From AL Gore to AL Jazeera.

• Author: Jones, David T.
• Position: Al Jazeera purchase of Current TV

By /Clifford D. May, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/from-al-gore-to-al-jazeera/

On 13 January, Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, provided an analysis of the Al Jazeera purchase of Current TV for the Scripps Howard News Service. May is skeptical of the objectives of Al Jazeera English, the channel that will be broadcasting to previous Current TV outlets. He believes that AJ English is the equivalent of a stalking horse, a fellow-traveler for the Islamist objectives of Al Jazeera. Although ostensibly editorially independent, AJ English will instinctively follow the AJ policy objectives designed to condition U.S. watchers to believe that Islamist ideals are acceptable, leftist/mainstream policies.

May offers up some rather weak-reed criticisms: AJ is owned by the royal family of Qatar, a Gulf emirate that Freedom House declares "not free" (but it is still a valued U.S. ally); a hoary 1991 document by the then-head of the Muslim Brotherhood in America that defines their work as a "... kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within ..."; and the programming reality that when May appears on AJ, he is always outnumbered by those pushing an Islamist line.

But May's real criticism is that former VP Al Gore is serving as a shill/front-man for AJ English, having profited immensely by the...