M2RB: Cheap Trick
The
The
The
You know that talk is cheap,
But the $100 million cheque
Is a cross that I can bear.
(Very loud, audible sigh)
Al Gore's due diligence must have missed the on-air party, with cake, for a deadly terrorist.
By Gordon Crovitz
Al Gore and his co-investors just sold liberal cable
channel Current TV to Al Jazeera, the network bankrolled by the emir of
Qatar. How much in carbon offsets does Mr. Gore need to balance his
estimated $100 million from the sale to an oil sheik?
But there's a more serious issue here than hypocrisy. Current's
owners could have simply said they sold to the highest bidder, with the
emir paying an estimated $500 million for a network with viewership of
only 22,000. Instead they glorified Al Jazeera.
Writing for
himself and Mr. Gore, co-founder Joel Hyatt, a lawyer and Democratic
fundraiser, explained: "When considering the several suitors who were
interested in acquiring Current, it became clear to us that Al Jazeera
was founded with the same goals we had." Among them: "to give voice to
those whose voices are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to
provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the
important stories that no one else is telling."
Mr. Hyatt also asserted that "Al and I did significant due
diligence." He wrote that he spent a week at Al Jazeera's headquarters
in Qatar and was impressed by the "journalistic integrity" he saw there.
More due diligence might have included a review of the close
journalistic coverage over the years of Al Jazeera's Arabic and English
broadcasts, which discloses the unsurprising fact that the network
reflects the interests of the government that runs it—making it akin to
Vladimir Putin's Russia Today and Beijing's Xinhua. The emir of Qatar,
Hamid bin Khalifa Al Thani, appointed his cousin as chairman of Al
Jazeera. The emir was last in the news for donating $400 million to
Hamas, a terrorist organization.
Mr. Gore could have read the Middle
East Quarterly profile titled "The Two Faces of Al Jazeera." The network
gets good marks for programming in areas outside the emir's direct
interests, but the article concludes that Al Jazeera continues "to
inflame Arab resentments in its promotion of anti-Americanism, Sunni
sectarianism and, in recent years, Islamism."
Founded in 1996, Al Jazeera became well known after 9/11. In a November 2001 New York Times Magazine article, Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami wrote that the network's
staffers are "either pan-Arabists—nationalists of a leftist bent
committed to the idea of a single nation across the many frontiers of
the Arab world—or Islamists."
In 2007, the liberal Nation magazine said that "field reports are overwhelmingly negative with violent footage played over and over. . . . There's a clear underlying message: that the way out of this spiral is political Islam." Dave Marash, formerly of ABC's "Nightline," quit Al Jazeera's English-language station in 2008 when producers in Qatar ordered up anti-American programming.
In 2008, Al Jazeera threw an on-air party for Samir Kuntar when he was released from an Israeli prison. Kuntar led a Palestine Liberation Front terrorist team that kidnapped an Israeli family in 1979. He shot the father and killed the 4-year-old daughter by smashing her head against rocks along the beach. In footage available on YouTube, Al Jazeera's Beirut bureau chief hands Kuntar a scimitar to cut the celebratory cake and says: "This is the sword of the Arabs, Samir."
In 2009, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, host of the network's most popular Arabic-language show, "Shariah and Life," said on air (also available on YouTube): "Oh, Allah, take this oppressive Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers and kill them, down to the very last one." Perhaps Mr. Gore doesn't have access to YouTube.
Al Jazeera's coverage of the Arab Spring has been uneven, reflecting the emir's interests. Former Al Jazeera journalist Ali Hashem wrote in London's Guardian in April that government officials had "asked the channel to cover up the situation in Bahrain," Qatar's neighbor, where a Sunni monarch is brutally suppressing a pro-democracy uprising led by majority Shiite protesters.
