Michael Young, in his roundup of the international media, has a great writeup of the Arabic media coverage of Sheikh Yassin's murder: "Arab satellite television channels picked up the slack: All day Monday, stations such as Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, and Hezbollah's Al-Manar ran live feed from Palestinian demonstrations in the lead-up to Yassin's funeral. In contrast, at midday, when many people in the Arab world were watching television to find out what was happening, the U.S.-government-financed Arabic-language satellite station Al-Hurra was showing a translated American cooking program. This hardly endeared the station (which is supposed to provide an alternative approach to regional news that is more friendly to the United States) to Arab viewers. Whatever the reason, Al-Hurra's not pursuing the story in real time will be interpreted by many Arabs as politically motivated. Yassin's death was Al-Hurra's first test, and the station failed spectacularly."
Well, color me shocked.
Sadly, though this will be interpreted as politically motivated, I think it is even worse. Al Hurra's staff more than likely doesn't have a clue that the Yassin murder is important.
Posted by: Raymond Bridge | March 23, 2004 at 05:23 PM