Media: Couric on Paris, More On AlJazeera

June 12th, 2007 - by: danny

YES, KATIE, BUT….

Couric accosts America with Paris fluff. CBS News anchor Katie Couric, during a recent commencement address:Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ ” The kind of fluff that accosts us on the newsstand may seem like harmless fun, but it should also come with a warning label that says it can rot your mind and distort your values.” Steve Benen notes, during Friday’s broadcast of Couric’s CBS Evening News, “the Paris Hilton ‘news’ got more coverage on CBS than a roadside bomb killing a U.S. soldier, the immigration

Meanwhile Katie is not doing so good ratings-wise, reports Broadcasting and Cable

How low can Katie Couric go? That was the question two weeks ago when CBS Evening News With Katie Couric suffered its worst audience totals in 20 years. And that was 464,000 viewers fewer than the prior Week’s all-time low….

FOX NEWS DOWNPLAYING WAR

Fox News gives Iraq war less attention

USA NBC’s “Nightly News” spent 269 minutes on Iraq, ABC had 251 and CBS 238, according to news consultant Andrew Tyndall.

MOORE FEARS GOVERNMENT WILL SEIZE HIS NEW MOVIE

FAIR TO NY TIMES: CALL IT WHAT IT IS

Reviewing the London-based anti-Iraq War play Fallujah, New York Times reporter Jane Perlez wrote (5/29/07), “The denunciations of the United States are severe, particularly in the scenes that deal with the use of napalm in Fallujah, an allegation made by left-wing critics of the war but never substantiated.” She followed that complaint by reporting that the play’s writer and director, Jonathan Holmes, “makes no pretense of objectivity,” paraphrasing him as saying that he “strove for authority more than authenticity.”

Unfortunately for the Times, which does make a pretense of objectivity, the U.S. government did use the modern equivalent of napalm in Iraq. In a 2003 interview in the San Diego Union-Tribune (8/5/03), Marine Col. James Alles described the use of Mark 77 firebombs on targets in Iraq, saying, “We napalmed both those approaches.” While the Pentagon makes a distinction between the Mark 77 and napalm–the chemical formulation is slightly different, being based on kerosene rather than gasoline–it acknowledged to the Union-Tribune that the new weapon is routinely referred to as napalm because “its effect upon the target is remarkably similar.”

“You can call it something other than napalm, but it’s napalm,” military analyst John Pike told the paper. In a column that appeared before his play premiered (London Guardian, 4/4/07), Fallujah playwright and director Jonathan Holmes referred to it as a “napalm derivative.”

MORE VIEWS ON THE SHAKEUP AT ALJAZEERA

MidEast Wire suggestions the shake-up was brought about by pressure by Palestininian factions:

“Khanfar’s removal from Al-Jazeera board of directors preliminary step…”

On June 4, the Jordanian weekly Al Majd reported: “Media quarters in Qatar were surprised by the decision to remove Director General of Al-Jazeera network Waddah Khanfar, from its board of directors. Media sources considered this step “illogical,” because Khanfar is the director general of all Al-Jazeera satellite television channels, including the Arabic news channel, the international news channel, the documentary channel, the sports channel, and the children’s channel, as well as the Al-Jazeera.net electronic website, its training and research centers, and its international printed newspaper, which is expected to be issued soon.

“Khanfar’s removal came into effect in pursuance of an amiri decision that was issued by Heir Apparent Shaykh Tamim Bin-Hamad Al Thani and according to which a new board of directors was announced. There have been some changes in the new board of directors, which now comprises all-Qatari members except for Mahmud Shammam (a Libyan). It was also eye-catching that Ms Maryam Rashid Yusuf al-Khatir became the first woman to join the Al-Jazeera board of directors.

“Well-informed media sources hold the view that “the removal of Khanfar from the Al-Jazeera board of directors was the first step towards removing him from his position as director general of the network.” They said that “his removal came in response to outside US and Palestinian pressure.” They explained that “the Americans and the Palestinians accused Khanfar of empathizing with the Muslim Brotherhood in general and with the Palestinian Hamas Movement in particular.”

