Courthouse News and the BBC are reporting that Al Gore sued Al Jazeera, claiming the satellite news provider is attempting to renege on $65 million in payments related to its $500 million purchase of Current TV in January 2013.
The Qatar-based news broadcaster immediately demanded that the complaint be sealed from public view.
Al Gore's law suit demanded payments due for his sale of the short lived "Current TV" channel which flopped badly on US cable networks, and hasn't fared better under Al Jazeera's control.
The irony of a news organization suppressing news about itself was not lost on Gore's lawyers:
"We do not believe that our complaint should be sealed," the attorney said. "However, despite being a news organization, Al Jazeera America has said that the full complaint should be kept from the public file. We have therefore filed the complaint under seal until the Court can resolve this issue. We expect that the Court will reject Al Jazeera America's argument."
Al Jazerra can be found on many US Cable systems, but has struggled to attract viewers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:02AM
When they launched Al Jazeera America (AJA) they geo-blocked all Al Jazeera English video streams and they have not come up with an alternate way to stream AJA video. Since cord-cutters are most likely to be young people AJA is explicitly excluding the demographic most likely to embrace a news channel that's not beholden the (american) entrenched interests.
Also they are excluding me, so I'm kinda pissed about it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:03AM
Their low viewership seems weird. But perhaps this explains it?
"The network's viewership is small but upscale and highly educated, Mr. Morse added."
Howcome this?
""Some advertisers are still concerned about what clients and customers will think if they advertise on the network,""
Is the root cause that people are afraid of outside views?
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:35AM
No, the root cause is that most Americans still don't understand Al Jazeera is a news organization.
Most Americans have really only heard of Al Jazeera from back when they were the ones receiving videotaped messages from Osama Bin Laden making demands and speeches. You remember, "according to a statement released to Al Jazeera, Osama Bin Laden claimed...." That's the only context in which most Americans have heard of them - being associated with Osama Bin Laden's messages "somehow." As far as many Americans are concerned, Al Jazeera is probably the mouthpiece of Al Quaeda.
Oh, and on top of that, you have the added burden that an Arabic-native news organization in the US is going to be perceived as having an Islamic slant, which some may (mistakenly) believe is an Islamic fundementalist slant, which many may assume is a fundementally anti-American slant, and, well, you're going to have an uphill battle.
I blame Al Jazeera for this, frankly. They have not done any significant scale advertising to announce what they are, who they are, what their point of view is, or do anything to convince people to watch. They arrogantly assumed if they built it people would come. They don't realize they're not famous here, or that they'll be mistrusted, or that they have to do anything to win over a viewership. They don't understand how to put out a message people will relate to, which is a shocking failure from a news organization.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:20AM
Ideally, I don't want to read news with *any* sort of religious slant, Muslim, Christian, or Pastafarian. I want unbiased facts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:40AM
I'm an American currently residing outside the country, and I'd say Al Jazeera is less biased and less sensationalizing than any major US television news.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:25AM
heh so is RT for that matter. US news is laughable, and most European news is a carbon copy of US news.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:55AM
Please.
US news, if anything, is a copy of European news, not the other way around.
The UK has had rather explicitly politically slanted news organizations (and little else) since back when most people got their news from newspapers. FoxNews and MSNBC are comparatively recent innovations in the US.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:58PM
Hmm a discussion comparing shit and poo… and which came first… okay I'll pass this one, bound to be a monster floater.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:43AM
Hey! Stop that! Pastafarians don't have religious slant! A major tenet of the faith is the correlation of Global Warming with the decrease in the number of Pirates. That's facts! (And actually, look up the Latin root of fact: facio, to make, as in manufacture (hand making!). So there are no natural facts, only data, which are not facts.)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:37AM
That is assuming they want to primordially treat it like a business. If only "sending a message" is uttermost important (e.g. "we are impartial, more believable than Faux News, let us tell you what's actually happening in this world") and they really-really want to deliver this message above everything else, they can run it on a loss for a while.
Maybe. And maybe its more about the competition, which have more of the ear of Americans and choose to paint them in a dark colour [rawstory.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:18PM
Fox contributor Alan Colmes, a progressive voice on the news network
Wait, they allow those on Fox?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:43AM
Seems they have their share of controversy [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:27AM
I bet they are a more involved with certain people than they should be. But the problem is that ordinary media won't do their job properly. So several media sources has to be used. And sometimes one also has to listen to assholes to get a grip on a situation. It sucks, but it's efficient.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:57AM
This is why news from rt (former Russia Times) aren't to be discarded quite automatically. For instance: Islamic State threatens to ‘drown’ American targets in blood [rt.com] appeared on RT 10hours ago, WaPo published [washingtonpost.com] the news only 1 hour ago.
