Talk:Al Jazeera

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good articles Al Jazeera has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do.
If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.
This article is part of WikiProject Media, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to media. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Al Jazeera article.
This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Article policies

Contents

[edit] Frontpage article of Aljazeera

Why is the current frontpage article of al jazeera, shown here [[1]] not worthy of a mention under controversies from the US viewpoint? Pkmilitia 03:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)pkmilitia

Because aljazeera.com is not Al Jazeera. The two have nothing to do with each other. Aljazeera.com/Aljazeera Publishing are totally unrelated to Al Jazeera/Al Jazeera English. Aljazeera.com is an English-language website funded by Saudi Arabia. Al Jazeera is a TV network funded by Qatar. Al Jazeera also have an English-language website, but this is http://aljazeera.net/english, not .com. I personally have a very low opinion of Aljazeera.com, and I believe that at least part of their activities consist of sailing on the coattails of Al Jazeera's fame and using a platfrom obtained through what I consider cybersquatting for soapboxing. You may consider adding a reference regarding http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=12886 to the Aljazeera.com article if you feel that it is appropriate. I however am not sure Aljazeera.com/Aljazeera Publishing pass objective notability tests beyond the fact that some people (such as apparently yourself) mistake them for Al Jazeera. Please read the history of the Aljazeera.com article and Talk:Aljazeera.com for more details. Thank you for your work as a Wikipedia editor. 86.56.48.12 01:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] translation of the name

I am going to change the translation of the name as al jazeera means (the Island) and not the peninsula as it said in the article. In Arabic شبه جزيرة Shibih Jazeera (lit: sub-island)= Peninsula.

~~Iraqi guy 19/AUG/2006~~

I have no way of knowing which is correct, but can we find a source for the translation? Preferably this would be a page about Al Jazeera that contains a translation, rather than a dictionary. --Lethargy 22:15, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Iraqi Guy's translation is correct. الجزيرة means island, شبه جزيرة is a Peninsula. شبه means roughly "similar to, to resemble".
However, الجزيرة commonly also refers (in its plural form الجزائر) to the country Algeria (refering to four islands just off Algier's coast), in singular to its capital Algiers (just as مصر refers to Egypt if used outside of Egypt but commonly to Cairo if used inside of Egypt)(depending on the context of course), the part of Syria which is north of the Euphrates Al-Jazira,_Mesopotamia, the affluent island Gezira in Cairo between two branches of the Nile, as well as the Satellite News Station. I may have forgotten a meaning or two...
Source of the translation: Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Arabic Libraire du Liban, Beirut, 1980--Soylentyellow 09:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

check Google Translation, الجزيرة means The Island in English, this's something no one can ever argue about it. --Mido 01:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Al Jazeera or Aljazeera?

This was mentioned in passing once before on the talk page, but the Aljazeera website spells the name "Aljazeera" (not "Al Jazeera" as we have here). Should we change it? JordeeBec 04:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

No. There is a difference between a logo and a name. Al Jazeera do have an English logo that roughly looks like ALJAZEERA, but they spell their name "Al Jazeera" in English (cf. [2]).
By comparison, the Arabic Al Jazeera logo is a highly stylized version of the Arabic word al Jazeera, but the name in Arabic is الجزيرة (al Jazeera written in regular Arabic typeface).
The image to the right contains both the Arabic and the English logos.
It's obvious that both logos are different from the names الجزيرة and Al Jazeera.
86.56.48.12

[edit] Al Jazeera outside the Middle East

The Al Jazeera outside the Middle East section does not explain why "many Americans" where protesting the network. Also, the second paragraph seems rather long, although I cannot think of any specific way to improve that, so I won't fault you guys for it. --Lethargy 22:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I am changing the part in the section of Al-Jazeera International, where it states that the launch of the new channel was protested by many Americans. According to a news story, only six people were present at a protest at Al-Jazeera's Offices. I suspect the group the UAC is trying to hype its impact, and piggy back on the interest of this article.

