[YZF]

People working in the Israeli Al-Jazeera office don't have any direct access to report from Gaza. There is also a large foreign press presence in Israel (vs. zero in Gaza e.g.) anyways so you'll still get plenty of direct reporting from Israel and the West Bank that's unfiltered (vs. zero in Gaza e.g.).

https://foreignpressassociation.online/who-we-are/

Al Jazeera isn't free media. It's the propaganda arm of Qatar.

"Several journalists have been arrested and jailed, or even deported – in most cases for taking too close an interest in the working conditions of immigrant workers. The authorities do not hesitate, if necessary, to convict bloggers who are local residents of “disseminating false information”. This is how the blogger Malcolm Bidali was detained for a month before being deported to his country of origin, Kenya, after paying a fine." - https://rsf.org/en/country/qatar

[FireBeyond]

> Al Jazeera isn't free media. It's the propaganda arm of Qatar.

Conflating Qatar's other issues with Al Jazeera is misdirection.

Media watch groups consistently rate Al Jazeera as "neutral/balanced", with their perspective "skewing slightly left", which doesn't seem particularly consistent with Qatar.

> Ad Fontes Media rates Al Jazeera in the Skews Left category of bias and as Reliable, Analysis/Fact Reporting in terms of reliability.

> All Sides rates Al Jazeera as "Leans Left"

> Al Jazeera equal in reliability to CNN

They are certainly not without issue, to be sure. But still.

Sources: https://adfontesmedia.com/al-jazeera-bias-and-reliability/ , https://www.allsides.com/news-source/al-jazeera-media-bias

[YZF]

It is not a misdirection. It is headquartered in Qatar and is funded by the government. There is no conflation there. Qatar is not free, journalists operating in Qatar are not free, end of story. You can't operate free press based and funded by a country that is not free and suppressed/intimidates/controls the press.

[FireBeyond]

Partially funded by the government.

And consistently rated as a neutral and reliable media source.

The two concepts, though they may have some overlap, are not one and the same.

[YZF]

It is definitely not consistently rated (by who?) as neutral or reliable.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/al-jazeera/ - Rated "mixed" on "factual" reporting, i.e. some facts, some lies... i.e. rates as propaganda.

EDIT: "and Mixed for factual reporting due to failed fact checks that were not corrected and misleading extreme editorial bias that favors Qatar."

EDIT2: https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/al-jazeera-%E2%80%98defe...

[FireBeyond]

"by who"? I included the sources in my comment.

Even your link here says:

> In review, Al Jazeera reports news with minimally loaded wording in their headlines and articles ... properly sourced from credible news agencies. When reporting USA news, there is minimal bias in reporting ... In general, straight news reporting has a minimal bias; however, as a state-funded news agency, Al Jazeera is typically not critical of Qatar.

The failed fact checks were regarding two articles that weren't corrected.

> In 2017, Al Jazeera aired an investigative report of Britain’s Israel lobby. Following the airing, Ofcom (the UK government-approved regulatory and competition authority) received complaints from many pro-Israeli British activists, including one former Israeli embassy employee. They were accused of anti-Semitism, bias, unfair editing, and infringement of privacy, which was later cleared by Ofcom, who said the piece was not anti-semitic and was, in fact, investigative journalism.

Huh.

> Further, Saudi Arabia and three other Arab nations demanded Qatar to shut down Al-Jazeera. Al Jazeera rebuts the accusations here.

So pro-Arab that SA (and UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt) demanded Qatar shut them down...

I never said Al Jazeera is perfect, and as noted, there is a reluctance to criticize the Qatari government.

I take less issue with "some of their opinion pieces are vocally anti-Israel", unless the contention is that nothing Israel can do can be criticized for ... reasons?

[weatherlite]

> some of their opinion pieces are vocally anti-Israel

All, not some. I've been reading them regularly for a few months and have never seen anything that isn't Anti Zionist, let alone pro Israel, and this was way before the current war - I'm sure its much worse now.

[chgs]

So you are saying you can’t operate a free press in Israel?

[YZF]

Can Qatari media call for the government to be ousted? Can Israeli media call for the government to be ousted?

Answer these two questions and you'll be able to answer your own question.

[aaomidi]

Every press operates within the confines of the government it’s based in.

Major US news agencies regularly ask DoD if certain topics are okay for them to cover. Beyond that, most relevant news in the US is owned by billionaires that regularly repress news that would paint them in a bad light.

Anyway, no news agency is perfect.

[runarberg]

The BBC is also headquartered in the UK, and is funded by the government. Thad doesn’t automatically make the BBC “The propaganda arm” of the UK.

This submission is about Al Jazeeras operations in Israel—which is supposed to have press freedom. Israel raided and closed the Israel operations, and banned Al Jazeera’s journalists from operating in Israel.

All that said, I’m not sure you last point goes without saying. There is nothing which fundamentally prevents receiving funding from a country which suppresses press freedom, which prevents you from doing free journalism. Will receiving funding cause editorial bias? Sure, but if receiving funding automatically made you a propaganda arm for the entity funding you, then you should really question whether western media is a propaganda arm for free market capitalism, or if Hacker News was a propaganda arm for venture capitalist Y Combinator.

[chgs]

You’re right there are other media outlets

Oh.

“A BBC team visited the scene, but was prevented from filming or going into the hotel by police.”

It’s the kind of behaviour you expect in Egypt

https://www.wired.com/2011/01/al-jazeera-closed/

That was followed by arrests

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/01/29/268481172...

[YZF]

There was plenty of coverage of the closure including photos. Not sure what you're insinuating here. Israel has free press and no it's not like Egypt. In your bastions of democracy (pick one?) Journalists can't go anywhere they want to. If the police is operating in an area they might restrict access to it. That has nothing to do with freedom of the press. E.g. in the USA the first amendment does not guarantee journalists access to non-public spaces (like a hotel is).

https://freedomhouse.org/country/israel https://rsf.org/en/country/israel

https://freedomhouse.org/country/egypt https://rsf.org/en/country/egypt

[chgs]

A video posted by the minister on X shows police officers and inspectors from the ministry entering a hotel room. A BBC team visited the scene, but was prevented from filming or going into the hotel by police.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68961753

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said they had filed a request to the country's Supreme Court to issue an interim order to overturn the ban.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) urged the Israeli government to reconsider its decision, saying the shut down of Al Jazeera in the country should be "a cause for concern for all supporters of a free press". The FPA said in a statement that Israel now joins "a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station", and warned that Mr Netanyahu has the authority to target other foreign outlets that he considers to be "acting against the state". The Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna echoed the same concerns, saying: "The Israeli cabinet must allow Al Jazeera and all international media outlets to operate freely in Israel, especially during wartime." The UN's Human Rights office also called the Israeli government to reverse the ban, posting on X: "A free & independent media is essential to ensuring transparency & accountability. Now, even more so given tight restrictions on reporting from Gaza."

But yes all those terrorist groups like the UN, Foreign Press Association, ACRI, are all irrelevant, all we need is the IDF mouthpiece and Baghdad Bob.