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| Fifth Column |
| Blind and deaf reporter jumps ship |
| 2006-01-13 |
| Nightline veteran and former WCBS anchor Dave Marash has signed on to be the Washington-based news anchor for Al Jazeera International, the network announced this afternoon.... "This is a real sort of marriage made in heaven in terms of journalistic ambition and interest," said Mr. Marash on the phone today. Mr. Marash joins a number of other Western journalists, including Brit interviewer Sir David Frost and former CNN talk show host Riz Khan, in jumping to the upstart network, a sister channel to the controversial Arabic language version. Both channels are financed by the benevolent dictator of Qatar. Mr. Marash will anchor two and a half hours a day. He will also report stories around the world and moderate in-studio discussions, a la Koppel. "Our niche, if you will, in the satellite news channel competition is to be the high end," Mr. Marash said. "It is to be the most sophisticated, the most nuanced and the most sort of information-filled, and that all sounds great to me." Ah, that old "nuance." Mr. Marash said he first approached That's right, he went to them and not vice versa.Al Jazeera International shortly after May, 2005, when Mr. Koppel announced his intentions to leave ABC after a contentious few years with network brass. The International channel also approached Mr. Koppel, according to sources close to the anchor, but nothing came of the meeting. Rebecca Lipkin, a former London-based Nightline producer who was among the first American journalists to switch to Al Jazeera, recommended the move. "When she went and started talking to me about what she was doing, and the atmosphere and the ambitions there, I mostly just kvelled for her," Mr. Marash said. "But then, when it became clear my Nightline future was drawing to a close, she said, 'You oughta call them.' I did, and I found them very receptive." Al Jazeera, which has made headlines recently as a possible one-time target of President Bush’s aggression (and bombs), is still in an uphill public-relations battle among Western audiences, distributers and journalists. Mr. Marash said he thought long and hard about that before signing with the channel. "You'd have to be dumb and blind not to be thinking about these issues," he said. "The fact is, of course, that Al Jazeera has never aired any beheadings. Their news standards seem to me to be very similar to our news standards." Sure, they'll air the videos right up to the point just before the blade touches flesh. Sure they'll air tapes from Binny and his minions. Welcome to the propaganda machine, Dave. You tool. |
| Posted by:growler |
| #4 "The fact is, of course, that Al Jazeera has never aired any beheadings. Their news standards seem to me to be very similar to our news standards." That about says it all. |
| Posted by: DoDo 2006-01-13 20:10 |
| #3 He had a nasty cocaine habit a few years back... |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2006-01-13 19:57 |
| #2 Let's force the taxpayers to pay for the garbage that can't finance itself. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-01-13 19:14 |
| #1 "This is Dave Marash reporting from Oblivion. Back to you, Riz..." |
| Posted by: Dave Marash 2006-01-13 16:58 |