~~Marc 26/OCT/2006~~

[edit] Good article

[edit] GA on hold

There are problems with the images in this article:

These need correcting. If this is not done so within 7 days, the article will be failed. Alexj2002 17:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the corrections. Article off-hold! Alexj2002 17:13, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations on some fine work. I'd still like to see more stubs replace the redlinks. Keep improving. Durova 03:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias and typical issues do not seem to be mentioned much

I apologize in advance for any protocol I am messing am because I've never done this before. I simply noticed that the article doesn't deem to speak very much about this organisation's biases, and when it did, it seemed slightly in favor of them. Since this is a difficult subject on which to report objectively, I'm not really sure how to fix this. I thought I would bring what I perceive as a pro-al jazeera bias to the table nonetheless. For example, Al Jazeera's stance on many issues on which it reports does not seem to be included.

Thanks.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 18.242.7.70 (talk)

Are you saying Al Jazeera was biased or are you saying that the Al Jazeera article here was biased?
  • If it's the former, please include suitably specific citations of notable factual examples.
  • If it's the latter, please improve the article in an NPOV fashion while citing your sources.
Be bold but please be NPOV -- ie. make sure that you know what you're talking about before you write about it here. (Sorry if that sounds like finger-wagging.) :)
86.56.48.12 21:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of the word martyr / shahid

I just watched an interview with Al Jazeera's director Wadah Khanfar, where the issue of the word used by Al Jazeera for suicide terrorists came up. It was a bit confusing, so I won't add it to the article, but here's what I understood: The word used is often mistranslated as 'martyr', but that is a misconception. The word that is used in Arabic (and that they use) is 'amaliyya fida'iyya', not 'ishtishhadiyya'. Then he went on to say that the word they use is 'shahid', which is also used by other Arab stations and is a neutral word, meaning someone who died under abnormal circumstances (it is used for all sorts of people, irrespective of, for example, religion). Because I was confused over the 'exact' meaning of these words and which word they use when, I looked here, but there's no info on it, so could someone who knows add it? Given the controversy about how Al Jazeera deals with terrorism, this seems like a relevant topic. DirkvdM 13:59, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Al Jazeera Mobasher?

What is Al Jazeera Mobasher? Is is the same as Al Jazeera Live? What does "Mobasher" mean, anyway? I have googled, to no avail. Thanks for any help. :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.56.48.12 (talk)

Yes. Mobasher means live(broadcast) in Arabic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mohi (talk • contribs).

[edit] Al Jazeera Network

A few days ago, I reverted User:Eve215454's move of Al Jazeera to Al Jazeera Network. At the time, I had not seen any evidence that Al Jazeera calls their network of TV channels "Al Jazeera Network" -- i.e. I hadn't seen any mention that an organisation calling itself "Al Jazeera Network" actually exists. I have now seen sporadic, tentative hints on various webpages that Al Jazeera may indeed have formally reorganized itself (or may be in the process of doing so) to form a parent entity called "Al Jazeera Network". However, I would still ask people not to simply repeat the move of Al Jazeera to Al Jazeera Network without prior due diligence. I feel that giving the Al Jazeera Network its own article should require that the following be done first:

  • Clear evidence of a restructuring of Al Jazeera and a concomitant formation of an Al Jazeera Network parent organisation needs to be found and cited. My own cursory Google search didn't turn up suitably unambiguous results.
  • If and when moving Al Jazeera to Al Jazeera Network, the former article should NOT be made a redirect to the latter. As far as I gather, Al Jazeera is the English name of the original Arabic language TV channel. So given sufficient evidence of a restructuring, Al Jazeera should be made into an article about the TV channel and Al Jazeera Network should be made an article about the network/parent organization.
  • Currently, the Al Jazeera article is about the Al Jazeera network (small n) and Al Jazeera channel. Doing the above requires this one article to be divided and rewritten into two articles (neither of which should be a simple redirect to the other).

86.56.48.12 15:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History

I find this section of the article lacking.

The original Al Jazeera channel was started in 1996 with a US$150 million grant from the emir of Qatar.

In April 1996, the BBC World Service's Saudi-based Arabic language TV station, faced with censorship demands by the Saudi Arabian government, shut down after two years of operation. Many former BBC World Service staff members joined Al Jazeera, which at the time was not yet on air. The channel began broadcasting in late 1996.

