Al Jazeera English

I believe the U.S. government should allow the Al Jazeera English channel to be broadcasted for three reasons. Firstly, since the channel reports news in the viewpoint of the Middle East, it allows Americans to understand more about them and maybe can correct their bias towards Middle East people.

Secondly, if not letting the channel to be broadcasted, the government will violate the First Amendment freedom of speech. Middle East people also have the right to speak if they are operating the channel legally.

Thirdly, as a non-American who lives in America, I think banning the channel just because its name contains an "Al" and relates it to terrorism will be too superficial and is an extremely racial discrimination action. There are numerous Chinese, Japanese and Spanish channels in America, so why not a Middle East one?

However, I think launching the channel through Internet may not be enough to reach the U.S. audience. People may certainly notice the existence of the channel if their promotion is big enough in the Internet, but whether people will pay to watch it is another matter. I am not an American, so I do not have negative feeling towards Middle East people, but I know many Americans do.

After I have gone through the website of Al Jazeera English website, I found its news can adhere to its Ethic of Codes, especially the sixth one, "Recognise diversity in human societies with all their races, cultures and beliefs and their values and intrinsic individualities in order to present unbiased and faithful reflection of them."

The diversity of the news coverage really surprise me. Besides its coverage on Middle East events, it is able to cover other international news fairly. They even can cover those very local news of other countries, such as a news about illegal blood sellling in China.

Moreover, I believe they succeed in reporting news about the intrinsic values about human being, which I like this point very much. In the site, there is a news about an French anti-immigrant campaign leader visited a multiracial Paris suburb. In this article, the journalist, rather than focus on what the leader do, focus on the reaction of the public. Sometimes I believe when we look at the major newspaper, the journalists focus too much on what the politics do but ignore how the public think. The Al Jazeera succeeds in looking the intrinsic of the society - common people.