Al Gore, Al Jazeera, al-Qaeda … they’re all the same to the folks over at Fox News:
Fox does not report on rumours that its owner Rupert Murdoch and his Saudi partner Prince Walid visited Al Jazeera and reportedly were interested in buying the channel, or that Al Jazeera frequently exposed bogus pro-US military propaganda that Fox carried as news during the Iraq War.
…
But Fox News has a habit of not letting facts get in the way of its coverage, reporting that many Americans “feel” it’s a terrorist network perhaps because Al Jazeera to them, idiotically, sounds like al-Qaeda (and because this “feeling” is always being reinforced by bombastic pundits who are scoring political points, not making factual statements). There is no evidence to support this claim.
Fox reports:
Al Jazeera has been criticised for having a pro-Islamist bent, and accused of working with members of al-Qaeda. One of its journalists was arrested in Israel in 2011 on suspicion of being an agent of the Palestinian group Hamas.
(That was Samer Allawi, their Kabul bureau chief, who was later released, a fact Fox ignores when Israeli suspicions proved groundless.)
Fox’s “report” goes on:
Dave Marash, a former “Nightline” reporter who worked for Al Jazeera in Washington, said he left the network in 2008 in part because he sensed an anti-American bias there.
As it turns out, I spoke with Marash (who I worked alongside at ABC News) about why he left and he said it had more to do with his wanting to report with his wife from the field and not be stuck in an anchor chair.
Last year, the media website Newser reported that Marash still respects Al Jazeera, the opposite of what the Fox article insinuates.
He is quoted as saying:
The product is too good, too significant, to not have a market in the US, given the complete abdication of American networks and cable channels from actually covering international news.
… The current situation is “tragic”, in his view. It plays into the ignorance of American viewers, most of whom are clueless as to what the world thinks and why. It’s very harmful to America’s effectiveness and stature in the world.
So once again, Fox’s smears and aversion to the truth misrepresents the situation.
