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> Russia Today (Though that's state sponsored so it might not be the best comparison) Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar. However, I agree with you

> Russia Today (Though that's state sponsored so it might not be the best comparison) Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar. However, I agree with you that it's not a good comparision. BBC also is state sponsored, but generally considered to be trustworthy. RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports.

chris_wot 11y ago
Same with the Australian ABC. Pretty much only rusted on supporters of the Liberal and National parties are the only ones who don't support it, and even they watch it over the commerical networks. That said, I really want to see what Netflix can do with the news cycle.
- jkldotio 11y ago
  Although it's becoming less meaningful statistic due to a host of reasons the audience figures for free-to-air (FTA) TV have almost always had the ABC trailing the smallest commercial network. A 2009 graph[0] shows how it's historically been although digging into more recent numbers their position is slightly better with the new digital channels.[1] Although we are in the holiday season and the commercial channels seem to perform better in other portions of the year. [0] https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/research/statistics/archftvratingsnetwork.aspx https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/research/statistics/archf... [1] (~467k pdf) http://oztam.com.au//documents/2015/OzTAM-20151227-C1MetFTAShrCons.pdf http://oztam.com.au//documents/2015/OzTAM-20151227-C1MetFTAS...
- mtbcoder 11y ago
  > I really want to see what Netflix can do with the news cycle. I don't see this as a good fit for Netflix as I'm not quite sure what they would bring to the news cycle table that isn't already being done. Commercial free broadcasts? Infrastructure? Most quality, public media stations already upload full, commercial free shows to their Youtube channels (and often with quick turn-around from the original broadcast date.) You just simply need to subscribe to their channel (something that I can't do in Netflix).
imglorp 11y ago
Regardless of their propaganda or slant, these outlets are useful specifically because they are not part of the US media cycle "play list". US audiences are in a filter bubble. Also some of the domestic outlets are too busy reposting Vines to cover enough stories in between sports and weather. Once encountering a story on those alternate sources, you can read with some critical thinking maybe, and then look for other sources to corroborate.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  You're trading one filter bubble for another. Unless you want to see how the population of another country experience propaganda, I don't see how it could be useful. You could do critical thinking on any source, not just alternates.
  - Avshalom 11y ago
    Well I mean I can't say anything to Russia Today but Al Jazeera for instance is often the only english language network with reporters on the ground in a lot of middle east situations.
    - seanp2k2 11y ago
      This. It can be hard to get a non-US spin on middle eastern events, which is I regularly look to AJ and BBC. The value is in getting a different perspective, not completely unbiased reporting. Associated Press feeds can also be somewhat helpful: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/APNewsFeeds http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/APNewsFeeds
      - br_smartass 11y ago
        Yep. There's whole different point of views to be seen. People are saying propaganda like it means only the caricaturization of propaganda(i.e.: overt), and, corollarily, like what is not overt is not propaganda or like it's "but ours is nicer/good". It's not like this, propaganda is everywhere. To me, anything that's not the pure facts plus context is the same as propaganda/ideology, there's only reality or propaganda/ideology, it's what I'm saying. If you want to approximate reality of stuff getting the different perspectives is absolutely mandatory. I guess that's too much work for most people, though.
Someone1234 11y ago
> RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports. So like NBC nightly news? The US is full of what can only be described as US government propaganda, 60 minutes is a prime example. CBS and NBC are no better than RT unfortunately, they just often tell Americans what they want to hear so nobody bats an eyelid. AJ and BBC have their biases but at least they try. PS - I moved to the US from abroad and was genuinely shocked not by the obviously ridiculous cable news (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News) but by the "news" pretending to be unbiased while in reality being a US government mouthpiece.
- yellowstuff 11y ago
  I don't know a good way to prove that US media is not a government mouthpiece, but I don't think there is much evidence to support such a strong claim, whereas it is pretty easy to argue that RT is a government mouthpiece. EG: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/12/the-truth-about-russia-today-is-that-it-is-putins-mouthpiece/ http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/12/the-truth-about-russia-to...
  - Someone1234 11y ago
    Just to be clear I never said RT wasn't a government mouthpiece. I said that some US news is "as bad as" them. I have no idea how exactly it works with CBS/NBC/60 minutes. Does the US government literally write the words? Do they just dictate what they should report on? Do they send them pre-produced bottled reports? It is unclear, but what is clear is the ultimate result: pure dripping pro-US government propaganda of the worst kind.
    - learc83 11y ago
      I don't think we are watching the same news at all. CBS and NBC regularly have reports that the government would stop if they could. >I said that some US news is "as bad as" them. I've seen plenty of reports on NBC or CBS criticizing Obama (or Bush before him), have you ever seen a report that was critical of Putin on RT? How would this even work. Do they switch stories depending on who is in power?
