Al-Jazeera: the new CNN or a bad guy?
: At the Centcom briefing just now, the general took a question from an Al-Jazeera reporter and then promptly scolded his network for showing the pictures of the prisoners and of what were purported to be dead U.S. soldiers.
: Michael Wolff, the media columnist from New York magazine, then asked the general whether he would consider Al-Jazeera hostile. The general was too smart to take the bait.
: In 1991, we saw images of prisoners frequently; ditto Vietnam.
I found it worse to keep hearing about them and not see them; that’s why I put up the images captured by various news web sites. See them or don’t.
: I’ve been watching Al-Jazeera via the link I posted on my warblog two days ago. I’ve not seen any of the tape; I hope not to.
: Now here’s the bigger question: What is the impact of the Arab world having its CNN? We heard much about that after 9.11 and during the Afghanistan war but that was different; much of the visible Arab world was trying to distance itself from our enemies in those fights. In this one, Al-Jazeera is a powerful tool. Wrongly used, it’s a propaganda tool. Properly used, it’s media and a tool for informing people.
The whole world is watching Al-Jazeera to see how it acts and whether it is a tool for propaganda or for democracy.
