![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”
AGW skeptics forget about their skepticism when it comes to other ‘scams’, like politics, patriotism, wars…??
Oh yes all that politics, patriotism and wars so how long have you had a reforming left =wing president ? how are the politics, patriotism and wars going for you ? we had a left wing govermnet for 13 yrs and they left us broke with their version of politics left us swamped with their version patriotism and burying our sons with their version of war !
australian cable tv – all now owned by murdoch – includes aljazeera english, plus aljazeera programs are occasionally shown on partly-govt-funded SBS TV. it is no better or worse at propaganda than the rest of the MSM, which isn’t a compliment.
aljazeera advocates CAGW, as does the rest of the MSM so, on that score, it matters little.
The Al Jazeera channel is available in Britain on Sky TV. Why on earth shouldn’t it be available in American homes? The attitude of some American right-wingers to freedom of speech is rather like the view of consumer choice that Henry Ford expressed when he wrote “any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”
“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.”
Oh come on, are you really suggesting “big oil” is sponzoring Al Gore by buying a TV channel where he isn’t even majority owner?
And regarding the second sentence, do you often unsubscribe from TV channels because somebody told you to do so? What happened to having open mind?
Should I still consider this a skeptic and scientific site or has it already turned to pure political propaganda?
Zoot, I genuinely appreciate reading your perspective here. I don’t watch any TV news so I don’t know or care how biased there are. But when you say “of which 1128 were children” it reminds of the statistix that the gun control advocates like to use here. There are some innocent children killed by guns and those are tragic and often easily preventable. But many of the “children” used in the statistix are gang members from 18-20. Sometimes the gun control advocates will even admit it like Father Pfleger in Chicago recently complaining to President Obama about the “300 children” killed in the school year in Chicago (leaving out the breakdown of gang members, stabbings and beatings) while Obama paid lots of attention to some young and innocent white children who were shot.
There are places to see the information on political donations by employees of corporations such as TV networks. In the United States, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC employees overwhelmingly donate to the Democratic Party. In some years there have been ZERO donations from employees of some (usually NBC) of those networks to the Republican Party. One year there were a whole TWO donations to GOP candidates from CBS employees.
FOX employees donate less overall to politicians than any of the others, but still a large majority of FOX employee political donations go to Democrats.
American TV news and other media is dominated by Democrats. It matters not who the guy at the top of a media conglomerate supports, the people further down the pyramid are mostly Democrats.
FOX News Channel a “tool of the Republicans”? Ha! At best they just don’t lean quite as far left as all the rest. Remember when Iraq tried to hit the American base in the middle of Kuwait City harbor with a Chinese cruise missile but overshot and blew up a pier and the front of a movie theater? There was *one* live report where their man on the scene showed pieces of the missile with Chinese characters. That segment was never seen again. If FOX was the “right wing propaganda mill” the lefties claim it is, they would have run that over and over and over again, but instead buried it like they did several other things that would’ve reflected really badly on Saddam and his violations of the post 1991 sanctions. You had to see it live or you’d never see it again.
Even FOX’s most right leaning people like Sean Hannity hold back from asking what I call “meat cleaver” questions, the ones that would be so devastating to their guest’s stupid positions that it would (should) put them off the air and out of the papers for good.
FOX doesn’t want that! If they don’t soft-pedal things there wouldn’t be any left wing numbskulls to have on Hannity, Huckabee and the other shows.
What we get from FOX is *some* harder questioning of the lefties, but not enough to suit me. Since it’s not the sycophantic pandering to the left *all other TV news* in the USA does, the left screams and hollers and throws a conniption fit about it being ultra far far right.
OK. I’m done/ It was too much. With my sincere apologies to Anthony.
To those who don’t know me from your biblical Adam yet choose to make all manner of insulting and egregious inferences about my character and beliefs based upon a few comments then shame on you. You could have asked and i would have explained.
And for the one which i expect will have me excluded from further conversation. @DirkH
[snip . . site rules . . mod] you sir. I can be found under this nickname elsewhere including twitter. i will invite you to find me there. I’ll invite you to my door, paid for, to repeat your accusations.
Apologies again to Anthony and the mods but the accusations levelled at me are not to be tolerated.
@eric1skeptic thank you for your comment. I quoted officially released figures from Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem for under 18 year old unarmed non-combatants. Of the adult numbers 446 were unarmed and killed by missiles from US supplied helicopters.
