NEVER WRONG FOR LONG
A scoop appeared to land in the lap of Al Hurra, the Arabic-language propaganda arm of the US government, yesterday.
The Congress-funded TV channel reported claims by an Iraqi defence ninistry spokesman that Saddam Hussein's former second-in-command, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, had been arrested in northern Iraq.
Good story -- and a fine example of the channel's mission to provide "independent and credible journalism" (Source: The Guardian, 16th February 2004).
Except that it wasn't true.
Tests later showed that the man in custody was not Saddam's former right-hand man, but a relative of his.
Close -- but not close enough.
Maybe Al Hurra's news team have been getting their journalism lessons from Fox.
Still, at least those interfering hacks from Al Jazeera weren't around to check the story out.
They were left shut out of their Baghdad office after a raid by security officers from the US-backed interim government.
Al Jazeera's Baghdad operation has now reportedly been shut down indefinitely by the authorities.
A scoop appeared to land in the lap of Al Hurra, the Arabic-language propaganda arm of the US government, yesterday.
The Congress-funded TV channel reported claims by an Iraqi defence ninistry spokesman that Saddam Hussein's former second-in-command, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, had been arrested in northern Iraq.
Good story -- and a fine example of the channel's mission to provide "independent and credible journalism" (Source: The Guardian, 16th February 2004).
Except that it wasn't true.
Tests later showed that the man in custody was not Saddam's former right-hand man, but a relative of his.
Close -- but not close enough.
Maybe Al Hurra's news team have been getting their journalism lessons from Fox.
Still, at least those interfering hacks from Al Jazeera weren't around to check the story out.
They were left shut out of their Baghdad office after a raid by security officers from the US-backed interim government.
Al Jazeera's Baghdad operation has now reportedly been shut down indefinitely by the authorities.
posted by Stuart at 20:51
2 Comments:
Like most blogs all you do is quote or link to other sources. Are we supposed to like it? I, for one, don't.
Joshua Salik
Salik Games
http://salikgames.home.att.net
"The empty half of the glass is always at the top."
Don't like it? Don't read it.
Stuart
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