david-given 11y ago
The Al Jazeera that we get in the UK is apparently run by a lot of ex-BBC people, and uses a lot of the BBC house style, which means and news report will instantly look respectable to a big British market segment. Not that I've ever met anyone in the UK who's ever watched it, of course. This is the best run-down of the BBC house style I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI
virtuabhi 11y ago
BBC is not considered trustworthy in India. We listen to BBC for English language but also recognize that BBC still suffers from colonial-era mindset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Indophobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Indophobi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Anti-Hindu_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Anti-Hind... "Writing for the 2008 edition of the peer-reviewed Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Alasdair Pinkerton analyses the coverage of India by the BBC since India's independence from British rule in 1947 until 2008. Pinkerton observes a tumultuous history involving allegations of anti-India bias in the BBC's reportage, particularly during the cold war, and concludes that the BBC's coverage of South Asian geopolitics and economics shows a pervasive and hostile anti-India bias due to the BBC's alleged imperialist and neo-colonialist stance.[118]"
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  The BBC is not seen as a trustworthy news source by all in the UK either, but its biases are harder to spot than some other outlets. Generally speaking, you only get a clear picture of their news manipulation when you're on the opposing side of the messages they put out. To give a recent example, there was a story a week or two ago where they held back on an interview with a politician they knew was going to resign until just before a parliamentary debate, which appears to have been a move to undermine the leader of this politician's party, which they've been making efforts to discredit. http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?p=81049649 http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?p=81049649
  - paublyrne 11y ago
    Although there is no such thing as complete objectivity in news reporting, the BBC news department tends to try to give all political parties an equally hard time, with the possible exception of extreme right parties like UKIP, who they are a little harder on.
- arjn 11y ago
  Thats odd, I distinctly remember a huge liking and trust for the BBC (especially radio) among the older Indian folk - middle class and above.
KineticLensman 11y ago
> BBC also is state sponsored, but generally considered to be trustworthy. Brit here: The BBC is state-funded, but it's output is not state-driven. The news team (IMHO) generally takes an editorial view that is to the left of the current Tory government. For once I think the BBC is to the right of the current Labour opposition, whose new leadership is the furthest left it has been for a generation. And perhaps worryingly non-electable to people who are mildly left-of-centre. My current approach to getting the UK news is to interpolate between the Guardian (pro-Labour, but less so of its current leadership) and the Telegraph (Torygraph).
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "worryingly non-electable" I find it baffling that people still believe this rhetoric, especially after Corbyn winning the Labour leadership election by a huge margin. The whole 'unelectable' thing certainly gets repeated enough in the media, but I'd hoped more people would've seen through the concerted effort to attack him by now.
  - KineticLensman 11y ago
    Yes. The BBC isn't pro-govt but it isn't neutral either. IMO
- mahranch 11y ago
  > The BBC is state-funded, but it's output is not state-driven. It's amazing how many people don't understand this fact. You'll see people on reddit compare the BBC to RussiaToday or Xinhua. The latter two are literally government run agencies that specifically exist to push their country's narrative of world events out to the rest of the world. The BBC is government owned but not government ran, there's a massive difference.
moo 11y ago
If Western media could not stop the WMD lie, what are they good for? You can find BBC fabrication in faked Madaya media images [1], or see bad stage acting used in BBC Panorama 'Saving Syria's Children.' [2] [1] https://thewallwillfall.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/madaya-bbc-caught-recycling-footage-from-yarmouk/ https://thewallwillfall.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/madaya-bbc-... [2] https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/ https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/
jzd 11y ago
_______ is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi (INSERT TOP NEWS NETWORK HERE)
grayje 11y ago
Careful, don't poke the Russian internet troll war machine. Before you know it, this thread will be filled with posts from users with no posting history defending Russia Today's journalistic integrity and/or slighting that of US networks.
rdancer 11y ago
> considered to be trustworthy By who, please, people who don't watch the BBC? The BBC has been in opposition to the UK government once in living memory, back in 2003, and it's still being talked about.
shitgoose 11y ago
none of the news channels is trustworthy. the difference is in degree of bias. BBC is very biased.
MichaelMoser123 11y ago
The BBC is not very objective in its coverage of Israel. http://bbcwatch.org http://bbcwatch.org is very critical of the BBC in this respect. Al Jazeera seems to have a problem with Jews in general ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_criticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and... says so ). They also don't like the Shia - not without editorial bias so to speak.

