Reflexive American Bigotry Makes an International Fool of Itself — Time Warner Dumped Current TV, apparently in Part because Al Jazeera Bought It — and Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly Thoughtlessly Followed Up by Slamming Al Gore — All without Looking at Al Jazeera English’s Actual Doings

04 January 2013

Theme — casually disregarding facts, and shooting one’s ignorant mouth off, makes one a fool

We Americans apparently enjoy making unappealing jack-behinds of ourselves in the international arena. Perhaps, we are so complacently conceited that we do not realize that we’re doing it.

The arrogance of American bigotry shows up all over the place. Routinely irritating large swaths of cross-national Peoples has to make accomplishing American foreign policy goals that much more difficult.

Following is a subtle example of this increasingly common American behavior. It involves the sale of former Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV to the Qatar government-owned Al Jazeera network.

I highlight the bigoted reaction that the sale provoked among just a few prominent American entities. Their reaction is indicative of our characteristically ignorant, usually misguided, and culturally narrow reactions to international events.

What happened — an ordinary media sale aroused fools’ ire

Al Gore, who founded Current TV, sold it to Al Jazeera two days ago.

Al Jazeera is an internationally prominent Qatar (government/royal family) owned news outlet.

The network gained American notoriety under the President George W. Bush Administration for allegedly being anti-American — apparently on the grounds that anyone who subtly, implicitly, or inferentially criticized the often reoccurring stupidity of misbegotten American foreign policies had to be evil.

From the Washington Post:

Since its launch in 2006, al-Jazeera TV’s English-language news channel has racked up prestigious journalism awards for its reporting on international issues, including the Arab Spring uprisings.

The problem: Hardly anyone sees al-Jazeera English (AJE) because few cable TV operators carry it.

Al-Jazeera’s nadir may have been its public denunciation by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who in 2003 accused it of spreading “vicious lies” about American military actions.

While the Arabic network has been praised by the likes of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for challenging dictators throughout the Arab world, both the Arabic and English-language channels have been accused of an anti-Western bias.

[C]riticism of Qatar’s ruling family or its government has been almost nonexistent on the channels, said Steven Stalinsky, the executive director of Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an organization that monitors Arabic media and describes itself as nonpartisan.

Stalinsky has documented ties between al-Jazeera’s management and journalists — including its former boss, Wadah Khanfar — and the Muslim Brotherhood, the pan-Arabic political movement.

He is particularly critical of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Muslim cleric who appears frequently on al-Jazeera to inveigh against Jews, the United States and gays and has praised suicide bombings.

Stalinsky calls AJE “a paler version” of the Arab channel that is less hostile to Western interests.

Notice a couple of things — Al Jazeera is not the same as its English language offshoot

Sensible news outlets craft their products to the tastes of their viewerships.

Therefore, it is reasonable to anticipate that Al Jazeera’s anticipated American television presence — presumably to be carried on Current TV — will parallel the tone and content that Al Jazeera English displays.

Second, in reference to Mr. Stalinsky’s perhaps paranoid criticism of the Arabian network, what media outlet to you know that routinely criticizes its owners? Most people and corporations do not buy entities that are going to flagellate them.

What happened after Al Jazeera bought Current TV? — American bigots pounced

Time Warner Cable immediately dropped Current TV from its line-up.

Though Time Warner Cable can point to unrelated contractual reasons for doing this, the decision’s timing does not indicate a thoughtfully taken lawyerly approach to dealing with contractual problems.

Instead, one can (arguably) infer reflexive bigotry at the corporate level, combined with a knee jerk reaction to anticipated audience prejudice.

Fox News’ account of the sale gives Fox and (perhaps) Time Warner inferentially away with the laughably moronic statement that:

Al-Jazeera has been criticized for having a pro-Islamist bent, and accused of working with members of Al Qaeda.

That’s like criticizing an American news outlet for being pro-Christian or pro-democracy.

Of course, an Arabic media outlet is going to be pro-Islam. How would you sell your product to your viewers and readers if you attack their most basic belief system?

Fox News’ cultural bigotry shows in that one line. It assumes that Islam itself is intrinsically evil.

Going further, Fox News implies that Al Jazeera is guilty of terrorism, simply because an unidentified someone accused it of being so. In the United States, we generally presume innocence in the absence of proof.

Not to be outdone by his employer’s level of foolishness, Bill O’Reilly injected his (sometimes abrasively silly) self into the fray. Extracts include:

Back in 1948 little Al Gore was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and maybe, maybe it should have stayed there.

Al Gore sold his cable network to, wait for it -- Al Jazeera -- the anti-American network out of Qatar which recently ran a documentary sympathetic to Osama bin Laden.

