[smcl]

I mean FOX News and Newsmax are "as independent as possible" in that regard but they're both utter trash, so it's obviously more nuanced than that. Discarding Al Jazeera entirely because they can't/won't go hard on Qatari matters (which you can read anywhere else if you really care) is a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, to me.

[actuator]

I think the problem is not that they won't criticise them, it shows that they lack editorial freedom, which means any coverage even if global matters coming from them should be looked at with suspicion, like what would be Qatar monarchy's view on this global issue

[defrost]

In another sense it helps that you can tell exactly where they're coming from on most issues.

Qatar threw money at them "to be the best of the best" in global reporting .. pretty much because they can then point to Al Jaz's world class credentials when it comes to the void on bad reporting at home.

I can see a time in the future when they might start strongly bending their international reporting .. but for now at least they play with an even bat on most issues outside their own borders, they've hired a number of top tier global reporters away from prestige journals elsewhere.

I've been observing media across the world for decades .. all media has biases, it actually helps to know what those are.

[smcl]

It is naive to think any news outlet shouldn't be regarded with any amount of suspicion. Bias exists everywhere, if you select a news source and blindly trust it you're going to be misled some day.

[weatherlite]

Could be that they're trash, don't follow them much. That still doesn't make Al-Jazeera not trash.

[smcl]

Nope, but it does show that you can be completely free of any government involvement and still suck. From what I've seen AJ has had some pretty decent reporting overall and if we're looking at it in terms of propaganda those supposedly "free" ones are positively dripping with it and make AJ look saintly by comparison.