![irony-meter[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/irony-meter1.jpg?quality=83)
Middle East “Big Oil” funded media outlet buys Al Gore’s CURRENT TV with plans to infiltrate offer the English Al Jazeera channel into American homes – my Irony Meter pegged.
Will it be the “All Al” channel now?
Some details…
From NYT’s Media decoder
9:16 p.m. | Updated Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news giant, has long tried to convince Americans that it is a legitimate news organization, not a parrot of Middle Eastern propaganda or something more sinister.
It just bought itself 40 million more chances to make its case.
Al Jazeera on Wednesday announced a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore, a former vice president, and his business partners seven years ago. Al Jazeera plans to shut Current and start an English-language channel, which will be available in more than 40 million homes, with newscasts emanating from both New York and Doha, Qatar.
For Al Jazeera, which is financed by the government of Qatar, the acquisition is a coming of age moment. A decade ago, Al Jazeera’s flagship Arabic-language channel was reviled by American politicians for showing videotapes from Al Qaeda members and sympathizers. Now the news operation is buying an American channel, having convinced Mr. Gore and the other owners of Current that it has the journalistic muscle and the money to compete head-to-head with CNN and other news channels in the United States.
Al Jazeera did not disclose the purchase price, but people with direct knowledge of the deal pegged it at around $500 million, indicating a $100 million payout for Mr. Gore, who owned 20 percent of Current.
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Al Jazeera apparently has been looking for ways to sneak in for some time. Al Gore provided them the key.
In thinking of what I’d like to say to Mr. Gore about this, I’m reminded of House Speaker Boehner’s missive to Harry Reid making the news today.
There’s a silver lining though, next time Gore bloviates about climate skeptics “being in the pay of big oil”, we can hit him upside the head with his own pathetic hypocrisy.
As for cable TV subscribers, I’d say the best way to exercise your rights of protest is to not pay your bill, and/or disconnect. That will be my choice should it show up in my home.
UPDATES: (via Tom Graves in comments)
“Glenn Beck Tried to Buy Current TV But Was Rejected”
http://news.yahoo.com/glenn-beck-tried-buy-current-tv-rejected-032853589–finance.html
“Time Warner Cable Drops Al Gore’s Current TV Due To Purchase By Al Jazeera”
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My immediate “GUT” feeling is not a good one ,,,,,,,,,,,,,
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYfM-frIWlQ ]
And here I didn’t think old Al could sink any lower. I stand corrected. And now we all know where Al stands, too–profiteer and turncoat.
Canadian taxpayers funded this organ initially, in collaboration with Power Corporation of Canada, Les Desmarais du Quebec (and mothership of M. Strong). Al Gore no more founded this channel than he did the internet.
Aaron Gore, paging Mr. Aaron Gore………..you have a call waiting at the Citizenship Counter…….
algore betrays us with the CAGW hoax and now by selling a propaganda vehicle to our enemies. obama must be so jealous of him.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. MSM mostly feeds us biased rubbish, but if you receive a lot of different attempts at bias, you have some chance of sometimes finding the occasional grain of truth.
I never forget a time about 25+ years ago I heard on Radio Moscow there had been an accident offloading a nuclear missile from an American warship – the crane snapped, and the missile crashed to the deck. Radio Moscow claimed this triggered a conventional explosion which killed 11 workers.
A few days later, there was a short report on Australian news that there had been an accident while offloading of an American warship – no mention of deaths or missiles.
I listened to Voice of America for a few days after the report on Radio Moscow – I didn’t hear any mention of the incident at all, even a denial of the Radio Moscow report.
I still have no idea exactly what happened, but it seems likely that something happened. Its possible the Australian report was based on the Radio Moscow report, but the delay of a few days is intriguing. If I only listened to American media, I would never have heard anything about the alleged incident.
When your own media is untrustworthy or manipulated, sometimes your only source of news is your enemies. Lets not forget the Climategate emails were originally released on Russian servers – if the files had been released on American servers, there might never have been a Climategate.
Canadian taxpayers funded this organ initially, through the CBC, in collaboration with the Power Corporation of Canada, aka Les Desmarais of Quebec (mothership of M. Strong, a name well known to wuwt). Al Gore no more founded this outlet than he did the internet.
Al Jazeera has proven itself as a legit news organization. When I was deployed to Qatar, I would watch and although they don’t shirk with showing violence, death or mayhem, it is much more interesting than the crap currently put out there.
Gore’s net worth: two hundred million and counting. And yet, according to him, “every penny” goes to public education. http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/26/al-gore-defends-his-right-to-invest-in-green-congresswoman-you-dont-know-me/
Wow.
Apologies for the double post, didn’t look like the first one was accepted.
“Now the news operation is buying an American channel, having convinced Mr. Gore and the other owners of Current that it has the journalistic muscle and the money to compete head-to-head with CNN and other news channels in the United States.”
I doubt that this statement is true. I doubt that Gore and the other owners of Current even care what Al Jazeera does with it. I suspect that the only thing they cared about was how soon the check would clear.
That is, adding the proceeds of the sale of Current to his Apple and Google income, which was north of $100M two years ago.
I think this is freedom working to its fullest. I have no problem whatsoever. It’s best if all views are out there. If it’s 100% propaganda, great! If we swallow it all, great! Then everything’s working as it should, right? If we can’t even tell the difference anymore, then we deserve whatever comes.
It will be good to see some balance in the news reporting. CNN FOX SKY et al are not exactly giving Americans a true picture of what is going on in the world. US Citizens should be watching PressTV and Russia Today to get a bit of balance.
This is great. About time it happened.
I wish Al all the success with Current TV that Al had.
I hope they have a claw-back provision!
