While watching destiny talk about Al Jazeera I just wanted to explain my perspective on whether to "trust" Al Jazeera and its sisters reporting or not. I'm arab and watch multiple arab news channels including Al Jazeera frequently, both arabic and english.
Just want to preface this with saying im not a fan of Al Jazeera at all, might be biased but its largely out of my own bilingual observation.
Al Jazeera Arabic:
Fox News of the Arab world, arguably even more conservative right (yet still not on the far right), they are pro-Islamist at every step, multiple news anchors are supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East and its reflects their reporting, theyre largely sympathetic to Hamas and Islamist movements barring things like AlQaeda and ISIS. Democracy in the middle east is convenient if Islamist parties are likely to win, liberal parties can suck it.
They largely conduct correct reporting on Israeli crimes in the West Bank and Gaza or civilian targeting, but sweep the rug under Hamas and like to paint things as retaliatory rather than weigh in responsibility on them too. They even entertain conspiracy theories sometimes to make things look better for pro-Islamist parties. Lots of speakers that deny or minimise the holocaust come on here.(This channel is more hands on controlled by the Qatari state, you can see their coverage of Saudi Arabia and UAE shoot up during the 2017-2020 dispute they had suddenly then calm down post 2020 when things got better)
Al Jazeera English:
Now this is Al Jazeera with standards, they try to replicate impartiality to pass a litmus test for Western Audiences. Their reporting is largely good because its aimed at westerners who will compare them to BBC or CNN.
Al Jazeera English consciously curates its news here to fit a broader perspective but like AJ Arabic it tries to sympathize with Islamist movements in the Middle East, it largely doesnt report on liberal struggles in the Middle East, it does good in humanising the palestinian cause that you wouldnt see in Fox News or any more pro israeli news outlets, but it also tries to quickly gloss over Palestinian groups like Hamas' crimes.
Itll have opinion articles like this and largely platforms these view points, they will save all efforts to rightfull criticize Israels conduct in the last few decades but will not offer any real criticism to how Hamas tactics will make it even worse for Palestinians and plays right into the far right of Israels hands:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/8/there-is-nothing-surprising-about-hamass-operation
AJ Plus:
This one is my favorite, cause its the westoid leftie appeal media, its largely created as content to be pushed in social media to millennials and gen z in the west. It tries to marry anti-colonial sentiment popular with lefties with far right islamism, it will hint at all civilians being technically settlers (much like what hamas believes) and absolve any crime from "freedom fighters", only talks about democratic struggles in arab states they dont like.
Middle East Eye:
Basically an inbetween for AJ Plus and AJ English, most of the staff who work here cycled through AJ English and AJ Plus, tries to be more professional than AJ plus, claims its not owned or influenced by Qatar, but the content and ties are there to be seen.
Qatar involvement:
Qatari state largely has a hands off approach when discussing topics it doesnt care about or has no dog in, they let Al Jazeera staff do their own things, and when they do get involved its through execs, largely pushing for content on topics they want discussed or ignored. They also make sure content on Al Jazeera doesnt sound state owned, so no content constantly praising how cool Qatar is or about what happened in Qatar today, it keeps it on an international perspective which creates an illusion that it doesnt interfere.
(Btw calling an arab word like Al Jazeera "scary" is cringe and borderline racist, please stop doing that)
