How To Be A Newsmaker

Taysir Alouni, the Al-Jazeera reporter who gained fame playing Lowell Thomas to bin Laden's T.E. Lawrence, is facing charges in Spain of funneling money to and recruiting members for al Qaeda. Coverage in Newsweek and the Guardian. The Al Jazeera news readers are all standing by their man, leading to a fashion catastrophe: Their "Free Taysir" buttons clash horribly with their newsdesk suits. Unlike the flag pins our own anchorbots sported briefly after 9/11, the buttons have to be big enough so you can make out the picture of the guy. As a result, the Arab world's most prominent news broadcasters are wearing these big Bozo buttons on their lapels. Alouni, who preferred Taliban activewear in his heyday, wouldn't have had that problem.

Comments

[Jayson Gilligan]

Tim, wrong on Peter Jennings...he was one anchorbot that stood firm against the intimidation of the White House and Fox News...he refused to be a "footsoldier" for Bush by wearing a lapel flag for a few weeks after 3,000 had been murdered and war had surely been declared against our way of life...Bravo!!! A profile in journalistic courage.

As Mr. Pink said to Mr. Blonde & Mr. White: "What we need here is a little solidarity."

Pearl gets his throat cut on video and this snake gets a trial by the EU?

[Joe]

Peter wasn't a citizen in sept 2001. His flag had a maple leaf on it...

[Jayson Gilligan]

Maybe he'll get a really tough Spanish prosecutor like Javier Solana...(chortle, guffaw)

The point about the Amanpours of the world is in their bent worldviews they think they're Toscanini walking out of La Scala to protest fascism. Christiane A. is more akin to me protesting that the 7-11 no longer has Mtn. Dew slurpees.

[Kate Sherrod]

Presuming at least some of the newscasters are Muslims, how are they getting away with having an image of a created being (i.e. Taysir), at all, let alone displayed on their persons?

[Venkat Balasubramani]

I'm instinctively skeptical that he's aided the bad guys. In order to get interviews and scope he may have a bit of familiarity. If he's really helping, why go through the sham of being a reporter? Doesn't really add up. Al-Ahram (Cairo) has a take as well.

[Mo]

Kate,
Gasp, they're on TV. Those are moving pictures of created beings.

[Roger L. Simon]

Earth-to-Venkat, being a reporter has been a cover for intelligence work from time immemorial. On all sides of everything. Take a look at myriad histories of spying. It's almost too obvious.

[Dan]

Peter wasn't a citizen in sept 2001. His flag had a maple leaf on it...

So, what, you're saying he felt it would be inappropriate for a foreigner to display the flag? The Buckingham Palace guards played the Star Spangled Banner, but a semi-Canadian newscaster can't wear a lapel pin? 🙂

Or are you saying that, since he wasn't a citizen, he didn't have the feeling of national identification that led so many people who normally don't do such things (such as me) to display the flag? He'd lived and worked in America for decades, and because a citizen a scant year and a half later. So if 9/11 wasn't enough for him to feel patriotic about the USA, what happened between October of 2001 and May of 2003 that changed his mind?

[Douglas Fletcher]

We only hate Peter because he comes off as being an arrogant bastard. It doesn't have anything to do with his being Canadian, almost-American, or whatever.

[dhex]

ahh...nothing commemorates mass death like a tiny piece of metal with paint on it.

can you find anything less relevant or material to get upset about? sock colors, maybe? i'd say french fries, but that's been done already.

what's so fucking patriotic about a tiny metal pin? and if one's patriotism is so strong, why is one person's failure to wear the tiny metal pin of freedom so distressing?

[Joe]

"Or are you saying that, since he wasn't a citizen, he didn't have the feeling of national identification that led so many people who normally don't do such things (such as me) to display the flag?"

Yes, that's pretty close to what I'm saying. He liked his job in the U.S., the U.S. audience, U.S. company, and the paycheck in large U.S. dollars, but not enough to become a U.S. citizen until he realized a percieved or actual lack of patriotism might end it all overnight. Wise man. I bet anchors don't make quite as much dough up north - don't think I even need to research that statement.