chris_wot 11y ago

Same with the Australian ABC. Pretty much only rusted on supporters of the Liberal and National parties are the only ones who don't support it, and even they watch it over the commerical networks. That said, I really want to see what Netflix can do with the news cycle.

jkldotio 11y ago
Although it's becoming less meaningful statistic due to a host of reasons the audience figures for free-to-air (FTA) TV have almost always had the ABC trailing the smallest commercial network. A 2009 graph[0] shows how it's historically been although digging into more recent numbers their position is slightly better with the new digital channels.[1] Although we are in the holiday season and the commercial channels seem to perform better in other portions of the year. [0] https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/research/statistics/archftvratingsnetwork.aspx https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/research/statistics/archf... [1] (~467k pdf) http://oztam.com.au//documents/2015/OzTAM-20151227-C1MetFTAShrCons.pdf http://oztam.com.au//documents/2015/OzTAM-20151227-C1MetFTAS...
mtbcoder 11y ago
> I really want to see what Netflix can do with the news cycle. I don't see this as a good fit for Netflix as I'm not quite sure what they would bring to the news cycle table that isn't already being done. Commercial free broadcasts? Infrastructure? Most quality, public media stations already upload full, commercial free shows to their Youtube channels (and often with quick turn-around from the original broadcast date.) You just simply need to subscribe to their channel (something that I can't do in Netflix).

imglorp 11y ago

Regardless of their propaganda or slant, these outlets are useful specifically because they are not part of the US media cycle "play list". US audiences are in a filter bubble. Also some of the domestic outlets are too busy reposting Vines to cover enough stories in between sports and weather. Once encountering a story on those alternate sources, you can read with some critical thinking maybe, and then look for other sources to corroborate.

xlm1717 11y ago
You're trading one filter bubble for another. Unless you want to see how the population of another country experience propaganda, I don't see how it could be useful. You could do critical thinking on any source, not just alternates.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  Well I mean I can't say anything to Russia Today but Al Jazeera for instance is often the only english language network with reporters on the ground in a lot of middle east situations.
  - seanp2k2 11y ago
    This. It can be hard to get a non-US spin on middle eastern events, which is I regularly look to AJ and BBC. The value is in getting a different perspective, not completely unbiased reporting. Associated Press feeds can also be somewhat helpful: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/APNewsFeeds http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/APNewsFeeds
    - br_smartass 11y ago
      Yep. There's whole different point of views to be seen. People are saying propaganda like it means only the caricaturization of propaganda(i.e.: overt), and, corollarily, like what is not overt is not propaganda or like it's "but ours is nicer/good". It's not like this, propaganda is everywhere. To me, anything that's not the pure facts plus context is the same as propaganda/ideology, there's only reality or propaganda/ideology, it's what I'm saying. If you want to approximate reality of stuff getting the different perspectives is absolutely mandatory. I guess that's too much work for most people, though.

Someone1234 11y ago

> RT is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi; I wouldn't trust their weather reports. So like NBC nightly news? The US is full of what can only be described as US government propaganda, 60 minutes is a prime example. CBS and NBC are no better than RT unfortunately, they just often tell Americans what they want to hear so nobody bats an eyelid. AJ and BBC have their biases but at least they try. PS - I moved to the US from abroad and was genuinely shocked not by the obviously ridiculous cable news (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News) but by the "news" pretending to be unbiased while in reality being a US government mouthpiece.

yellowstuff 11y ago
I don't know a good way to prove that US media is not a government mouthpiece, but I don't think there is much evidence to support such a strong claim, whereas it is pretty easy to argue that RT is a government mouthpiece. EG: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/12/the-truth-about-russia-today-is-that-it-is-putins-mouthpiece/ http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/12/the-truth-about-russia-to...
- Someone1234 11y ago
  Just to be clear I never said RT wasn't a government mouthpiece. I said that some US news is "as bad as" them. I have no idea how exactly it works with CBS/NBC/60 minutes. Does the US government literally write the words? Do they just dictate what they should report on? Do they send them pre-produced bottled reports? It is unclear, but what is clear is the ultimate result: pure dripping pro-US government propaganda of the worst kind.
  - learc83 11y ago
    I don't think we are watching the same news at all. CBS and NBC regularly have reports that the government would stop if they could. >I said that some US news is "as bad as" them. I've seen plenty of reports on NBC or CBS criticizing Obama (or Bush before him), have you ever seen a report that was critical of Putin on RT? How would this even work. Do they switch stories depending on who is in power?