A former vice president of the United States selling his far-left cable operation to anti-Americans and then trying to jam the deal to avoid taxes to the federal government.

"Talking Points" believes Al Gore has shamed himself simply by selling to Al Jazeera which will now have access to about 40 million more American homes. Now I'm not for censuring Al Jazeera that's what they do in the Islamic world. We are better than that here.

But this is just sleazy, Al. This is disgraceful. Perhaps the "New York Times" got it wrong and Al Gore did not try to avoid paying higher taxes [by selling before tax rates went up at the beginning of 2013]. If that's the case, we'll be happy to correct the record and give Mr. Gore all the time he wants on "The Factor" to set things straight.

Is Mr. O’Reilly, who holds himself out as a believer in capitalism, really criticizing Al Gore for wanting to minimize his taxes? That’s hypocrisy capitalized.

Are you curious about the totality of Mr. O’Reilly’s proof that Al Jazeera is a terrorist sympathizer?

Here it is, transcribed by Fox News:

(BEGIN [the Al Jazeera] VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the story of bin Laden, through the eyes of people who met him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was very conscious of his appearance. He would touch his beard, robe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he looked me in the eyes and he was answering my questions, he had the tone and manner of an old uncle.

(END [the Al Jazeera] VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: Oh, an old uncle who is a mass murderer? Now when you think about it, this is really stunning. A former vice president of the United States selling his far-left cable operation to anti-Americans and then trying to jam the deal to avoid taxes to the federal government.

That is the entirety of Mr. O’Reilly’s proof that Al Jazeera is bad.

Al Jazeera once produced a documentary about Osama bin Laden. Two of the network’s interviewees expressed respect (perhaps even admiration) for the man’s persuasive demeanor. Mr. O’Reilly then takes these vanishingly few seconds from the Al Jazeera documentary to prove that the network is pro-terrorist.

Watch the short O’Reilly clip (here) and tell me whether his “evidence” would persuade anyone, who has an even a minimally functioning brain, that Al Jazeera is America’s enemy.

Anti-Western bias? — Not really, at least for anyone actually willing to look and evaluate

I have not seen an anti-American bias in the Al Jazeera English perspective. And I have been reading Al Jazeera English every day for the last few years. You can count me with Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator John McCain as one of the network’s admirers.

In truth, Al Jazeera is one of the most unbiased news outlets that I read, including the most prominent American and United Kingdom newspapers and media outlets. The Qatar-based group distinguishes itself from the competition by competently dwelling on two things that I consider important:

(i) Focusing on the lives of ordinary people, all over the world

(ii) Doing so in concise, usually well organized, and intelligently written pieces and videos

Note

For a handful of examples of what I’m referring to, just plug “Al Jazeera” into the search box on my website, here.

Al Jazeera also has direct access to people and critically important places that American and English reporters do not. And it goes to regions (like South America, Africa, and Asia) that the American media routinely ignore.

In doing these things, the network separates itself from virtually all of its competitors, most of whom present often poorly written and tediously disorganized pieces that are almost exclusively concerned with the doings of celebrities and Alpha People.

The prevailing American response to Al Jazeera represents reflexive anti-Arabic bigotry on our part. Americans who attack Al Jazeera English without confirmatory evidence, simply do not know what they’re talking about.

The fact that Al Jazeera tells viewers and readers what international terrorists are saying and doing hardly makes it a supporter of terrorism. The fact that the network reports on the myriad varieties of Arab, Iranian (Persian), Palestinian, and Israeli occurrences and opinions does not make it an enemy of the United States.

If we were smarter, we might value what Al Jazeera produces simply because it gives us a window into what other Peoples are doing and thinking.

But, of course, educating ourselves would be quintessentially un-American. Isn’t the United States the “Be and End All” of the world? How dare a bunch of “foreigners” tell us what they think, even when their facts and insights are often more accurate than our own.

Were Americans to pay more attention to Al Jazeera-delivered insights into the workings of the Middle East, the United States might actually be able to craft a more effective policy in regard to that region and the Islamic beliefs that permeate most of it.

The moral? — Reflexively indulged bigotry makes us both ignorant and stupid

Ignorance and stupidity are the most characteristic elements of American foreign (and increasingly domestic) policies.

We should welcome Al Jazeera to our shores as a partial antidote.

PeteFree.com

Reflexive American Bigotry Makes an International Fool of Itself — Time Warner Dumped Current TV, apparently in Part because Al Jazeera Bought It — and Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly Thoughtlessly Followed Up by Slamming Al Gore — All without Looking at Al Jazeera English’s Actual Doings