[snip. Invalid email address, violates site Policy. — mod.]
I would urge you, America to be careful of how you discuss this simply to avoid looking foolish. Yes the USA prides itself on being the land of the free but for the majority of us looking in we can see the falsity of this especially with regard to your media and especially with regard to middle east reporting about Israel.
Your media, the big newspapers especially are incredibly biased with reporting about , Israel and whilst you will hear atrocious stories of how filthy Arab terrorist murdered a poor schoolgirl you won’t read about the 100’s of Palestinian children killed in sweeping missile attacks every month.
There has long been a will to protect Israel and the US’ interests by not allowing Americans to hear the truth of middle east matters offering a chance that their support could waver. You only need look at the way the US uses it’s veto in the UN over issues involving Israel to see the level of protection they are getting and the MSM will feed you the same old stories about ‘our allies and the filthy terrorists that want to end their lives – and we’ll be next if we let it happen” and America laps it up. The government by way of media has kept you afraid for over a century, it seems America does not function without an enemy to focus upon.
So where was I? oh yeah, this story. First, it’s nothing to do with Gore. A company he has a stake in, a company much in trouble recently has found a buyer. No shock there that Gore makes money from his interests, that’s kind of his thing right? Al Jazeera should be a welcome source if you are able to get it. I find it invaluable in finding out news from the middle East and it’s far from the biased terrorism voice you in the US are led to believe. You can see the way it is described in this post just how the US needs to dismiss it as invalid. I watch it and to a lesser extent, Russia Today, fairly regularly. Both are far more reliable for global news than CNN, I can assure you.
I’ve seen US media often, it still amazes me that many posters here see Fox news as a legitimate source as opposed to the far-right political activist mouthpiece it has become. I’m certainly not some raging communist as I’m sure by now many of you will be thinking. I’m a fairly well educated white, Englishman in the UK. I like to get my news from many different sources so as to get a better global view. Consider them data points and as men of science you surely understand the value of more data? The US media is very controlled as is much of what is fed to you about foreign policy. it’s so very easy to see, from the outside. Open your minds and I know you have that capability as sceptics, let me suggest that you give Al Jazeera an opportunity regardless of the way it has arrived and especially in this new year, stop seeing every Arab who’s religion you don’t share as some kind of enemy because the reality.on the ground in these places is far from what your media would have you believe.
I sincerely hope Al Jazeera has the same luck Al gore had with this channel…
Well I get pretty much all of my propaganda; excuse me that’s NEWS, as in North, East, West, South, from the Communist Red Chinese CCTV channel, which comes for free on my indoor nocable rabbit ears antenna. Comes in loud and clear; and is much more believable than watching our stereo teleprompter reader-in-chief lie like a drunken sailor; well my apologies to drunken sailors, on that; no offense intended.
And CCTV has this really cool Chinese (my guess) news anchor and hostess, who seems a damn side smarter, than anyone on the American alfabet soup networks. She doesn’t let anybody flim-flam her; I really need to catch her name.
But Al Jezebel is a no go for me; even Christienne Ahmenhotep, couldn’t get me to sit for that.
Gore will be in his element; aka carbon !
I read a lot of foreign news services that have English language editions including Al Jazeera. I am sad to report that I have found that Al Jazeera tends to have a bit more journalistic integrity then the NYT, or MSNBC, but then again, even Soviet Pravda had more integrity.
We have the DirecTV international package, so my wife can watch the Korean Channels. Sometimes, I watch the different international news presentations on MHZ TV, including the Al Jazeera English News service (I like listening to the “spin” different countries put on the news. I got a chuckle the time the Chinese booted out one of the Al Jazeera reporters.
So far, I don’t see any comments that get it – Here’s the deal – anything they middle eastern states can do to discourage US energy independence & encourage hydrocarbon dependence is good business for them. So, here we have Al Gore, promoting alternative energies &, more importantly, railing against hydrocarbons because he says they will cause CAGW. What’s the desired result ? The sheeple say ” Oooh …. hydrocarbons bad, so we better not let those nasty “Big Oil” companies do any drilling, at least here in the USA”. Result = less domestic oil & gas. But at the same time , this does nothing to change oil & gas demand. So, demand stays the same, domestic supply shrinks , so where does the oil & gas come from? Import it from the middle east = good business for them.
This is just the same thing that is going on with the new Matt Damon movie, “Promised Land” as has been widely reported :
http://www.businessinsider.com/matt-damon-movie-blasts-fracking-backed-by-uae-2012-9
http://townhall.com/columnists/tonykatz/2012/12/12/oil-exporter-abu-dhabi-funded-antifracking-film-but-matt-damon-doesnt-want-you-to-know-n1465094/page/full/
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2044609138001/matt-damons-anti-fracking-film-gets-foreign-funding/
Many many more links to this if you google ” promised land funding “.
I was talking to an independent film producer from Maine over the holidays that indicated he has been approached by middle eastern media to produce “energy related” reporting for them & that they have a specific budget for things like we are seeing both with current TV & Promised Land.
If you don’t think the fracking revolution is real & a huge benefit to the USA (and by corollary a huge threat to middle east oil & gas revenues), you are seeing the hard evidence to the contrary as they are putting their money on the line to combat it. And Al Gore (and Matt Damon) are either a pawns in their game or joining their side to help them out. Either way, it’s not a pretty picture.
“Al Jazeera, which is financed by the government of Qatar”
FYI, Qatar is the world’s largest exporter on LNG, which the US is looking to enter that market as an LNG exporter (and competitor of Qatar) with the excess gas coming from our successful fracking revolution.
None of this is coincidence. This is going to be a propaganda effort, pure & simple.