Judea Pearl, whose son Daniel was the Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped and beheaded in 2002 by al Qaeda terrorists, once had high hopes that Al Jazeera would be more open than other Arab government media. But he has written that the network has "committed itself unconditionally and unabashedly to the service of Hamas and Hezbollah. . . . It is no longer a clash with journalistic standards but a clash with the norms of civilized behavior."
So it's no surprise that before buying Current, Al Jazeera managed to get access to only a few million cable households in the U.S.
News consumers understand that a former vice president justifying a big payday is not the best judge of "journalistic integrity." Arabs deserve and will some day have a network independent of any of their governments. When this happens, Americans may even watch.
In 2007, the liberal Nation magazine said that "field reports are overwhelmingly negative with violent footage played over and over. . . . There's a clear underlying message: that the way out of this spiral is political Islam." Dave Marash, formerly of ABC's "Nightline," quit Al Jazeera's English-language station in 2008 when producers in Qatar ordered up anti-American programming.
In 2008, Al Jazeera threw an on-air party for Samir Kuntar when he was released from an Israeli prison. Kuntar led a Palestine Liberation Front terrorist team that kidnapped an Israeli family in 1979. He shot the father and killed the 4-year-old daughter by smashing her head against rocks along the beach. In footage available on YouTube, Al Jazeera's Beirut bureau chief hands Kuntar a scimitar to cut the celebratory cake and says: "This is the sword of the Arabs, Samir."
In 2009, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, host of the network's most popular Arabic-language show, "Shariah and Life," said on air (also available on YouTube): "Oh, Allah, take this oppressive Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers and kill them, down to the very last one." Perhaps Mr. Gore doesn't have access to YouTube.
Al Jazeera's coverage of the Arab Spring has been uneven, reflecting the emir's interests. Former Al Jazeera journalist Ali Hashem wrote in London's Guardian in April that government officials had "asked the channel to cover up the situation in Bahrain," Qatar's neighbor, where a Sunni monarch is brutally suppressing a pro-democracy uprising led by majority Shiite protesters.
Judea Pearl, whose son Daniel was the Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped and beheaded in 2002 by al Qaeda terrorists, once had high hopes that Al Jazeera would be more open than other Arab government media. But he has written that the network has "committed itself unconditionally and unabashedly to the service of Hamas and Hezbollah. . . . It is no longer a clash with journalistic standards but a clash with the norms of civilized behavior."
So it's no surprise that before buying Current, Al Jazeera managed to get access to only a few million cable households in the U.S.
News consumers understand that a former vice president justifying a big payday is not the best judge of "journalistic integrity." Arabs deserve and will some day have a network independent of any of their governments. When this happens, Americans may even watch.
Dream Police - Cheap Trick
The dream police, they live inside of my head
The dream police, they come to me in my bed
The dream police, they're coming to arrest me, oh, no
You know that talk is cheap
And those rumors ain't nice
And when I fall asleep
I don't think I'll survive the night, the night
'Cause they're waiting for me
They're looking for me
Every single night
They're driving me insane
Those men inside my brain
The dream police, they live inside of my head (live inside of my head)
The dream police, they come to me in my bed (come to me in my bed)
The dream police, they're coming to arrest me, oh, no
Well, I can't tell lies
'Cause they're listening to me
And when I fall asleep
Bet they're spying on me tonight, tonight
'Cause they're waiting for me
They're looking for me
Every single night
They're driving me insane
Those men inside my brain
I try to sleep, they're wide awake, they won't let me alone
They don't get paid to take vacations or let me alone
They spy on me, I try to hide, they won't let me alone
They persecute me, they're the judge and jury all in one
'Cause they're waiting for me
They're looking for me
Every single night
They're driving me insane
Those men inside my brain
The dream police, they live inside of my head (live inside of my head)
The dream police, they come to me in my bed (come to me in my bed)
The dream police, they're coming to arrest me
The dream police (police, police)
The dream police (police, police)
The dream police (police, police)
The dream police (police, police)
The dream police (police, police)
The dream police (police, police)
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