Al'Jazeera Propaganda...Can You Believe it?!

There's an article on Al'Jazeera's Website which is very informative The title of the article is, "Pakistan wants inquiry into U.S.’s "derogatory" cartoon". The article is very fascinating from the perspective of sneaking in little pushes to the reader to cause them to believe something that is not true. For instance, this quote:

"Pakistan has asked for an inquiry to be conducted and U.S. administration has also expressed its displeasure over its publication and they are issuing an advisory to this effect," Foreign Office spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told a weekly press briefing in Islamabad.

This statement is remarkable. In one sentance, they stated that The Washington Times is a state run news paper, and that the US government is considering an inquiry into someone excersizing their freedom of speech. While the cartoon may not have been in the best taste, it was, naturally, a slam against the US foriegn policy, depicting Pakistan as a loyal dog willing to do whatever the US said (after all, there's no way a nation's leadership could believe that what we're doing is for good, not imperialistic evil )

Because all the media outlets in the middle east are state controlled (at least the legal ones) to some degree, it doesn't take much for the citizens of these nations to believe that the US's news publications are handled the same way. By giving the people this impression, they will assume any American news media they read is backed by the state. So, when the New York Times has something to say, most likely the state of New York has reviewed the article and decided it matches with the state's mentality. Anything from the Washington Times has the sign off by the Bush administration (talk about irony!).

This is especially dangerous with editorials, where people often have some strong opinions. If people in the middle east are convinced that what they're reading in the op/ed column is endorsed by the US government, many wrong impressions could, and probably would, result.

I would love to know what the arabic version says, but the site I used to go to for arabic translation has since shut down. If anyone has a link, I'd love to see it!

This is not the real al jazeera. it's run by a group of people in the UK.

the real one is english.aljazeera.net...

they post new ones evey week showing the "peoples" so called thoughts, some are actually quite funny if you dont mind the humour, but yeah this is a website that is a good source of information for current activities in iraq

Why not?

Sure, it ain't as good as our US propaganda, but give them a break! Everyone loves propaganda, why don't you?

Yeah, we all know the filthy towel head terrorists of the middle east are the only ones with state run media outlets, and they are the only ones that have propoganda... They are arabs, so they must be lying terrorists, is that what your saying?

Originally posted by junglejake
This statement is remarkable. In one sentance, they stated that The Washington Times is a state run news paper, and that the US government is considering an inquiry into someone excersizing their freedom of speech. While the cartoon may not have been in the best taste, it was, naturally, a slam against the US foriegn policy, depicting Pakistan as a loyal dog willing to do whatever the US said (after all, there's no way a nation's leadership could believe that what we're doing is for good, not imperialistic evil

)

Hold on the phone for a sec. If a cartoon can be classified as inciting racial hatred, or let's say as pornographic, it sure as hell will be investigated. If God forbid it's anti-semitic, the anti-defamation League will sue your pants off.

So in essense, having press and other communications examned my the govt is nothing new. Weren't Howard Sterns carriers fined half a million dollars?

Just wanted to let everyone know once again that aljazeera.com is not[/n] the AlJazeera network (you know, the beheading one?). It's important to distinguish the two.

So this is something based in the UK? Is it along the lines of the Weekly World News, where people read it to be amused, or do people actually take this site seriously?

And why did they pick that web addy and name if they're not al'jazeera?