david-given 11y ago

The Al Jazeera that we get in the UK is apparently run by a lot of ex-BBC people, and uses a lot of the BBC house style, which means and news report will instantly look respectable to a big British market segment. Not that I've ever met anyone in the UK who's ever watched it, of course. This is the best run-down of the BBC house style I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI

virtuabhi 11y ago

BBC is not considered trustworthy in India. We listen to BBC for English language but also recognize that BBC still suffers from colonial-era mindset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Indophobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Indophobi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Anti-Hindu_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Anti-Hind... "Writing for the 2008 edition of the peer-reviewed Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Alasdair Pinkerton analyses the coverage of India by the BBC since India's independence from British rule in 1947 until 2008. Pinkerton observes a tumultuous history involving allegations of anti-India bias in the BBC's reportage, particularly during the cold war, and concludes that the BBC's coverage of South Asian geopolitics and economics shows a pervasive and hostile anti-India bias due to the BBC's alleged imperialist and neo-colonialist stance.[118]"

ZenoArrow 11y ago
The BBC is not seen as a trustworthy news source by all in the UK either, but its biases are harder to spot than some other outlets. Generally speaking, you only get a clear picture of their news manipulation when you're on the opposing side of the messages they put out. To give a recent example, there was a story a week or two ago where they held back on an interview with a politician they knew was going to resign until just before a parliamentary debate, which appears to have been a move to undermine the leader of this politician's party, which they've been making efforts to discredit. http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?p=81049649 http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?p=81049649
- paublyrne 11y ago
  Although there is no such thing as complete objectivity in news reporting, the BBC news department tends to try to give all political parties an equally hard time, with the possible exception of extreme right parties like UKIP, who they are a little harder on.
arjn 11y ago
Thats odd, I distinctly remember a huge liking and trust for the BBC (especially radio) among the older Indian folk - middle class and above.

KineticLensman 11y ago

> BBC also is state sponsored, but generally considered to be trustworthy. Brit here: The BBC is state-funded, but it's output is not state-driven. The news team (IMHO) generally takes an editorial view that is to the left of the current Tory government. For once I think the BBC is to the right of the current Labour opposition, whose new leadership is the furthest left it has been for a generation. And perhaps worryingly non-electable to people who are mildly left-of-centre. My current approach to getting the UK news is to interpolate between the Guardian (pro-Labour, but less so of its current leadership) and the Telegraph (Torygraph).

ZenoArrow 11y ago
> "worryingly non-electable" I find it baffling that people still believe this rhetoric, especially after Corbyn winning the Labour leadership election by a huge margin. The whole 'unelectable' thing certainly gets repeated enough in the media, but I'd hoped more people would've seen through the concerted effort to attack him by now.
- KineticLensman 11y ago
  Yes. The BBC isn't pro-govt but it isn't neutral either. IMO
mahranch 11y ago
> The BBC is state-funded, but it's output is not state-driven. It's amazing how many people don't understand this fact. You'll see people on reddit compare the BBC to RussiaToday or Xinhua. The latter two are literally government run agencies that specifically exist to push their country's narrative of world events out to the rest of the world. The BBC is government owned but not government ran, there's a massive difference.

moo 11y ago

If Western media could not stop the WMD lie, what are they good for? You can find BBC fabrication in faked Madaya media images [1], or see bad stage acting used in BBC Panorama 'Saving Syria's Children.' [2] [1] https://thewallwillfall.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/madaya-bbc-caught-recycling-footage-from-yarmouk/ https://thewallwillfall.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/madaya-bbc-... [2] https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/ https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/

jzd 11y ago

_______ is propaganda run by a government that has propaganda as its modus operendi (INSERT TOP NEWS NETWORK HERE)

grayje 11y ago

Careful, don't poke the Russian internet troll war machine. Before you know it, this thread will be filled with posts from users with no posting history defending Russia Today's journalistic integrity and/or slighting that of US networks.

rdancer 11y ago

> considered to be trustworthy By who, please, people who don't watch the BBC? The BBC has been in opposition to the UK government once in living memory, back in 2003, and it's still being talked about.

shitgoose 11y ago

none of the news channels is trustworthy. the difference is in degree of bias. BBC is very biased.

MichaelMoser123 11y ago

The BBC is not very objective in its coverage of Israel. http://bbcwatch.org http://bbcwatch.org is very critical of the BBC in this respect. Al Jazeera seems to have a problem with Jews in general ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_criticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and... says so ). They also don't like the Shia - not without editorial bias so to speak.