Sunday, January 23, 2011
The revolution WILL be televised—by Al Jazeera
by Larry Geller
Thanks to Al Jazeera, the news that Tunisian protestors have ignored the government curfew and set up protests outside Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi's office is known throughout the Arab world. The entire Mid-East understands that Tunisians are calling for the government to resign.
Of course, there are also tweets and other social media helping to spread the word, but Al Jazeera may be the great leveler.
Here in the United States the cable companies have almost entirely ignored the news agency that has become the world’s CNN. You can catch it on the web in English. The Pacifica network carries Al Jazeera English news on their radio stations, and you can get it as a podcast. It’s available at around 5:10 a.m. Hawaii time from KPFA, for example. The podcast feed is http://kpfa.org/podcast/pod.php?show_id=65774.
Today at 10:00 a.m. Hawaii time they imitated WikiLeaks and along with the Guardian newspaper released the Palestine Papers. The shock is just beginning to spread.
Follow Al Jazeera on Twitter or the hashcode #PalestinePapers for news you won’t find in your local paper.
Most likely you’ll have to keep in touch through your computer since just as our commercial media ignore WikiLeaks, they will most likely give Al Jazeera the cold shoulder too.
Interestingly, Europe and Asia will be better informed than we will. Sad, actually. America the ignorant.
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