“The sources noted that “an official close to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas visited Doha recently and handed Qatari officials a security dossier on Waddah Khanfar.” They said that “an Arab intelligence service delivered to Qatar a similar dossier that proves Khanfar’s association with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.” The same sources said that “the amiri decision was issued following a media campaign that Qatari newspapers waged against Khanfar a few months ago.” They added that “Qatari newspapers accused Khanfar of excluding Qataris from key posts in Al-Jazeera.”

“The sources said that “Qatari Amir Shaykh Hamad Bin-Khalifah Al Thani had long been the umbrella under which Khanfar continued to occupy his post over the past period.” They added that “however, the Qatari amir has been under constant pressure, which he could no longer tolerate. As a result, he instructed his son, Heir Apparent Shaykh Tamim Bin-Hamad Al Thani, to issue in his absence an amiri decision to form a new board of directors. The duration of term for the new board was amended from one to three years.”

The sources said that they “have noticed some changes in Al-Jazeera news coverage. This was clearly manifest in its coverage of the recent clashes between Fatah and Hamas.” They said that “Al-Jazeera was relatively biased towards Fatah. It hosted persons who belong to Fatah or who are considered Fatah proteges and gave them the opportunity to criticize Hamas.” They added that “it was also noticed that Al-Jazeera has absented a number of Hamas leaders, such as former Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmud Al-Zahhar, member of the Hamas Political Bureau Muhammad Nazzal, and Hamas spokesperson in Gaza Sami Abu-Zuhri.” The sources attributed the absence of these names to “their hard-line criticism of a number of Fatah leaders.”

DS: I have no idea if this is a credible report or a smear on Wadah.

ANOTHER SOURCE PREFERRING ANONYMITY WRITES:

Here’s a story that has been widely reported in the Middle East but was ignored in the ‘West’.

A cameraman with Al Jazeera was filming an interview with the Afghan leader Dadulla. When the footage was taken back, people in at the station wanted to know why the cameraman was also shooting the surrounding area. He gave quite an unsatisfactory answer. Shortly after that Qatari security people came in and seized the video. The cameraman also disclosed that he was working for them. Dadulla was killed by a missile apparently because his location could be pinpointed by viewing the video.

All this was not known outside the station until a senior chap at the station sent an email to the media. Immediately the top structure of the station was suspended. A law was decreed that non-Qataris cannot hold top positions at the station. All this happened almost overnight.
It’s a long story but I am just giving you the gist of it.

Look into it and you will discover a large can of wormsÃ¢â‚¬Â¦.I also know the top guy at Al Jazeera who has been given a post that could be regarded as a demotion … keep him out of making any mischief…and finally fire him.

A FORMER AJ PRODUCER WRITES: “I’m certainly hearing things that tally with your worries about the direction of the station.”

PROTESTS FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE AND THEIR COVERAGE

Paul O’Hanlon sends this along from Scotland vis IndyMedia:

There were a number of worldwide demonstrations at the weekend; there was a sizeable protest in London with a turnout of 20-25 thousand and a small but lively demo on the Mound in Edinburgh.

Here is a full list of the demonstrations round the world:

PROTEST COVERAGE SPARSE

There has been virtually no coverage either of the protests or indeed the issue of the Occupation itself. On British television and radio there have been programmes to commemorate the retaking of the Falkland Islands from Argentina in 1982 but few to my knowledge on the much greater injustice of the occupation of Palestine.

TELEVISION

The Channel Four program `Unreported World` on Friday 8th June did give the Palestine issue some degree of objective coverage:

However, this program is very much a minority one as it clashes with the hugely popular soap `Coronation Street` on another channel. The ratio of viewers would be around 15 to 1 in favour of the soap.

The BBC1 Sunday morning (10th June) programme `Sunday AM` presented by Andrew Marr was much more concerned with the 25th anniversary of the Falklands. There was a panel consisting of Carol Thatcher (daughter of the former PM Margaret Thatcher), BBC journalist Kate Adie and Admiral Sir Alan West who made his name in the Falklands conflict. There was a great gloating over `our` victory with clips of the 1982 victory parades. Iraq and Darfur were mentioned briefly when Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn was interviewed. There was then a detailed discussion about Tony Blair’s `conversion` to Catholicism. Palestine? Not a word. Sadly, also in this programme there was the leader of the Liberal Democrat Party Sir Menzies `Ming` Campbell, whose party did offer some opposition to the Iraq war, could only come up with “The Falklands is British!”

The News Dissector