In the massive information dump by Wikileaks of American diplomatic documents, the name of Al Jazeera turns up with certain allegations that the news channel and its coverage - or more precisely non-coverage - of certain things, people and countries are apparently for sale. And its also ironic since Al Jazeera went big with the second batch of Wikileaks revelations on Afghanistan a few months ago, but is now very quiet about being mentioned itself.
The Guardian, one of the 5 global media partners of Wikileaks, released this cable of November 2009 that suggests that Al Jazeera could be used ''as a bargaining tool to repair relationships with other countries, particularly those soured by Al Jazeera's broadcasts, including the United States" over the next three years. Al Jazeera that started in 1996 claims that its an independently run news channel. American diplomats in the region claim otherwise.
America's Doha embassy claims in another cable that Qatar's prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim told America's senator John Kerry that he had proposed a bargain with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, which involved stopping broadcasts of Al Jazeera in Egypt in exchange for a change in Cairo's position on Israel-Palestinian negotiations.
Early today I asked Al Jazeera whether the news channel has any statement, comment, press release or anything it wants to say about this matter, particularly on how Al Jazeera is being portrayed in the Wikileaks documents and the question surrounding its independence and news integrity. Al Jazeera responded that the channel has no available response.
