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BACK TO : PROPAGANDA 'OWN GOALS' IN THE GWOT
West's 'double standards' over Bin Laden tapes by J Hodgson 
West's 'double standards' over Bin Laden tapes Jessica Hodgson Friday April 26, 2002 The Guardian A senior Al-Jazeera executive has accused the western media of double standards in their approach to the videotaped statements from Osama bin Laden, which were broadcast first on the Arab TV channel. Yosri Fouda, the deputy director of al-Jazeera in London, said he was "amazed" at the criticism the channel received from western governments. "We were being criticised for broadcasting the Bin Laden tapes, but at the same time almost every news organisation on earth was queueing up to pay large sums of money to play the tapes," he said. Mr Fouda said that the media hysteria by western governments towards the Arab media in the aftermath of September 11 and the early stages of the campaign against al-Qaida and Taliban forces had been hypocritical. "[Western citizens] were told 'we were attacking the enemies of western civilisation, but in doing so you were challenging the very values which western civilisation was built upon". He also accused the US and UK governments of "direct intimidation" of the Arab TV station after it warned that broadcasts could contain "coded messages" from Osama Bin Laden. "To be part of one man's [George Bush's] war is direct intimidation," he said. "This was followed by what Condoleeza Rice did and what Alastair Campbell did and culminated in the bombing of our office in Kabul, whether this was deliberate or not." Speaking of al-Jazeera's new-found reputation in the west after September 11, Mr Fouda said it had acquired its status "for all the wrong reasons". "We have never been judged on the quality of the work we do," he said. Al-Jazeera shot to prominence in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks because it was chosen by Osama bin Laden as the conduit for his videotaped statements to Muslims across the world. It has gained a reputation for avoiding the worst excesses of state censorship imposed on many Arab TV networks, and has a huge reach in countries in the Islamic world. It is estimated 78% of homes in the West Bank have access to al-Jazeera. |