Why did the emir of Qatar grant funding? What's the purpose, motivation or interest of the emir? Who founded Al Jazeera and why? Berserkerz Crit 04:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I can provide some background info and give you my analysis of the situation:
The current Emir of Qatar came to power in a bloodless coup in which he deposed his father. Since coming to power, the Emir has modernised and liberalised his country. Five US universities now have campuses in Qatar. Qatar has a population of less than 700,000, but sits on one of the biggest natural gas reserves in the world, which means that unless someone were to invade Qatar and/or steal its natural resources, the Emir and his country are likely to be awash with money. Qatar is home to one of the biggest US military bases in the region. It is also home to probably the freest, least-censored TV channel in the region. The US military base and Al Jazeera's Doha headquarters are really not that far away from each other. My own hunch is that this amounts to a balance of power. This massive US military presence and Al Jazeera's assured ability to get the word out both will make any potential regional aggressors think twice about doing something funny. Yet by being in the country, the US military is to an extent tied to the current Qatari administration, insofar as they now have a vested interest in not pissing off their host country too much. On the other hand, Al Jazeera's ability to get the word out also is an excellent way to reign in the US Tiger in their back yard. Despite this, or maybe because of this, there is strong evidence that suggests that the US at least thought about doing something funny themselves. See Al Jazeera bombing memo. I don't know if these decisions were made subsequent to that affair or beforehand, but I would note that Al Jazeera has located their international broadcasting centres for Al Jazeera English in very visible locations and close to seats of power -- cf. the maps linked from the AJE article. AJE's Washington centre is near the White House, their London centre is near the UK Parliament, the centre in KL is in the Petronas Twin Towers and bombing any of these centres, each of which are reportedly able to operate to operate independently, is going to make an attacker look really shitty on TV. Al Jazeera are quite right to be cautious, because the US has militarily attacked their bureaux before and killed Al Jazeera staff (in Afghanistan and Iraq), and there is strong evidence to suggest that the US knew exactly what they were doing. My own hunch is that the US felt stabbed in the back and wanted to "send a message", because their Qatari friends (=hitherto seen as the "good guys") repeatedly caught and showed them (the US) literally red-handed and reported on some of those 650,000 deaths that the US would rather forget about. In other words, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Co. knew that Al Jazeera made them look really thoroughly shitty, which they didn't see as legitimate criticism but as stirring up Muslims against them. Contrary to what they previously thought, this suddenly made them view Al Jazeera as the "bad guys", a notion which they have been largely successful in spreading throughout the Occident. May everyone decide for themselves whether that notion is factual and correct.
Who funded Al Jazeera and why? Well, 'who' is easy: the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. His wives --Shaikha Mariam bint Hamad Al Thani, Shaikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned & Shaikha Noora bint Khalid Al-Thani-- presumably helped. Actually, I don't know for sure about Shaikha Mariam bint Hamad Al Thani and Shaikha Noora bint Khalid Al-Thani, but I know that Shaikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned did a lot of work. Both Al Jazeera Sports and Al Jazeera Children's Channel are based in Education City, and Shaikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned was very involved in establishing Al Jazeera Children's Channel, which is bankrolled by her Qatar Foundation. 'Why?' Well, my guess would be that Al Jazeera's existence serves the security, development, and education interests of Qatar, the Arab world and the Muslim world. IMHO it doesn't exactly hurt the interests of non-violent progressives worldwide (plus it makes folks like me, who love Al Jazeera English, very happy campers). Had the Emir of Qatar actually wanted to bolster his country's security and influence by force, he could easily have followed the military diplomacy model: buy shitloads of weapons and lobby really hard. There are countries that do that. He certainly had the funds to do that. He chose not to do that, and if you're asking me, public education, freedom of speech and fun & games are incomparably better options, even if the freedom of speech aspect has the power to occasionally embarrass those who continue to commit themselves to the military diplomacy model. Sure, Fox viewers now equate Al Jazeera with Al Qaeda, but, hey, there's always going to be dodoheads and nincompoops, right?
In any case, I don't really know how most of the above would fit into the article and in the absence of 3rd party sources, some of it would certainly be dismissed as original research. So I'm not adding this info to the article, but if it helps you by giving you a starting point to improving the article, then please by any means go ahead.
86.56.48.12 17:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] citation needed

In the Viewership section, there is the following sentence:

"Despite a widespread US belief that Al Jazeera provokes strong feelings of anti-Americanism among its audience, a recent study[citation needed] finds that its effects on Arab audiences differ little from the influence of CNN or BBC."

