Hillary Clinton Lauds 'Real News' (Al Jazeera)

[Babylonsister]

March 4, 2011
You GO, Hillary!! Posted in its entirety with permission.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archive...028276.php


HILLARY CLINTON LAUDS 'REAL NEWS'.... As uprisings continue to bring dramatic shakeups to the Middle East, much of the world has turned to Al Jazeera English for its excellent coverage. Yesterday, the network even received some very high-profile praise from a leading U.S. official.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that Al Jazeera is gaining more prominence in the U.S. because it offers "real news" -- something she said American media were falling far short of doing.

Clinton was speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and she said the U.S. is losing the "information war" in the world. One of the reasons she cited for this was the quality of channels like Al Jazeera.

"Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it's real news," she said. "You may not agree with it, but you feel like you're getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners."

Nicely done, Madam Secretary.

NPR noted that Clinton's comments "are a marked shift from the hostility expressed toward Al Jazeera by many conservatives, as well as some officials under former President Bush."

There were those reports about the Bush administration considering a plan to bomb the network in 2004, so, yes, I'd say this represents a marked shift.

—Steve Benen

[jaxx]

You can bet Pat Buchanan won't be getting a job at Al Jazeera. The difference between our media and AJE is that ours tries to stir up shit, makes up scenarios and then fights about them. While AJE tells you what is happening....you can make up your own mind.

[Treestar]

Sounds like a good news source to check out.

[Cha]

"Clinton was speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and she said the U.S. is losing the "information war" in the world. One of the reasons she cited for this was the quality of channels like Al Jazeera."

Could this possibly be the way that our U.S. corporatemediawhoredom has to shift to survive! A person can have wild dreams can't they?!

Yeah, I can believe the bush people would bomb Al Jazeera News to squash the real news on their bombing Iraq and let fox screws do the talking for them.

[KonaKane]

But you don't know how many dullards I run into practically daily, who refuse to listen to AlJazeera simply because it is an Arab word.