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Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

I continually wonder if Wikileaks has considered that, in their fiery no-compromise campaign, they may actually be setting back progress?

What on earth could I mean? Well, in this particular case- I respect Al Jazeera. I am generally pleased with their journalism as compared to many American firms, and they have a different perspective from many American journalists, which is valuable. It could be a really good thing if Al Jazeera became a popular source for news in the USA. In that light, I can't help but wonder if a little co-operation with the US government is a small price to be paid compared to potential future payoff.

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You respect Al Jazeera because of the differences between it and nearly all (if not all) American media. I don't understand how you could support the erosion of those differences and still expect to have in the end a media organization that you respected.

Or, to put it another way: by the time Al Jazeera became a popular source for news in the USA, it would no longer be Al Jazeera.

My hope would be that with small compromises made in key areas, it could be widely accepted otherwise unaltered.

It is a common enough occurrence in plenty of industries. Japanese auto makers are heavily shaped by the demands of the American car industry- but did they wind up just another GM, another Chrysler? No, they retained many of the vital qualities that differentiated them and made them worth importing.

Probably you and I just have different ideas of what an acceptable compromise is. If the request were to use news paper instead of parchment, or to bleep out profanity on basic cable channels while on primetime (which I personally think is stupid, but I might as well start suggesting that people raise their own children), or if the request were to blur graphic images of mutilated bodies under the same circumstances -- I might, after a bit of thought, decide that those were reasonable compromises.

But that's not what this was.

This was the U.S. "asking" a foreign journalistic organization to be less critical of U.S. activities -- and that organization agreeing. This really should be bone-chilling, not just a reasonable compromise.

Al Jazeera has a long-standing strong and vocal bias against the USA. It seems to be pretty well known.

I have been reading their articles for months. I guarantee you that bias still shows through. Even in their "toned-down" state, I have felt my ears get red reading some of their articles.

They have hardly been warped to be "pro-US". I would be more concerned if their voice had actually swung to be "pro-US"; as things stand, they seem to have gone from "extremely critical of the US" to "still critical but a little nicer about it".

Can you cite a few so there's a basis for discussion? I see a lot of people saying they're anti-US, but it's usually supported with articles and video critical of government actions, not the country itself.

I have been reading their articles less frequently in the last month, and do not have any good examples in memory or on hand.

Edit: Today AJE has presented me with a decent example! http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/2011920...

In regards to the anti-US bit- I do not mean to say they hate America. I have no reason to believe they wish America ill- though they certainly seem to wish America would get out of the Middle East. What I mean is they appear to have a very critical bias towards the actions of America, and I suspect this is what most people mean when they describe Al Jazeera as "anti-US". This bias is not unilaterally a bad thing- but that does not mean it does not exist.

Conflating "America" with "the US Government" plays into the simplistic arguments of those that try to paint their enemies as "hating our freedom" when they simply take issue with having their families murdered.

That's an opinion piece. It's even filed under "opinion" with a big section header so you can't confuse it for a news report. Are we talking about bias in opinion pages or news reporting?

Biased? That article? I thought it a very fair analysis, evenhanded almost to a fault.

You might not agree, of course, but bias isn't about whether you agree or not. It's a systematic favouring of one side of an argument over others, regardless of facts. I don't see much evidence of that in the article, which is a fairly dry analysis of the realpolitik affecting the region and the coming UN vote.

True, I can't really demonstrate bias with one piece. I said I didn't have good cites, and I didn't. Should have left it at that.

If they did compromise, and declared friendly actors to be off-limits, then they'd be just another politically-driven organization. It's their lack of compromise that lends them credibility.

When they report on Rumsfeld et al ordering torture, it is more easily dismissed as partisan propaganda than when they also report on misdeeds by the Left.

Wikileaks' philosophy is that power structures tend towards corruption unless their dealings are made public. This is inherently apolitical, inasmuch as it does not target or support any political group. Read Assange's 2006 essay on conspiracy as a basis of government and its asymmetric susceptibility to leaks for an in-depth view of the philosophy that informs Wikileaks:

http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf

Edit, as I can no longer edit the parent:

The essay I linked to appears to be incomplete, or is at least two drafts of an essay. I've googled for a complete version, but haven't found it. A link would be greatly appreciated.

How would Al Jazeera becoming a popular news source be a good thing, if you now know that the network is a US gov't shill?

There's no progress, only perceived progress, where the US gov't gave you the illusion of choice of news networks.

Just because select bits of information are altered or omitted does not mean they do not carry other valuable information. Al Jazeera had excellent coverage of the recent uprisings, in none of which was the USA involved.

Also I would argue this does not make them a shill. A shill has a very close association with the other entity, and the shill's number one purpose is promoting the other entity. It hardly sounds like that is the case here.

We expect the trend in favor of using Al Jazeera as an informal tool of GOQ foreign policy to continue undiminished.[1]

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/...

If that's all for the good, what is wrong with being transparent about it? If you respected Al Jazeera before and they are still worthy of respect, no harm has been done.

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