I have found this diff. So, when the sentence was added, there were two citations given, which have subsequently gotten separated from the above sentence. However, upon reading the second reference I found that it does not support that claim. Which leaves the first reference given, and that is this book citation:

  • Mohammed el-Nawawy and Adel Iskandar (2002), Al-Jazeera: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East, Westview Press, ISBN 0-8133-4017-9,
    • aka Al-Jazeera: The story of the network that is rattling governments and redefining modern journalism, aka Al-Jazeera: Ambassador of the Arab World, Westview Press/Basic Books/Perseus Books, ISBN 0-8133-4149-3 (2003 reprint)

However, I haven't got that book and I haven't read it. As I am unfamiliar with the book, I am hesitant to re-link it as source for that statement. Could someone familiar with the book's content (or with the study) explain whether or not this book really contains information to the extent of what the above sentence says? If this statement cannot be backed up either by the book or another reference, then I think it should be removed.

But wait! It gets weirder! I'm now finding that right after this edit, the same contributor removed the link to the above two references himself and instead inserted a reference for this study, which is unavailable w/o a subscription, which I thus have not read, yadda, yadda, yadda. However: The summary of the paper appears to say the polar opposite of what the aforementioned sentence says.

Again, can people who are familiar with the contents of the Nawawy/Iskandar book and the Harvard paper possibly shed some light on this?

86.56.48.12 05:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update

An anonymous user has now removed that sentece. I don't think it should be re-added unless citations can be referenced. 86.56.48.12 07:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2 more citations needed

I've done a major edit and done the best I could finding citations for all claims in this article. However as of this writing, 2 more citations are needed:

  • There's an unsourced claim (which was added here) that Al Jazeera has plans to possibly open music TV channels and a newspaper. I've asked the contributor for a reference, but don't let that hold YOU back from adding a reference yourself if you know a source for that claim.
  • Update: I've found and added a source for the newspaper claim, but I still can't find evidence for planned music channels.
  • There are claims regarding controversies involving Al Jazeera and Qatar. The only source I could find was a blog post with links to some further somewhat related sources. This seemed good enough to justify not to delete these claims, but not good enough to constitute a sufficient, lone source. I believe that more sources are needed there, so I left the {{fact}} tag in.

86.56.48.12 17:21, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article history

The article's history is all over the place. Presumably this is due to it having been renamed in the past:

  • The article was originally created on 12 November 2001. This appears to be the first revision. There is a link to an "older revision", but it leads to the 25 February 2002 revision. This part of the article's history has is attached to the Al-Jazeerah article, which has since been changed into a redirect. The last "real" revision attached to this article is from April 6, 2003.
  • The history from April 6, 2003 through 3 January 2007 can be found attached to the Al Jazeera Network article.
  • Finally, the history from January 3, 2007 to today can be found attached to the Al Jazeera article.

(There also are several similarly named redirects, but they aren't really part of the article history.)

I'm probably partially to blame for one of these "history-disjointings". Anyhoo, can that be fixed somehow?

86.56.48.12 21:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yvonne Ridley contro

we should add this controversy.--HalaTruth(ሐላቃህ) 16:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BWAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHA

Is there any way we can fit this guy into the article?

I don't speak a word of Arabic, but the man's a fucking genius. Somebody really needs to fansub this. OTOH, I fear that if I were to learn Arabic or if I got to watch a subbed version of this, I would probably die of laughter. 86.56.48.12 20:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another 2 links...

...that reflect US attitudes towards Al Jazeera and that might be useful someplace:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm93zP3qMjU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otUkfaSljSk

86.56.48.12 21:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../a/l/_/Talk%7EAl_Jazeera_61a2.html"