Having successfully purchased several right wing commentators, the Bush administration is moving on to its next media target: closing down Al Jazeera, the television station that provides a major source of news for much of the Arab world.
After squandering any chance of influencing the balance of Al Jazeera's coverage by refusing to make U.S. officials available for interview and arranging for our strongman in Baghdad to ban the network and seize its equipment and personnel there, and having failed to starve the fledgling network out of business by covertly intimidating its advertisers, the Bush administration has decided to pressure the government of Qatar to close down the satellite network.
Al Jazeera has been a fiercely independent voice in the middle east, and a growing irritant to U.S. friendly governments, especially in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. No doubt Al Jazeera regularly gives airplay to taped message from Osama bin laden, and, following a page from the Fox News Live playbook, tends to repeatedly run video of civilian casualties and feature prominently the other side of stories like the leveling of Fallujah by U.S. forces, but why would anyone expect Bush to defend freedom of the press over there when he's so clearly intent on dismantling it here?
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Under Pressure, Qatar May Sell Jazeera Station
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