Talk:Al Mayadeen

Coverage of Russian-Ukrainian conflict — Original Research

In its coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Al Mayadeen strictly follows the coverage guidelines published by the Russian State, with articles reflecting the general terms, storylines, and topics similar to those presented by Russian state media outlets to Russian audiences. For example, Al Mayadeen refers to the presence of Russian military within Ukraine as a "special military operation" rather than "invasion" or "war".

I added an original research tag inline to the text above since it cites Al Mayadeen itself. Snuish (talk) 16:06, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

IranWire: Some news outlets ideologically aligned with the Iranian regime, such as Al-Mayadeen TV, have sought to shift the focus to American interventionism in Ukraine and whether or not Ukraine contains Nazis. A recent article talked about the willingness of a reported 3,000 Americans to join the fight on Ukraine’s side. Other articles have drawn the conversation back to Israel, with one headline positing: “How is ‘Israel’ taking advantage of the Ukraine crisis?”. Another drew attention to the fact that Putin had not welcomed Naftali Bennett’s offer to mediate, stating “The Kremlin informed the Israeli side that it does not need mediation in the Ukrainian crisis, which indicates Russia’s discontent with the Israeli position.”[1] Not sure if this can be used without attribution.

Polygraph.info: On March 1, Russia’s Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Rudakov told al-Mayadeen, a pro-Hezbollah pan-Arab channel: “This is a war against the Nazi battalions and armed forces that fought for eight years in east Ukraine. This is not an aggression; this is to defend justice the rights of the Russian Federation.” There is no evidence to back up the claim about Nazi battalions.[2] That's too flimsy to be of use.

So, seems true but should remain flagged as OR to see if secondary sources confirm. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:52, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

The tone of this page is not neutral.

This article disputes the neutrality of Almayadeen based on the fact that the network refers to the presence of Russian military within Ukraine as a "special military operation" rather than "invasion" or "war".

However the article itself refers to the presence of Saudi Arabia'e military within Yemen as "Saudi military intervention in the ongoing civil war in Yemen".

You can't have it both ways guys. 206.223.172.198 (talk) 21:20, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Please review Wikipedia's policy on original research. You may find the section on primary, secondary, and tertiary sources particularly useful. Snuish (talk) 21:15, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Edits

this article follows dmy date format. Please follow it in your citations. In addition, there is no need to put many sources for a single statement and please use expanded source names. Egeymi (talk) 17:25, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Copyedit of "Staff"

Dear Egeymi, thank you for your excellent work in establishing this article. In the section "Staff" my edits of 12 November 2022 were for style, as I noted in the edit summary of the first edit. I found the following sentence awkward because it is mostly a simple list of names but has a big parenthetical expression stuck in the middle of it, the description of Ali Hashem:

The staff of the channel include Lebanese journalists such as Sami Kulaib, Ali Hashem, the former Al Jazeera war correspondent, who resigned from the Qatari channel for stated that it refused to broadcast footage of militants on the Lebanese Syrian borders in the early days of the Syrian uprising, Zahi Wehbe, Lina Zahreddine, Lana Mudawwar, Muhammad Alloush, Ahmad Abu Ali and Dina Zarkat.

So I rearranged the sentence to put Ali Hashem at the end. I think it's easier to read that way.

Also I put line breaks after long <ref> elements to make the markup easier to read for editors. Communpedia Tribal (talk) 22:20, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Problems with the Ownership section

Here is a rundown on the issues with the Ownership section that I attempted to fix:

• We say "The channel says that its owners are anonymous Arab businessmen”. We make this statement twice in the same paragraph. It appears as the first sentence and as the last sentence. One of these should be removed.

• We say “There is speculation about the funding of the channel”. It is a meaningless statement that provides no information to the reader.

• We say “Many see the channel as a propaganda platform for Iran and Hezbollah and is funded by them”. The source says “Some reports say it will be a mouthpiece for Iran and Hezbollah. Bin Jiddo has denied the charges, saying it is funded by Arab businessmen whose identity he would not disclose”. So “many” is an overstatement and there is no mention that the station is funded by Iran and Hezbollah.

• We say “According to the Telegraph, its head of news is married to a former adviser to Assad. However, Ghassan bin Jiddo, director of the channel, denied this ...”. Ghassan bin Jiddo is not denying that “its head of news is married to a former adviser to Assad”. He is denying that “it will be a mouthpiece for Iran and Hezbollah”.

