I mean, if i was looking for objective coverage of the middle east, your comment sounds more like a criticism of Al Jazeera English than a support of it. Like, if i'm looking for neutral coverage of a region known for its religious conflicts, i wouldn't look for the news source that is pro a specific religion.

I don't think you'll find objective coverage of about anywhere - objectivity itself is an impossible goal and the more you look into you consider objective the less likely you are to find it. Even the driest readout of action/reaction has to decide what the scope of the reporting is. Any mention of blame, motivation, etc is inherently subjective. My rule to cut through this is try to watch reporting foreign to the place its produced, and then apply it through a lens of my personal values.

AJE does a lot of reporting on the daily lives of people in the middle east, and for that its a very welcome source for me. Also if you know Qatar's particular political stance you can sort of de-slant a lot of reporting. Criticism of the west, especially of western militaries are something you literally cannot hear within US news.

"region known for its religious conflicts" - I would sort of state that you're not being very objective there yourself. Islam is a religion but its also a really ingrained part of the culture in ways that christianity is not. It just means they're reflective of the culture thats produced it.

> "region known for its religious conflicts" - I would sort of state that you're not being very objective there yourself. Islam is a religion but its also a really ingrained part of the culture in ways that christianity is not. It just means they're reflective of the culture thats produced it.

Would it be better if i said ethno-religious conflicts? Regardless, one of the biggest conflicts in the middle east is probably Israel-Palestine, and its been that way for a long time. I'm not sure i would look to AJE for neutral coverage of that (I definitely wouldn't look towards western media either though)

One thing that AJE will show is the conflict from the Palestinian side, which is not something western media shows. They will show actual towns and cities in the west bank and Gaza, the israeli settlements which are what are actually causing the flareups in violence. There may not be a neutral source available - reuters and the AP have a pretty consistent bias of rarely mentioning settlements or evictions.

At the very least its nice to put human faces and see real communities in what is often a more rhetorical exercise.

> Would it be better if i said ethno-religious conflicts

Perhaps, I would just say a reading of the situation shows its less a religious conflict and more a political apartheid state. The borders and political rights are the true conflict here, with the religious element sometimes there to inflame and balkanize the factions. Having been raised in the US to think that its this mighty crusade-like undertaking of the jewish/christian world vs the heathen muslims, a real examination of the factors causing protest, violence and conflict has a lot more to do with secular power structures - thats why I think its pretty safe to say its much more akin to South African apartheid the likes of which we haven't seen in a long time. It also helps that the solution must be political.

> One thing that AJE will show is the conflict from the Palestinian side, which is not something western media shows. They will show actual towns and cities in the west bank and Gaza, the israeli settlements which are what are actually causing the flareups in violence. There may not be a neutral source available - reuters and the AP have a pretty consistent bias of rarely mentioning settlements or evictions.

I'm not saying that sort of thing isn't valuable or important, just that showing the suffering of one side in a conflict is not neutral reporting.

And to be clear, not everything should be neutral reporting. Understanding the struggles that the Palestinian people face is very valuable. Its just a different sort of thing than a neutral report on the situation in the area.

Re characterization of the conflict:

I'm not sure i agree with your characterization, although i do agree that most of the time religion is an excuse for secular geopolitical ends. Regardless i'm not sure it matters for the main point of this argument.

> I'm not saying that sort of thing isn't valuable or important, just that showing the suffering of one side in a conflict is not neutral reporting.

I’m not trying to claim its neutral, but that it is a perspective you don’t often get, and is helpful for building empathy for the people living there as humans rather than pieces on a chess board of geopolitics.

I don’t call my characterization the unfallable truth, just for me it’s a lot closer to reality than what a lot of lenses I’ve had to view the conflict in the past :)

I'm a fan of AJE for my headline blast style news. They're far enough removed from my day to day in the US that it manages to give a good "rest of the world" vantage point. It is often the case that a big story for a few days on AJE is some sort of major unrest in this or that country but on all the US networks it is something inane.

Because of their ownership I do tend to take a more critical view of their Middle East coverage. Need to view it (and everything really) through the "What does Qatar want?" lens. Although sometimes even that helps give a good "both sides" style comparison. For coverage on Israeli/Palestinian tensions I can use both that and the more standard US options and get a more well rounded view.