Thursday, February 3, 2011

The Aljazeera Revolution

I ADMIT I HAD QUALMS ABOUT PUTTING ALJAZEERA UP ON MY SIDEBAR LATE LAST WEEK. But only for about five minutes.

No question, it's had more than a few anti-American moments over the years. But then, so has The New York Times, CNN News and a host of other MSM news outlets in this country. So I decided I would go with what I considered the best live Internet coverage. So far, it has not disappointed, especially when authorities were knocking at their Cairo offices' doors to arrest them and confiscate their equipment. As a former newspaper reporter, I can definitely relate to that scene in Cairo as I had several close calls in my journalism day.

Anyway, today there's a good read on The Aljazeera Revolution up on RealClearMarkets. I commend it to you as I run out the door till later today.

EXCERPT:

Put another way: There is no chance that the world would be watching these extraordinary events play out in Egypt if Egyptians had not watched the Tunisian revolution play out in their living rooms and coffee shops on Al Jazeera.

The media is by no means the only force at play in the continuing upheaval in Egypt, the Tunisian revolution, or the copy-cat demonstrations going on elsewhere in the Arab world. At root is a raw anger fed by decades of political, intellectual, and economic stagnation that has led to a powerful convergence of the region's three main political trends -- pan-Arab nationalism, nation-state nationalism, and Islamism.

However, Arab media have been at the vanguard of articulating this new and explosive development. Arab satellite television, such as Al Jazeera...


READ IT ALL

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