None of which really matters. i only broached the subject to illustrate how shielded the US is from such facts in their mainstream media in the hope that they might consider other avenues of news as well.
Is irony made from carbon? If so, this will become the Big Foot channel.
What some people don’t realise is that before he became vice-president Al Gore and his family became rich on big oil. Remember, they have no problem taking money from big oil, big gas or big wind but nothing for the sceptics.
“Gore’s Big Oil Connection: An ‘Occident’ of Birth?”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,55826,00.html
“Big Oil Money for Me, But Not for Thee”
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/02/17/big-oil-money-for-me-but-not-for-thee/
“Exxon-Led Group Is Giving A Climate Grant to Stanford”
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/21/us/exxon-led-group-is-giving-a-climate-grant-to-stanford.html
CRU – BP, Shell and nuclear power funding
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
“How the Sierra Club Took Millions From the Natural Gas Industry”
http://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra-club-took-millions-from-the-natural-gas-industry-and-why-they-stopped/
I have watched Al Jazeera and they are waaaaay better than the BBC. And they don’t protect sexual predators. 😉
Don’t worry, Al’s legion of sheeple will still support him.
It’s funny how all these guys are quick to accuse everyone else of being funded by “big oil” yet every time you turn around THEY are getting a fat paycheck from “Big Oil”
I must say I’m disappointed how ugly some of this discussion seemed to get. Bottom line – if you don’t like what they broadcast, change channel. That’s the essence of freedom, guys, and one of the inherent dangers of freedom is that some people my have (and express) views you don’t like or agree with.
As for some of the “Muslims = terrorists” innuendo, as someone who is also from the UK and also ex Army, we had decades of terrorism out of Ireland. By the “Muslim terrorist” theory, that would make every Irishman, and their supporters, terrorists. Which would include many of those very fine NY Firemen and Policemen who were first on the ground on 9/11*. In fact, we should probably include all Catholics in that sweeping generalisation as well!
That’s patently not the case but it would be wise to bear in mind that, as a percentage of the world’s (fairly small) Irish population, the numbers who actively supported the Cause are considerably higher than the percentage of the apparently 2 billion Muslims who would even countenance, let alone actively support, “Muslim terror”..
All races, all cultures and all creeds breed Bad Men. If you aspire to support freedom you’ll never succeed as long as you allow yourself to hold such absurd generalisations!
*Please note that, in the interest of international harmony I even typed that date the wrong way round for you guys 😉
I ocasionally read AJ on the web. Nothing too special there, slightly boring. Obviously warmist. Now if I could get my hand at a decent Russian news site…
Billy says: January 3, 2013 at 1:11 am
DirkH says: January 3, 2013 at 1:16 am
Re Palestine: I think it is essential in life to try to look at conflicts from the viewpoint of the “other” sides. A little broader news reporting and some view of the humans on the other side cannot hurt, then all can make up their own minds who is right or wrong and why the fighting goes on and on.
And labelling people does not make them wrong – A couple of important comments from a couple of guys not known for their anti- semetism:
“
Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in “A Land of Two Peoples” ed. Mendes-Flohr. :
from The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict. Published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html (purportedly a Jewish site)
“…….seems to have a feel for what motivates his enemies and was widely quoted as saying: “If I were a Palestinian I would have joined a terrorist organisation.”
[and an interesting aside] Barak also said during a US television interview last year that he would probably strive for nuclear weapons if he were in Iran’s position….”
Ehud Barak former Israeli prime minister Military Officer, Defence Minister, a member of the Israeli Defence Forces for 36 years who retired from the military as chief of staff and its most decorated soldier.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/singleminded-in-military-and-politics-alike-20121127-2a457.html#ixzz2DNbuDPIA
Our host wrote, “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.”
We are ten years free of broadcast/mass media television. We have just changed our DVD movie rental subscription service to streaming video. I am learning to stream from my computer to the streaming appliance, to show media not approved by the appliance controllers – in my computer I can reformat and strip Digital Restrictions Management code.
Television is the little death of intelligence, the mind sucker.
Read Electronic Frontiers Foundation EFF.org and don’t believe the party line on DRM as copyright.
http://news.yahoo.com/glenn-beck-tried-buy-current-tv-rejected-032853589–finance.html
“Glenn Beck’s The Blaze approached Current about buying the channel last year, but was told that ‘the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view,’ according to a person familiar with the negotiations.”
