Cables published by Wikileaks led to today's resignation of Wadah Khanfa, Al Jazeera managing director. http://english.aljazeera.net/...
These cables show that Khanfa met with Political Affairs Officer(s) of the US State Department and responded to Defense Intelligence Agency complaints of "disturbing" website content by ordering that content's removal in 2005.
This cooperation with the censorship of news from the Iraq War led to his disgrace and resignation today, September 20, 2011, in Doha, Qatar.
We like to think of Al Jazeera as an independent source, unaffected by the US intelligence community's wide-spread filtering, influencing, and -- very likely -- censoring of news delivered by US media outlets. At least, many might have believed, Al Jazeera is willing to show a more independent version of truth, particularly within Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of particular interest to their primarily Arab, and now global, audience.
In fact, Al Jazeera's managing director removed content that the US Defense Intelligence Agency found objectionable and repeatedly met with a US State Department Political Affairs Officer (perhaps more than one) regarding these concerns, as revealed in Wikileaks documents:
http://wikileaks.org/...
Summary: PAO met 10/19 with Al Jazeera Managing Director Wadah Khanfar to discuss the latest DIA report on Al Jazeera and disturbing Al Jazeera website content. Khanfar is preparing a written response to the DIA points from July, August and September which should be available during the coming week. Khanfar said the most recent website piece of concern to the USG has been toned down and that he would have it removed over the subsequent two or three days. End summary.
(emphasis supplied)
Al Jazeera "toned down" and would "remove" website information "of concern" to the USG (US government), based on DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) reviews of media information.
Among the items removed:
(same link as above)
¶8. (C) Khanfar said that, in accordance with an earlier promise to PAO (Ref B), he had taken a look at the piece and had two images removed (two injured children in hospital beds, and a woman with serious facial injury). PAO pointed out that the testimony of a "doctor" in the piece also implied that poison gas had been used on residents of Tal Afar and that the appearance of the piece, in particular the bloody bullet hole icons, came across as inflammatory and journalistically questionable. Khanfar appeared to repress a sigh but said he would have the piece removed. "Not immediately, because that would be talked about, but over two or three days," he said.
(emphasis supplied)
Interesting. Injured children and a woman with serious facial injury show what? Civilian casualties, something that the Bush administration didn't want the public to be thinking about. And any testimony of a doctor (no reason is given in the cable why the word is in quotes, although a medical professional who may have indicated the use of poison gas would not be pleasing to the Bush administration). Bloody bullet holes? That's "inflammatory" only to the point that the Bush administration did not want the world's public to be thinking of blood spilled in Iraq by US bullets.
The leaked cable reveals that the DIA prepares reviews of media coverage -- of at least the Iraq War if not more areas -- and confronts media outlets with their opinion of that coverage. This type of behavior by our military has no place in a democratic society. Yet it was obviously prevalent under Bush. Does it continue under Obama or has he ordered the DIA to stop interfering with the free and open publication/broadcast of news world-wide?
Not only does the DIA review the coverage, they decide whether the coverage is on the balance positive and negative to .. the USA? the Dept of Defense (DOD)?
¶3. (C) PAO told Khanfar that despite an overall decrease in negative coverage since February, the month of September showed a worrying increase in such programming over the previous month. She summarized the latest USG reporting on Al Jazeera by noting that problems still remain with double-sourcing in Iraq; identifying sources; use of inflammatory language; a failure to balance of extremist views; and the use of terrorist tapes.
As Khanfar states in his response to the US State Depts POA, some of these complaints are essentially unfounded. As he explains, DIA is really getting far into the news company's business:
¶5. (C) He then said that broadly, the reports' points fell into three categories.
"Some are simple mistakes which we accept and address," he said.
In the second category, he said, are points that are taken in isolation and out of context by the USG report. "This report takes bits and pieces from a whole thing and does not give the context," he said, noting that in some instances during the AJ broadcasting day, a comment made or position taken by one person may be balanced with a different comment or position later in the same show or later on during the same day. Since Al Jazeera is live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it is not always possible to provide needed balance at the moment itself, he said. The report, he said, fails to note where balance was achieved in the following news hour, for example, or later on the same day.
Thirdly, said Khanfar, there are points on which resolution does not seem possible, such as the use of terrorist tapes. "We have always said that we are going to use these tapes and we will continue to use them. The question is how. None of the tapes are used just like that," he said, meaning that they are reviewed for newsworthiness and are edited.
Concerning the use of inflammatory language, Khanfar said the station's concern is with the language used by its own reporters and anchors. No station staff member is permitted to use loaded vocabulary. The reports' focus on inflammatory language is on that used by non-Al Jazeera interviewees, he pointed out. "How can I control what these people say? I can only control Al Jazeera staff. All we can do is try to balance what these people say in other parts of the program," he said.
(emphasis supplied; paragraph breaks added for readability)
On the whole, Khanfar seems to be endorsing completely normal, objective, and professional journalistic standards. It is the DIA and US State Dept which appear to be over the line.
Frankly, meetings of this type, with pressure being applied to news media to comply with Defense Department's "concerns" about journalism, about freedom to report as they see the story, and about the content of reporting are offensive. And who doubts that similar meetings took place between Pentagon representatives and US media outlets, exerting even more influence on media outlets based within the USA?
This is where our Defense dollars and State Department dollars were going under Bush: influencing the reporting of foreign media outlets.
Khandar resigned today as he should have for bowing to such influence. He should have reported the contents of the DIA reports, the POA requests and denounced those requests, publicly, at the time. Instead, he - and Al Jazeera by extension - complied with at least some visages of Bush administration censorship of the war in Iraq. Content was removed. Coverage "toned down." http://news.yahoo.com/...
Compliance with Pentagon requests in content and reporting should not be condoned by any media outlet. The public deserves the truth. How are we to make educated decisions on our government's actions, if our government is engaged in hiding those activities from us by pressuring media sources?
Frankly, I wouldn't have believed that Al Jazeera would have submitted to Pentagon pressure, but that thought belies the fact that Al Jazeera is Qatar-funded and Qatar's rulers are intimately connected to the US military as home to U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center. http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Regardless of how awful something appears -- whatever it is -- as reported by the traditional media, this episode shows the reality, if the Pentagon is involved at all, is that the real story is likely worse than we are being told... by any media source.