Left I on the News

"Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it's real news. You may not agree with it, but you feel like you're getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners."
- Hillary Clinton, emphasis added

"You may not agree with it"? If it's "real news," Hillary, there's not a question of "agreeing with it" or not, it's simply the truth.

Of course, that's precisely what Clinton objects to (and that's the telling part). For example, Israel has been bombing Gaza almost every day for several weeks now. Every day, Al Jazeera will report on it, U.S. media outlets will not. And of course it's that that Clinton's referring to when she says "you may not agree with it." What she "agrees with" is the way U.S. media dutifully conforms to U.S. foreign policy, and reports precisely what the U.S. government wants it to report and not what it doesn't. Al Jazeera, by contrast, reports the "real news" - reality as it is, not as the U.S. government wants the American people to think it is.

I need not also point out the strange concept that Al Jazeera viewership is increasing in the U.S., since for 99% of the American public, Al Jazeera is available only on the Internet, and as a result, Al Jazeera viewership is undoubtedly considerably lower than the lowest-rated show on cable TV. Clinton might have said something about free speech, and about how she thinks U.S. cable companies should give their viewers the option to watch the "real news" of Al Jazeera. Of course she did no such thing, because, after all, even though it's "real news" she "doesn't agree with it."