Al-Jazeera sign is removed from Boston's FleetCenter

[Freddie Stubbs]

By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY

BOSTON — Al-Jazeera had a prominent sign near the podium at the Democratic convention. Now it's gone, and the Arab news network is wondering why convention officials had it removed.

Al-Jazeera, criticized in the West for a perceived anti-American slant, isn't charging convention officials with bias. "We think this is a matter that they just didn't handle very well," spokeswoman Stephanie Thomas said Sunday.

Still, she says, "I don't think anyone would deny that the Al-Jazeera logo and name are not part of John Kerry's communications plan."

The Al-Jazeera sign, with its name and logo, would have been part of the network's backdrop during photo shots from its skybox across the FleetCenter.

more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-07-25-sign-removed_x.htm

[madrchsod]

1. wouldn`t want to piss-off

the big money contributers would they? assholes- so much for the big tent -Arabs need not apply-dumb asses....

[Odd Little Man]

2. If I were in charge

of organizing I'd put Al-Jazeera's booth next to Fox. Somewhere between the two we should get "Fair and Balanced".

[Media_Lies_Daily]

16. No, sorry...FOX is clearly out on a limb by itself reporting "news"

...that is clearly slanted FAR to the right, or outright fabricated.

IMHO, Al Jazeera actually reports the news as it's happening in the Middle East. Very often they have broken stories about which our own captive sanitized mainstream press either weren't aware, or were told not to report.

[Catch22Dem]

3. One of us is misunderstanding

I thought it was that they didn't want ANY news logos that close to the podium as not to give the impression that they're affiliated with the campaign. Not necessarily because it was Al-Jazera.

ON EDIT - I say "one of us" because it could easily be me.

[DerBeppo]

4. come on...

it's a purely p.r. move. an understandable one, but one nonetheless.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Al-Jazeera's bureau chief disputes the mainstream media account

Once again we must rely on Indymedia to tell us the details that the mainstream media always fails to mention. Remember the G-8 protests at Genoa? Remember the shooting of the peace demonstrator? It was the Indymedia that reported events as they actually happened while the mainstream press distorted the events in order to please its capitalist masters:

Democrats remove Aljazeera banner
by speachlover
(No verified email address) 25 Jul 2004

Organisers at the Democratic Party convention in United States have removed Aljazeera's logotype banner from its skybox without assigning reasons.

<snip>

"We found that the banner disappeared for some reason," Aljazeera's Washington bureau chief Hafez al-Mirazi said.

"We contacted the Democratic National Convention and the people who are organising the convention. And then they said it has been removed, maybe for lack of enough space or something like that, although they approved originally the sign and everything on it. And every time we get different answers."

"And finally, they said, 'Sorry, we cannot put it back." And it's the only news organisation sign that was taken," al-Mirazi pointed out.

http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/23989/index.php

[Merlin]

6. What complete and total idiot allowed it to go up in the first place???

Sweet Jesus on a bicycle, it is tragic that the networks now have film of Al-Jazeera's giant sign right smack next to the screen with Democratic National Convention 2004 in giant letters!

It will be played over and over and over and over and over...again.

Godam it! I love Al-Jazeera. I think it gives a reasonable picture of world events from an Arab point of view. But the average Joe Sixpack in America thinks it's the equivalent of Pravda during the cold war, or the Third Reich Gazette during WWII.

The sign should never have gone up. Some liberals are just to godam "fair" (read naive) for their own good!

We have got to win this election. That is way more important than any perceived slight to any news organization.

BTW, I would hope the DNC will also take down Fox's sign. Same reasoning, the other way.

[IndianaGreen]

7. Let's suppress the only free press we get for the sake of winning!

But the average Joe Sixpack in America thinks it's the equivalent of Pravda during the cold war, or the Third Reich Gazette during WWII.


The "average Joe Sixpack" that you speak of is a knuckle-dragging moron that still thinks that Saddam flew one of the planes that flew into the WTC and that being gay is a life-style choice and an abomination to GAWD. FUCK JOE SIXPACK!

[Merlin]

8. You don't wave red flags in front of bulls. Or didn't you ever learn that?

You can have all of the principles you want to have AFTER WE WIN THE FUCKING ELECTION!

In case you just have never learned life's hard lesson, you don't get to do a godam thing about the things you believe in UNLESS YOU WIN THE FUCKING ELECTION.

So am I willing to be discrete in order to destroy the godam stranglehold this motherfucking administration has on this country. YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS I AM.

Think about it.

[annarbor]

9. "You don't wave red flags in front of bulls..."

Amen Merlin!
Very well put!

Ann Arbor

[IndianaGreen]

11. No, you castrate bulls and turn them into oxen

especially if they are Republican bulls.

[DS1]

14. wow, common sense on DU

God, you may strike me down now! :bounce:

[Pab Sungenis]

20. If we don't have principles....

...then we don't deserve to win the election.

Nietszche was right. We've been staring into the abyss - Repuke tactics - so long that we are becoming the abyss.

[bullimiami]

24. pab i agree...

its about the principals of freedom.

whatever is the practice for one should apply to all. if fox, abc, cnn etc have similar banners i have a problem with this.

[Merlin]

30. It's a good thing you're not calling the shots. We'd never win an election

Fortunately the party is run by wiser heads than yours. Perhaps as you get older you'll understand better that some principals are best checked at the door when it comes to politics.

Why is that, do you suppose? Why on earth could that be?

Glad you asked. The answer is as simple as it is self evident.

It's because this is a democracy, and in a democracy things only get done if and when people of differing points of view and different principals can come together and agree on what should be done. It's called consensus. Think about it.

The result is you must rank, order and prioritize your "principals." And you must be prepared to horsetrade the lesser ones for those more important.

