Posted on 01/23/2004 6:37:47 AM PST by Ex-Dem
Al-Jazeera, the Arabic news channel that gained international prominence during the Gulf war, has hit back at a "ridiculous" attack on its most senior editor in the Daily Express, which branded him "Bin Laden TV chief". The BBC has also defended its decision to hire al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Helal, to train journalists throughout the Middle East.
In a front-page splash today, the Express lashed out at Helal under the headline: "Now BBC signs up Bin Laden TV chief - new insult to viewers just days after Kilroy sacking."
The paper branded al-Jazeera "terror chief Osama Bin Laden's mouthpiece TV channel" and accused the BBC of "double standards" after presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk was forced to resign from the corporation last week over inflammatory comments he made about Arab states in his Sunday Express column.
"It's really ridiculous in this day and age that a publication can still speak in those terms," said a spokesman for the Qatar-based satellite channel.
"Al-Jazeera has already established itself as one of the main players on the media scene internationally. We're past trying to assert our professionality," he added.
The Arabic station has broadcast several audio tapes purporting to be the voice of Bin Laden, most recently on January 5, when he urged Muslims to rise up against American forces in Iraq.
However, al-Jazeera has repeatedly defended the broadcasts on journalistic grounds.
"If the BBC or CNN or Fox were to get a tape from Bin Laden, from a professional point of view they would air it," said al-Jazeera's spokesman.
Helal is to join the BBC World Service Trust, a listed charity set up in 1999 to build media expertise in the developing world.
In its leader column today, the Express asked: "How can a BBC-backed charity even contemplate giving a job to someone from such an obviously biased background when the BBC forced out such a respected broadcaster as Kilroy-Silk because he expressed some controversial views about the Arabs in our sister paper the Sunday Express?"
A BBC spokesman said: "Ibrahim Helal will be managing a journalistic training project throughout the Middle East."
"All BBC employees are required to operate within the BBC's producers' guidelines and the values of impartiality, editorial independence, accuracy, fairness and objectivity," he added.
Al-Jazeera has in fact suppressed at least half a dozen audio and video tapes from Bin Laden because they were considered to be too fanatical or not sufficiently newsworthy.
The channel did not broadcast an interview with the al-Qaida chief shortly after the September 11 terror attacks because it feared its journalist had been forced to ask certain questions, although CNN later chose to air the film.
"We felt the content wasn't newsworthy and the circumstances in which the interview was granted were suspect to say the least. Our reporter was forced into asking certain questions and not asking other questions," the station's spokesman said.
The Express also lambasted "arrogant bosses" at the BBC for hiring "the man who let bodies of British heroes be paraded on TV".
Al-Jazeera came under fire for showing footage of two soldiers killed in the Iraq war.
There has been considerable debate about whether images shown by both western and Arabic media during the conflict were too graphic or too sanitised.
Tony Blair was one of those who criticised al-Jazeera's decision to air the footage, and the BBC governors later ruled the corporation was wrong to rebroadcast them in a documentary about the Arabic channel.
However, reporters who were "embedded" with the British and US military have also been attacked for giving a sanitised picture of war, and in a speech to broadcasters last November the deputy director of BBC news, Mark Damazer, said the current position was a "disservice to democracy".
Al-Jazeera's spokesman said that Helal, who is currently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and could not be contacted for comment, remained the station's editor-in-chief.
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Ah, the Beeb. The same network that refuses to allow it's reporters to refer to Saddamn as an ex-dictator. Charming.
During their training, perhaps they were given a list of words and their real meaning. Not hard.
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