*Not going as far back as 1290, of course…

AP employees must avoid behavior or activities - political, social or financial - that create a conflict of interest or compromise our ability to report the news fairly and accurately, uninfluenced by any person or action.

Editorial employees are expected to be scrupulous in avoiding any political activity, whether they cover politics regularly or not. They may not run for political office or accept political appointment; nor may they perform public relations work for politicians or their groups.

As the FaithWorld blogger, Aziz El-Kaissouni, notes, this is a good example how Muslim states enlist “Islamic scholars into echoing the government’s grievances with an added Islamic flavour”. No Orientalism here, I am afraid. The more uncomfortable truth may be that a major Muslim institution is acting in the service of an autocratic regime (with the added phenomenon that it is ‘nationalising’ itself further).

Iran has responded by saying the film does no represent the official view of the state and has been made by a “private organisation”. On this point, El-Kaissouni notes:

[Iran’s official stance regarding the documentary] is one of the cultural issues that pops up every time something like this happens. During the Danish cartoons controversy, various figures in the religious or political establishments of Muslim countries demanded the offending paper and artists be prosecuted. They seemed to operate on the assumption that all states can control media output in their countries, as many Muslim and Arab governments do.

I don’t know if this response by Arab religious and political establishment figures can be necessarily called a ‘cultural issue’. I suggest it is more likely these establishment figures are interested in shoring up their political power. I do agree, however, that culture may play a part in what can or cannot be subjected to media scrutiny and intensity in different countries.

The CBS report also suggests Arabs are an ungrateful bunch for seeing through the intention of the news channel (my emphasis):

Compared to Al Jazeera, Al Hurra does feature more American and Israeli voices. It has extensive coverage of U.S. politics. Cultural programs, like an hour on blue jeans are among its most popular. But after nearly half a billion dollars, “The Free One” is seen by most Arabs as the U.S. government station, “The Cheney Channel” as some have called it, and that perception is limiting in a region where people tend to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Brown depicted the then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian child during an election campaign. The cartoon came under fire for being antisemitic by invoking the blood libel slur against Jews. The Independent had to defend itself against (the admittedly toothless) Press Complaints Commission. Brown, and his defenders, argued they were satirising Sharon’s election campaign and Brown had alluded to Francisco Goya’s frightening painting, Saturn Devouring His Son, rather than an ancient anti-Jewish slur.

The critics agreed with Brown; his cartoon won an award that year.

(Perhaps more ’shocking’ would be the fact that as Saturn had to be eating his own children, then Sharon had to be eating one of his own too, i.e. the Palestinian child had to be his own.)

Ask yourself why a stupid contested postcard should become an international case more than the evidence that dangerous, fanatic Nazi and Fascist movements are exploiting the much constructed fear of Islam in order to promote their ideology and find support among the general public by targeting Muslims?

UK liberal hawk website Harry’s Place has been threatened with a libel action by the British Muslim Initiative over claims that the BMI’s president, Mohammad Sawalha, had railed against the “[evil Jew/Jewish evil] in Britain” in Arabic. This reported on the Arabic al-Jazeera website, which later changed the wording to “Jewish lobby in Britain” (without the “evil” bit), as if that were somehow better. Medyan Dairieh, who wrote the al-Jazeera article, complained in the comments that it was all down to a spelling mistake.

Maybe Muslim newspapers should retaliate by publishing their own made-up stories. So it will be reported that “Barmy PC teachers in Leicester have banned children from playing Noughts and Crosses, claiming the cross reminds Church of England kiddies of the suffering undertaken by Lord Jesus. A spokesman for the Board of Education said, ‘We have to be sensitive. Which is why we’ve replaced the game with ‘Noughts and Hexagons’. We did look into calling it ‘Noughts and Crowns of Thorns’ but decided Hexagons was more appropriate.

“

The classic scene is the journalist showing headlines that have appeared in newspapers here in the UK, with the words ‘Jew’ or ‘Black’ substituted for ‘Muslim’, and seeing the double standards.

An investigation for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme discovered many violent episodes and attacks on Muslims, with very few reported; those that do get almost no publicity.

As I type, Channel 4 are airing Oborne’s It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim as part of Dispatches War on Terror series.

One of the claims that will be made in the documentary is that when it comes to ‘Muslim outrage’ stories, you can just make up stories without investigating the facts. An infamous example is the “Muslim hate mob” story which was published The Sun, which turned out to be completely false.

*Dispatches is the same documentary series that received a lot of stick from Muslims over its “Undercover Mosque” programme.

if this had been a Muslim found with nail bombs under his bed, thoughts on starting a jihad in this country against the indigenuous population along with photographs of him in front of al-Qaida’s or the ISI’s various banners, we might have heard rather more about it at a national level than we did prior to this man’s trial.

FP reckon identity politics carried the day. They’re probably right.

(Via Angry Arab.)

Given the views the magazine wants to express, I suppose it is Our Great British Sense Of Humour that led them to choose a word that has become associated with postmodern and feminist theory.

“The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings,” Yellin said.

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