While RT present the situation quite dry and well contextualized, WaPo seems distracted by how efficiently IS uses social media (like presenting a bloody gore on Twitter and youtube would make a difference).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:23PM
> (like presenting a bloody gore on Twitter and youtube would make a difference).
When your goal is to terrorize anything you can do to make your threats more vivid and memorable is going to work in your favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @03:48AM
I think a lot of this represents the difference in culture between Russians and Americans. Russians tend to be more about dry facts and figures and minimizing risk while Americans tend to be about pictures/images, visuals, specific examples and illustrations, taking larger risks for larger rewards, etc... Americans try to focus their education on creative and critical thinking while Russians try to focus more on memorization. Both approaches have merit and really they complement each other (you can't think critically about something you don't know/haven't memorized). and yes the above are oversimplified stereotypes that you learn in school and nothing is ever really this cut and dry but the point is that there are cultural differences between American and Russian culture that are also reflected in how news is presented.
The Arabic culture is very different than the American culture in many many ways. I find it interesting that whenever the U.S. T.V. news interviews an Israeli person to talk about certain issues they choose an educated well spoken person who speaks very good English to interview yet when they interview an Arab they choose some extremist or someone who isn't so obviously an extremist but isn't as familiar with the American culture as they should be and perhaps is educated in his native country and so they say many things that don't quite fit in with American culture. There are many well spoken educated Arabs that speak good English and understand the American culture that they can choose and there are likewise many extremist Israeli's to choose from but who the media chooses to interview and put on T.V. seems to present a bias.
Having said that, as an Arab American, I'm not that surprised that Al Jazeera didn't do that well here. I've watched Al Jazeera in Arabic and the Arabic humor alone is very different than American humor. For instance I can tell an Arab relative a joke that most Americans would find funny and the Arab wouldn't laugh or find it funny at all. Yet there are many jokes in Arabic that are not funny to an American and an American wouldn't even understand the joke or get that this was supposed to be a joke in the first place.
Even when reading, say, a standard kindergarten/grade school book in Arabic intended to teach students how to read there are many things within that book that are very culturally different. For instance I have a relative that teaches Arabic here in America and this relative is not allowed to use a grade school book used in his/her native country because it has certain cultural biases built in that would not be allowed in our American school system. An example is the book says (to translate)
[pictures of everyone in the backyard/garden/farm]
"Brother tills". [picture of brother working]
"Father waters the grass." [picture of father watering grass]
Mother 'sits there' (and does nothing). [picture of mother doing nothing]
Sister sits there (and does nothing). [picture of sister sitting there and doing nothing].
The next page at the beach
"Brother builds sand castle" [picture]
"father swims" [picture]
"Mother sits there" (and does nothing) [picture]
"Sister sits there" (and does nothing) [picture]
(next page)
More of the same
etc...
This is a standard book that was used in grade class. Not acceptable here because of the cultural biases presented (not that we agree with these biases). So my relative had to find other texts to use.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:08AM
When I saw the words "Al Jazeera", "gouging" and "gore", I assumed the news network was going off on an Islamic murder-spree.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:20AM
I contemplated other titles...
Poor Gore wants More
Al wants Jazeera to send money neara
That said, I often tune that station in just to get a different slant on the news. It has no less slant, just a different slant, as does the BBC or CBC or Sky or NBC or CBS. There's no reason to expect 5 slanted views to provide a correct one, but its often entertaining to watch the same story come out of different mouths.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:40AM
I kinda like "Poor Gore wants More".
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1, Troll) by fnj on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:45AM
Bunch of tightwads.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @04:48AM
Sounds like Al Jazeera is trying to jew down Al Gore.
bada-boom!
I can say that because:
(1) I'm not full of ethanol
(2) My nephew is ashkenazi
(3) His wife is muslim (well, her mom is)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:22AM
Something far older than Islam or Mohammed: caveat emptor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:50PM
That is all.
(Score: 1) by dpp on Tuesday August 19 2014, @05:16PM
Al was gouged, not gored. ;-)