The Huffington Post – Al Jazeera Synergy

The recent controversy over the incident of a Huffington Post reporter plagiarizing the work of an independent journalist shines a light on the popular internet news site’s influence on the changing norms of journalism.

Another facet of the Huffington Post’s brand of journalism is its symbiotic relationship with Qatar’s state-financed news organization Al Jazeera. In early 2011, the Huffington Post ran a series of pieces supporting Al Jazeera’s efforts to convince major American cable companies to carry its newscasts.

From Jan. 30 to 31 alone, Huffington Post published four pieces promoting Al Jazeera, including one by Jeff Jarvis titled “We Want our Al Jazeera English Now” which calls the decision not to carry Al Jazeera “un-American.”

Another piece by Wadah Khanfar, the Director General of Al Jazeera, was a full page promotional piece for the network, citing its “Journalism of depth.”

Khanfar has become something of a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, creating the unusual circumstance where the head of a foreign-based media source owned by an autocratic head of state serves as a guest columnist for a major American news organization. As Daniel Korski, of the British based Spectator magazine wrote,

it cannot be overlooked that al-Jazeera is run and funded by a state, which itself stifles dissent – a subject al-Jazeera sometimes reports on, but rarely in detail. The chairman of the network’s board of directors is Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al-Thani, the former Qatari deputy minister of information.

The relationship between the Huffington Post and Al Jazeera only seems to be getting closer.

In March 2011, the Huffington Post published a piece by frequent contributor Shabina Khatri , a former Al Jazeera staffer, extolling life in Qatar, the home base of Al Jazeera. Khatri wrote “Qataris are for the most part known for living a comfortable lifestyle, and most wouldn’t dream of making a public stink about what they consider to be in-house problems in their country.”

As Cliff Kincaid, director of Accuracy in Media (AIM) and an ardent opponent of Al Jazeera’s efforts to insinuate itself into mainstream American media, noticed, Khatri steered clear of a blogger named Sultan al Khalaifi, who is sitting in a Qatari prison for writing about things which the authorities apparently disapprove.

In an earlier fawning piece published by the Huffington Post on April 8, 2010, Khatri attempts to explain Qatar’s “open door policy” of offering sanctuary to despicable characters like Sadam Hussein and Osama Bin-Laden. Among the pearls in this piece are the musings of Omar Abdel-Qader:

The 20-year-old, whose father now leads Hamas from Syria, works in Doha and aspires to be educated here. “Life here is comfortable – I like Qatar so much,” he said. “I feel good here, the sea is next to me. I love the sea.”

She concludes the piece with a quote from another Qatari journalist, Abdulazziz Al-Mahmoud concerning Qatar’s “open door policy”:

But that doesn’t mean, Al-Mahmoud added, that the risks outweigh the benefits. “I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “We cannot ignore the agony of other people.”

Kincaid of AIM notes that

While Al-Jazeera English does water down the anti-Semitic and pro-Jihad programming available on Al-Jazeera Arabic, the channels are owned by the same autocrat, the Emir of Qatar. And the “work” the channel has been doing in countries like Egypt mostly consists of provoking and covering riots and demonstrations. At the same time, the channel played down the role of the demonstrators in assaulting CBS News reporter Lara Logan, who suffered serious injuries.

CAMERA too has documented the unbalanced reporting and commentary of Al Jazeera in its English language service. Its Arabic language service carries programs that advance the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. It also is more openly hostile towards Jews, as portrayed by the birthday party – cake and candles included – its Lebanon affiliate threw for child-murderer, Samir Kuntar after he was released from Israeli prison.

Huff-watch is another web site that spotlights numerous examples of Huffington Post’s bias against Israel and the presence of American troops in the Middle East- an agenda it shares with Al Jazeera . It too has noticed the frequent contributions from Al Jazeera staffers. Huff-watch has also demonstrated how the Huffington Post favors commenters who defame Israel and denigrate American military efforts in the Middle East and, like Al Jazeera, has a large contingent of commenters from Muslim countries.