Friday, June 20, 2008

Auditioning for Al-Jazeera:

The Qatari English language news service must pay hefty salaries to its English-speaking white presenters. But is this a good enough reason to want to join a news service? Could there be another attraction for some people to want to work for Al-Jazeera, a news-service with an editorial line which often inclines towards Pan-Arab populism, and offers a hospitable platform to crazy mullahs, declarative antisemites and Holocaust deniers?

Brian Henry, a Toronto writer and editor, self described as "a refugee from Canada’s social democratic party, the NDP", writes:

...Tony Burman, former editor-in-chief of the CBC has accepted a senior position at Al-Jazeera’s English language news service....

...Millions of people around the world already watch Al-Jazeera in English, and cable companies could make it available in Canada, too. But they don’t because the Canadian Radio and Television Commission ruled that cable companies must insure Al-Jazeera conforms to broadcasting regulations that forbid “abusive comment.”

Al-Jazeera’s Arabic service features guests who are open Jew-haters and Holocaust deniers – material that might constitute a criminal offence in Canada, never mind a mere breach of broadcasting regulations.

In his essay published on CBC’s website, Burman remarked that Al-Jazeera “had been accused by some Canadian groups of ‘anti-Semitism.’” Apparently Burman couldn’t see the anti-Semitism or didn’t have a problem with it... Apparently Al-Jazeera tells it the way Tony Burman sees it.

...Some other CBC journalists write as if they’re auditioning for Al-Jazeera. Perhaps they are. Neil McDonald, for example, who for now, still works for the CBC, keeping track of the Jews on our dime.

(Read the rest, here, on Engage)

1 Comments:

At 1:59 PM EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, Noga.

I'm honoured to see my piece here.

- Brian

 

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