For example, I detest the morons who oppose the assault weapons ban. But if letting the ban lapse means winning the election, then the hell with the ban. The election is more important. We can fight the weapons ban another day.

See? That's the way it works. Not all principals are equal all of the time. It's called life. And it's a bitch.

[jonnyblitz]

10. yeah and lets keep appeasing freepers

seems like the number one priority in DU of with DEMS (Margret Cho getting cancelled at an event) anymore is fear of offending freepers. YOU guys call them swing voters, why don't you just admit they are fucking FREEPERS. If they haven't figured out yet that Bush is a total fuckwad then they are FREEPERS.

Some of the so called DEMS still view the world thru the prism of right wing talking points. Al Jazeera is HARDLY FOX....

[jdj]

21. Al Gore won without Joe Sixpack.

In a solid election with no fraud we don't need Joe Sixpack, so I agree with Ind. Green, fck Joe Sixpack.

The only reason dems are worried about Joe Sixpack in this election is because we are sure there is going to be significant fraud. The truth is that these alpha male wanna-be Joe Sixpack types are probably more detrimental to the future of this country and the world than any other group. Because if they can't be the big daddy, then they are always the quickest to fall in line to be the goosestepping bitches of whatever future fuhrer rears his ugly head; one needs to look no further than the Iraq war for confirmation of this. And if Hitler and Stalin, etc, etc, weren't proof enough, it should be painfully obvious by bush/cheney that it is the duty of unions, women, minorities, enlightened men,etc, to protect the U.S. and the world from joe sixpacks. We have something now that we didn't have 1000 years ago (as a species) and that is the full benefit of written history, which shows that alpha male focused societies are destructive,repressive, and violent in direct proportion to their focus on the alpha male and his beta men to the exclusion of every one else.

[Freddie Stubbs]

22. And look at the good brought on by Al Gore's 'victory'

If that is the standard we set for victory, why even bother?

[jdj]

29. Did you read the rest of my post? Thanks for making my point even clearer

It's election fraud that we need to worry about. 1 million black votes disregarded in Florida. Forget about Nader with an amount like that.

It's a straw man to even worry about the future brownshirts of America who are terror-bonded to their John Wayne daddy-image. They are beyond hope. We need to put our eggs in the basket of secure elections, and let these militia punks weed themselves out of the gene pool.

[bushisanidiot]

15. The Repukes are pissed that the sign is down and they can't zoom in

on it during the convention.

Good p.r. move by the dem's.

Btw, taking the sign down is not the equivalent of saying "we hate arabs".

[tooie]

12. Al-Jazeera,

then MM is barred from getting press credentials, then the protesters are caged up (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&u=/ap/20040725/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_protests_2&printer=1) I can't wait to see the coverage from the Repub Convention .... oh, sorry....

Let's get the folks back to core values and screw courting the "swing" voter....

[bushisanidiot]

17. MM is not barred. He will be there on the floor

I forgot who he's telecasting with, but I heard it yesterday.. He'll be there! :) :)

[tooie]

19. i'll believe it when I see it

[sampsonblk]

13. Where is the Democratic Wing of the Dem Party?

This kind of behavior is not representative of our party or its values.

Where are the Democrats? If this is all about swing voters, then we are going to lose. It has to be about us, and who we are. Not about people who we hope will support us for one day in November.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. The name of the game at this point is to try NOT to give ammunition...

...to the enemy. You and I both know that the NeoCons would have loved to have broadcast all over the country the Al Jazeera logo next to the Democratic Party logo. This election is all about symbols and who can do the better job of presenting those symbols. The side that makes the LEAST amount of errors will win in November.

[IndianaGreen]

23. The message is one of Islamophobia

More people watch Al-Jazeera than watch Faux and MSNBC combined. The message that is being sent is that the Democrats are Islamophobic and anti-Arab.

The news about the Al-Jazeera sign being taken down has been carried worldwide by the foreign press, and it will reinforce the view that America under Kerry will be no different from America under Bush.

Who is running the Democratic Convention, Paul Bremer?

[DS1]

25. and in which country do these people watching Al Jazeera live?

:eyes:

[IndianaGreen]

26. The United States for one!

There is a large Arab immigrant population in Michigan.

BTW, the majority of Muslims in the world are NOT Arabs and do not live in the Middle East.

[DS1]

27. You claimed Al Jazeera has more viewers than Fox and MSNBC

combined. Where are they?

[IndianaGreen]

28. All over the world

Al-Jazeera comes by satellite and in many cases it is the only source of news. In countries like Iraq, Al-Jazeera is the only Arab-language independent source of news.

The people that run Al-Jazeera used to work for BBC World Service.

[sampsonblk]

31. Ammo for the enemy?

Put the shoe on the other foot. If Al Jazeera was at the GOP convention (and they probably will be), what would Bush say if anyone complained? "So what? We don't favor censorship, do you?"

There is no reason why we can't at least have the guts to say that. Guts must be at least worth 3-5% of the vote. Right now, Bush is picking up that vote. We could sure use it.

[Xithras]

32. According to an acquaintance at the convention, this is being misreported

Apparently all of the networks were advised weeks ago that signage had to be unobtrusive and had to be preapproved, but only the big networks and a couple smaller outlets bothered with the approval process.

Al-Jazeera isn't the only media outlet that's had it's sign yanked, and they could have kept it if they'd bothered to have it approved beforehand. Since the records didn't show that they were putting up an approved sign, the convention organizers found something else to put in its place.

If you refuse to play by the rules, you shouldn't get an exemption just because of the color of your skin. I don't care that these guys are the "voice fo the Arab world", they knew what they had to do, and they didn't do it. The price for that is that they lose their banner. Tough.

It's a non-issue, move on people.