Caught a little of France 24 last night - France’s mostly government-funded propaganda machine international news channel. Tremendously unappealing programming; done without any panache or joie de vivre. Technical problems abounded, but so did simple boredom. Really not impressed. (You can watch it online - perhaps I might recommend this page which contains all available channels in the UK).

One channel that is surprisingly excellent is Al Jazeera. An outstandingly professional channel, with a very different outlook on world news; the clever gimmick is that the channel comes live from different news centres across the world (Malaysia, Doha, London and Washington DC) seemingly dependent on peak times. The channel’s well put together, the onair identity consistent and clean, and the presenters mostly familiar (though the US guy with the beard does scare me a little). The channel appears to be put together specifically to lay any fears of news bias to rest; it’s certainly far less reactionary, and biased, than Fox News. There’s a particularly good media programme on there called ‘Listening Post’, which is well worth catching. Curiously, some of their clips of US-based TV come from YouTube, which seems an eminently sensible way of getting their material!

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