Where do you turn if you really want to know what’s going on in Burma?

Harry Shearer compares the Al Jazeera English coverage to domestic news services and finds that Al Jazeera wins hands down.  CNN’s domestic feed is pathetic, while CNN has been working hard to make its international feed unavailable to those in the U.S.

How bad is domestic coverage of international news:

Once you watch BBC, CNNI, AJE–any of services we’ve been talking about today–and then venture back to the domestic swill, you realize the difference: the international channels are, despite their faults and differences, talking to grownups, the domestic channels are talking either to somewhat bright or somewhat dim children.

The comments fleshed out Shearer’s short post:

Whenever something significant happens in the world – I either go to CBC or to a lesser extent the BBC for a real news account. The American counterpart is 1% news and 99% hot gas telling us how we should feel about it.

Somewhere along the line – people like Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, and Sumner Rothstein decided that news was supposed to make money and pacify a nation of imbeciles – not inform the citizens of a self-governed nation. . . . And with names like those above – is it any wonder that the American public has been fed 35 years of anti-arab bias? I think back to my childhood watching cartoons – and even in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, the arab is always portrayed as an irate sword weilding psycho.

Thanks for the news tip! I am sick of the USA’s “news” channels.

Stories can’t be pro-labor or anti-business. Poverty can’t be explored in depth. Race issues only minimally explored. No real defense of the Constitution. The notion of Corporations as the answer to all problems. And the constant, subliminal message, that “Things aren’t THAT bad … what’s your problem?” … Sorry, this isn’t News, it’s propaganda.

The American “news” is propaganda designed to keep the populace ignorant of what makes the world go round (or the fact it is round). After watching CBC in Canada and then CNN – on the same topic – I couldn’t believe how slanted and misleading events are translated for the American audience. Al Jezeera English is outstanding – it hires local journalists in each region where news is happening who actually know what is happening and can give a credible account of the events.

It’s time we start voting with our wallet. Tell your local cable or satellite company to clear more informational programming or you will drop their service.