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easymoney101

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Wednesday, 07/14/2004 7:42:27 AM

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 7:42:27 AM

Post# of 472939
Fox 'guilt' over patriotic reporting

Lisa O'Carroll in Qatar
Tuesday July 13, 2004

A senior executive at Rupert Murdoch's Fox News has admitted the channel feels some "guilt" for helping to fuel a sense of panic in the months after the September 11 attacks.
David Rhodes, the director of newsgathering at Fox, made his admission as the station came under fire from leading Arab journalists at a conference in Qatar organised by Arabic satellite news channel al-Jazeera.

One Islamic expert went as far as to say the attacks on the twin towers "were a blessing in disguise" because it meant there was now a fresh motivation to seek the truth about the issues affecting the Muslim world.

Mr Rhodes, a New Yorker, said he would never say "anything good came out such an horrific attack" but admitted the station had not got everything right in the aftermath of the attack on the twin towers and the Pentagon.

"It has been a learning process and not all that successful up to now," he said.

"We were widely laughed at for our colour coded security threat warnings and everyone remembers the videos of people going down to Wal-Mart and buying their plastic flags.

"All media in the US share a certain amount of guilt for taking these images and passing them on," he said.

While he refused to discuss the station's policy on Israel or its flag-waving patriotism and support for the war in Iraq, he said the station was merely reflecting sentiment in the US when it introduced its daily "security alert" graphics in 2001.

"There was a real sense of nervousness about an attack," said Mr Rhodes.

But he ducked questions about the station's coverage of Israel, in which it refers to Jewish settlements in occupied territories as Israeli villages.

Journalists queued up to criticise the American and western media for misleading their audiences over issues flowing from the September 11 attacks.

One leading Egyptian author and newspaper columnist, Fahmi Huwaidi, said trust in American media had been seriously damaged because he could no longer consider papers like the world-renowned Washington Post as neutral.

He said subtle bias in language was widespread and the demonisation of the Arab world was threatening peace in the region, particularly Palestine.

"Palestine is a problem that existed for more than half a century. The media is playing the most dangerous role in forming people's perceptions."

He said the polarising language used by George Bush - dividing the world into the good and evil - was as bad as Osama bin Laden's belief that the world was made up of believers and non-believers.

"The position is the same, but the same [criticism] should apply to both sides."

Al-Jazeera presenter Khalid Horeb said the "revival of the classic divide between what is good and what is bad" and the juxtaposition of "axis of evil" and reference to the Arabs or muslims was almost self-fulfilling.

"We must talk about the effect this has created - that we [the Arabs] are low and are less important than others and we must answer with violence to this increased polarisation."

Islamic expert and scholar Azzam Tamimi surprised Mr Rhodes when he declared the attacks on America had had some benefits.

"The coverage of the Arab-Islam issues has improved. More of us appear on TV; there is more debate. I am one of those who thinks September 11 was a blessing in disguise."

Al-Jazeera, for its part, admitted that it was being limited by interference by governments in the region.

Presenter Mohammed Krechan described the relationship with Arab governments as like the Tom and Jerry cartoon. He said the Saudi and Tunisian governments were most hostile to the channel, while the Libyans and the Iraqs counted among the most encouraging.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1259619,00.html

"All truth passes through three states," wrote Arthur Schopenhauer. "First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
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