Al Jazeera Employees Resign over Network's Islamist Bias

As Al Jazeera America prepares for its national debut, employees of Al Jazeera’s parent network are resigning in anger over the network’s “unprofessional” bias in favor of Egyptian President Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

MEMRI.org, a website dedicated to translating into English news sources from the Middle East, reported that one well-known female presenter, Fatma Nabil, resigned early in July. She resigned because Al Jazeera was reporting stories from the Muslim Brotherhood’s point of view.

The Middle East-watching website quoted Fatma Nabil as criticizing the network’s coverage of the current unrest in Egypt.

“We had the feeling that the channel is partisan in favor of political Islam, and in most cases selectivity is exercised in broadcasting the text messages [of the viewers] on the channel, and even more so in the selection of guests and interviewees,” she said.

Up to 22 other employees have also resigned in protest over the obvious bias that Al Jazeera indulges in favor of Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“This tilt by the channel has many facets,” Memri points out.

[C]ontinuous broadcasts of protest demonstrations by Mursi supporters at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, compared with the more limited coverage of the anti-Mursi demonstrations in Tahrir Square;[1] exclusive and continuous coverage from the headquarters of the Republican Guard on July 8, 2013, where dozens of MB supporters were killed by army gunfire when they tried to storm the headquarters where Mursi is being held, while repeatedly displaying pictures of the dead and calling the events “a massacre”; the vast majority of text messages from viewers that the channel runs as subtitles at the bottom of the screen convey support for the MB; an incident that the channel’s correspondent provoked during an Egyptian army press conference on July 8, 2013, during which she attacked the army’s behavior and was expelled from the auditorium by the other correspondents;[2] and claims raised in the Facebook account of one of the channel’s presenters, Ahmad Mansouron, purporting that provisional president ‘Adly Mansour is Jewish.

MEMRI also reports that some attempts are being made by the Egyptian military and other anti-Muslim Brotherhood supporters to have Al Jazeera’s Egyptian broadcast license revoked for one-sided reporting.

Al Jazeera America is about to debut on U.S. cable systems. The Muslim-owned news network based in the oil-rich nation of Qatar, bought Al Gore’s Current TV cable network in December of 2012. It netted Al Gore a windfall profit of $100 million.

In May, the nascent network announced that it wanted to hire “800 American journalists” and has already hired several high-profile Americans such as Michael Viqueira and former CNN business reporter