Burrobert (talk) 14:30, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Based on the feedback received, here is some proposed text to correct the errors mentioned above in the Ownership section:

When the station opened some believed it would be a "mouthpiece for Iran and Hezbollah". Ghassan bin Jiddo, director of the channel, stated that the channel is funded by Arab businessmen, whom he would not name. Omar Ibhais, a freelance Lebanese TV producer, stated that the channel is a joint venture between Iran and Rami Makhlouf, cousin of Syrian President Bashar Assad. According to the The Daily Telegraph, it has been alleged that Al Mayadeen's head of news is married to a former adviser to Assad.

Burrobert (talk) 14:04, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Problem with the sentence "It is further said by Zeina Karam of the Associated Press that the channel's close ally in Lebanon is the Shiite group Hezbollah"

I recently removed the sentence mentioned in the title. The source used for this sentence is

A new pan-Arab TV station that went on the air Monday courts viewers who see mainstream coverage of the political upheaval sweeping the Middle East as biased against the regimes in Syria and Iran and their close ally in Lebanon, the powerful Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

The source is saying that Hezbollah is a close ally of "the regimes in Syria and Iran", not of Al Mayadeen. Burrobert (talk) 14:46, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree. The source is saying that the outlet courts viewers who want sympathetic coverage of Assad, Iran and Hezbollah, not that Hezbollah and the channel are close allies. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:09, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Should one of us try to correct the record? Burrobert (talk) 13:45, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

It's possible to delete this sentence, bc no need for it to show pro-Hezbollah stance of the channel. Imay also delete it. --Egeymi (talk) 13:54, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Why does a variation of this conspiracy keep getting added back into the page? The cited sources don't say it at all. Nexuve (talk) 19:41, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Update: It got added back into the page yet again with no explanation. Does the responsible editor care to explain themselves? Nexuve (talk) 22:55, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard

There is currently a discussion at WP:RSN#Al-Mayadeen, about Al Mayadeen. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Time needed

When I said a time stamp would be nice for the France 24 video, I was referring to the point in time in the video where the presenter or someone else says "it was the latest expansion of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in the field of media". Burrobert (talk) 12:29, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Definition should be changed to a "Propaganda site"

Use of the terms "resistance", IOF (to mean IDF) is particularly concerning. Steveonsi (talk) 21:56, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Distortion???

Spot the difference:

"Hezbollah said it had retaliated against Israel's killing of the journalists by firing across the border at an Israeli base".

"Hezbollah said it had retaliated over the killing of the journalists by firing at an Israeli base across the border". Burrobert (talk) 13:17, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, my revert wasn't proper so I'll now revert mine, but please use less ambitious edit summaries for such edits, bc yours was "expanding article." --Egeymi (talk) 13:44, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Right-ho Burrobert (talk) 13:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Hezbollah ties

The article currently makes a very large and inciteful claim about the channel's ties to Hezbollah that is very unsupported by the cited sources, even considering the citations used later in the paragraph:

• Asharq Al-Awsat, Jun 14 2012: Uses quite a few weasel words to leave the impression that there may sorta possibly be some kind of tie without stating it outright. "The launch of the new pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen satellite television channel represents the latest expansions of the 'axis of resistance' media, by which we mean Iran, Syria and armed political movements such as Hezbollah."

• France 24, Jun 11 2012: Hezbollah not mentioned.

• Associated Press, Jun 11 2012: Uses weasel words to leave an impression that it might in the future support Hezbollah. "It promises to support the Palestinian cause and all forms of 'resistance' - a term in Mideast parlance usually used to describe the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and other groups that fight Israel."

• The Daily Telegraph, Sep 1 2013: Uses weasel words to bring up a general manager's previous employment without claiming ties between the channel and Hezbollah. "It has been alleged that its head of news is married to a former adviser to Assad, and that its general manager was previously head of Al-Manar, the broadcaster affiliated to Hizbollah."

• Syria Cyber Watch, Nov 25 2013: Hezbollah not mentioned. Not even a good citation for the pro-Assad claim. It's an offhand reference from a cybersecurity organization that never quite claims that the channel is pro-Assad.

• US News, Jun 11 2012: Largely the same AP source as above with the same date and byline.

In addition most of these citations are dated within a week of the channel's launch, 12 years ago. Surely a claim this big has a solid citation backing it up, and/or some evidence of it has emerged in the 12 years it's been operational?

Also WP:NOR specifically on claiming it's been "widely categorized". Again none of the sources make that specific claim, instead this seems to have been original research where an editor added it because of the number of citations.

Nexuve (talk) 00:15, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

The sources you mentioned above are from 2012 or 2013. More recent sources employ much clearer statements. So they would be added. However, WP:NOR doesn't apply here because this term is based on sources. Egeymi (talk) 06:41, 10 February 2024 (UTC)