Glenn Beck (who I think is crazy) wasn’t allowed to buy Current TV because they wanted to sell to someone who held their viewpoint. Isn’t Al Jazerra owned by Qatar and the royal family? And how did they make their money? Being a part of Big Oil. Al Gore is making $100 million of Big Oil money, and then he and his cronies will turn around and decry about Big Oil money fighting against CAGW. Who really gets oil money? Not CAGW skeptics, but CAGW believers.
And once again, I will begin to believe you, Al Gore, about CAGW when you live the way you tell me to live. Walk the walk and lead by example. Until you live poor and “sustainable” like you want me to, I won’t believe a word you say. Give your $100 million to the poor countries. The same goes for you Michael Mann, Phil Jones, and so on. When you start to live sustainable, then I will too. But I already know you are unwilling to live poor.
For news channels I have Al jazeera on cable and Russia Today on Freeview in the UK along with CNN, BBC, SKY, Bloomberg, Euronews, NDTV, CNBC on cable. The more angles available, the more I feel able to judge what is credible, what is propaganda and what questions to ask, as all MSM are to a lesser or greater extent prejudiced. I look forward to a Chinese news channel one day.
On the BBC today it has been quite interesting hearing them trying to twist the recent UK rainfall statistics into a “be afraid” story and failing miserable.
Charles Gerard Nelson says:
January 3, 2013 at 1:04 am
I don’t know, but I was surprised to see it on the headline scroll at the bottom of a local TV newscast here in New Hampshire.
I guess this thread is mature enough for a little redirection. There are a lot of reference on Google News, including http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323374504578218852276678968.html?mod=googlenews_wsj which says in part:
It also had this completely bogus line. Apparently the WSJ can’t handle a temperature conversion that is just like a currency conversion:
Auggh!
Mark and two Cats says:
January 2, 2013 at 7:22 pm
algore betrays us with the CAGW hoax and now by selling a propaganda vehicle to our enemies….
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Al started before that.
And now the other shoe has dropped. Al baby did not tell us WHO would own those Third World farms…
eworrall1 says:
January 2, 2013 at 7:25 pm
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….
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Agreed. It will be a challenge to the MSM’s wall of silence….maybe. As I have shown many times here the bankers own/control the media. link
DesertYote says:
January 2, 2013 at 8:12 pm
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.
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That is not saying much since NYT, MSNBC or the rest have NO journalistic integrity.
When they showed film footage of my big ten university campus engulfed in riots just after the Kent State riot, I knew they were liars and quit watching TV. There was no riot, not even one unruly student. The real big clue to this being intentional propaganda was my parents saw the film in New York but none of my instate dorm mates parents saw it yet it should have been a big instate story.
Al-Jazeera may have an Arabic name, a headquarters in Qatar, and at least nominal Arabic ownership, but to say that it represents Arabs or Muslims would be about as silly as saying that ABC News or CNN represents the U.S.A. — or that Qatar represents Arabs or Muslims. More useful are the news networks that defend the governments of countries that the Anglo-American Establishment is stridently demanding that the West overthrow, such as the government of Russia, Syria, Iran, Sudan or China, and in general, news networks that defend the principle of national sovereignty against “Anglo-American” (but really un-American, and against the interest of most Anglos) schemes for world government!
If you really want to know what’s going on in the Middle East, visit the website of a news network that is most despised by the forces that overthrew the government of Libya, chopped-up Qaddafi, and replaced his regime with Al-Qaeda’s affiliates, which celebrated the 11th anniversary of September 11, 2001 by shelling the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi and killing the patriotic Americans inside: larouchepub.com (Executive Intelligence Review).
john robertson says:
January 2, 2013 at 10:57 pm
…. The entertainment Media,for it’s not news or reporting as we knew it, is fading away.
Too few of their viewers trust them anymore, sure they would like to, hence the success of Fox, but its going down,being replaced by trusted blogs…..
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Yes viewers no longer trust the MSM:
Media was even less trusted then banks, occupying the bottom of the heap.
The graph shows the US trust in the media dropped 11 points from 38% to 27% between 2010 and 2011. The UK dropped from 27% to 22%.
Not exactly what I would call a vote of confidence in the fourth estate.
Not one of WUWT’s best articles.
I won’t, and do not need to, drag middle-east politics into global-warming arguments.