Current TV, an independent TV channel owned in part by Al Gore, was sold to Al Jazeera this week. Time Warner Cable immediately responded by pulling Current TV off its lineup.
I’m one of the few Americans who can watch Al Jazeera on my television, thanks to my Free to Air satellite dish. Al Jazeera is everything CNN used to be. It offers plucky, daring reporting and strives to report the truth. It is also not beholden to Wall Street. It’s signal is broadcast above America completely free and clear.
What’s more, so much of America’s foreign policy involves the Middle East. Al Jazeera covers the Mideast better than any other network, hands down. I will always recall being transfixed at the live images Al Jazeera beamed from Tahir Square during Egypt’s Arab Spring. Al Jazeera is arguably more successful in spreading democracy than even the U.S. military.
If Americans discovered an independent, reliable news channel existed outside of the monopoly that controls American media, why, they might start paying attention to the important issues of our world. Can’t have that, can we?