from international sources became apparent to me after hearing two radio reports on the same story. The local US radio said something along the lines of "Two Palestinians are dead after they attacked Israeli police." The BBC story said something like, "Israeli police shot and killed two Palestinian youths after the youths threw stones at the police." That's not even an openly pro-Palestinian organization, it's the BBC. There's still bias[1], but it's clear that the bias is in a different direction.

[1] I've been told by a 5-lingual friend that "throwing stones" is often a translation of a Hebrew/Arabic word (directly, "stoning") that sometimes includes behaviors like "dropping a refrigerator off the top of a building onto your target"--certainly a lot less innocuous than "throwing stones". I'm not saying that's what happened--I don't know--I'm just saying to be wary of assuming that any amount of secondhand reporting gives you an accurate impression of what's happening on the ground.