Qatari media is reporting on the ongoing conflicts regarding Al-Jazeera’s coverage of events in Egypt. According to a Doha News report:
September 5, 2013 As the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network struggles to stay on air in Egypt, it is also coping with conflicts over its Cairo coverage at home.
Over the past few weeks, the network’s coverage of what’s happening in Egypt has led to significant divisions among staffers across multiple channels, leading to allegations of bias, resignations and the removal of a prominent newsreader from live news broadcasts, employees have told Doha News.
Al Jazeera is funded by Qatar, which has strong ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. According to some senior employees, that relationship has biased editorial policy when it comes to covering the Egypt crisis, which began after the military ousted President Muhammad Morsi in July.
Lambasting the network for its ‘one-sided reporting,’ Egyptian government officials have been working to pull the plug on Al Jazeera’s Mubasher Misr (Egypt Live) channel.
While trying to cover the conflict there, Al Jazeera staffers have also had their offices raided, been detained and eventually, deported. In the latest turn of events, authorities appear to be jamming the broadcaster’s satellite frequencies.
Newsroom woes
Meanwhile, discontent over Al Jazeera’s Egypt coverage is also growing within the organization, which has seen multiple resignations in recent months.
Just last week, four journalists working for Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA) and its Egypt affiliate submitted their resignations in protest against the channel’s policies last week, Gulf News reports. Previously, 22 members of the Mubasher Misr channel had resigned over what they called biased coverage.
Inside Al Jazeera English (AJE), concerns of bias center around the removal of senior news presenter Jane Dutton on Aug. 14, following an interview with a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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In July, the GMBDW reported on the resignation of the 22 members of the Al-Jazeera Egyptian bureau d in protest over what they say were instructions from the management to “favor the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Leaked US State Department cables indicate that Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar and funded by the Qatari government, operates as an arm of Qatari foreign policy which has recently been strongly supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood and the recently deposed Mohamed Morsi. Our predecessor publication extensively covered the role of Qatar as a supporter of the Global Muslim Brotherhood and was the first to report on the strong ties to the Global Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas of Wadah Khanfar, the former Director-General of Al-Jazeera who resigned in 2011 after serving for eight years.
In 2009, Egyptian authorities were reported to be in the process of revoking Al-Jazeera’s license to broadcast and that the network was planning to close its bureau office in Cairo.
In 2009, the Jerusalem Post ran an article that explored the role of the Muslim Brotherhood at Al Jazeera.