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Amid growing concern over a billionaire Saudi Prince's reported personal
intervention in the news practices of Fox News Channel, Accuracy in Media (AIM)
has uncovered the fact that Fox parent company News Corporation has just published
an "authorized biography" of the prince.
"This story gets more curious as we learn more about it," declared
AIM editor Cliff Kincaid. "It appears that the Saudi connection to News
Corporation, the parent of Fox News, is deep and substantial. The evidence is
growing that Saudi Prince Al-waleed bin Talal is using his influence in News
Corporation to promote himself and the Arab/Muslim cause. Conservatives who
have depended on Fox for fair and balanced coverage of controversial issues
have to be extremely alarmed."
As AIM was the first to note in a press release on Wednesday, Al-waleed
bin Talal owns an influential and significant number of voting shares in the
company and claims that he forced Fox News to eliminate on-air references to
the Muslim role in the recent riots in France. He claimed to have accomplished
this by speaking to News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch.
Fox News has responded to AIM with a statement saying the network became aware
that the Paris riots "were caused by a number of different factors which
we characterized in various ways" and that a Fox contributor by the name
of Father Morris had said "this was a cultural assimilation issue, not
a religious one."
Kincaid commented "It is significant that Fox is not denying that
Al-waleed did play a significant role in the change of coverage."
The Harper Collins book, titled simply Alwaleed, is written by Riz Khan, who
also wrote and produced a flattering documentary DVD about the prince that is
included with the book. A former CNN journalist, Kahn is joining Al-Jazeera
International, the new English-language arm of the Qatar-based channel that
has documented links to Al-Qaeda and previously served as a mouthpiece for the
Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.
The DVD includes a brief interview with News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch,
who praises Al-waleed and dismisses as "politics" the rejection of
the Saudi's $10 million contribution to a 9/11 fund after he blamed U.S. Middle
East policy for the terror attacks.
Accuracy In Media (AIM) is a non-profit, grassroots citizens
watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and
sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage.
