Agreed, mostly, but Al Jazeera is the Qatari version of Pravda. It’s more a run off the mouth press, not free, as it doesn’t allow any response nor criticism from readers or listeners on its web sites, and it certainly doesn’t permit criticism of the Qatari government. No coverage of the exploitation of workers at the FIFA world cup of the over 6000 deaths of construction workers. Nothing about funding terrorism nor criticism of Hamas leadership living in luxury in Doha on Qatari pensions. And then there is the problem, allegedly, of al Jazeera reporters passing on classified information on Israeli troop formations in the north and south of Israel. Add to that that al Jazeera employed “reporters” who accompanied the invasion of Oct 7 and were also members of Hamas. I also believe the Israelis were chuffed when the Arabic AJ channel recently called the Holocaust “alleged”.
I doubt al Jazeera reporting will change. They’ll just prewrite their stories with the usual bias and sprinkle in a few “facts” which may or may not be true to give the illusion of authenticity. Same as when they were kicked out of several other countries including Egypt.
I had hoped to find you as I had a question to ask – are you at all familiar with the social philosopher Edgar Morin? I hadn’t heard of him at all but apparently, according to the Introduction, he’s quite well known in continental Europe, esp France. A friend lent me a book of his essays “The Challenge of Complexity”. At times a bit wonky and overly poetic but I find some of his observations quite interesting.