Al Jazeera

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Around lunchtime on Nov.  read more »

Nightline veteran and former WCBS anchor Dave Marash has signed on to be the Washington-based news anchor for Al Jazeera International, the network announced this afternoon. The Observer first reported Dec. 5 that Mr. Marash was in talks with the brand-new Doha-based English-language satellite news channel, whose global launch is scheduled for the spring.

"This is a real sort of marriage made in heaven in terms of journalistic ambition and interest," said Mr. Marash on the phone today.

Mr. Marash won three Emmys and one DuPont award during his time at ABC and left the network at the end of November, under not entirely amicable circumstances, after Ted Koppel's last broadcast of Nightline.

Mr. Marash joins a number of other Western journalists, including Brit interviewer Sir David Frost and former CNN talk show host Riz Khan, in jumping to the upstart network, a sister channel to the controversial Arabic language version. Both channels are financed by the benevolent dictator of Qatar. Mr. Marash will anchor two and a half hours a day. He will also report stories around the world and moderate in-studio discussions, a la Koppel.

"Our niche, if you will, in the satellite news channel competition is to be the high end," Mr. Marash said. "It is to be the most sophisticated, the most nuanced and the most sort of information-filled, and that all sounds great to me."

Mr. Marash said he first approached Al Jazeera International shortly after May, 2005, when Mr. Koppel announced his intentions to leave ABC after a contentious few years with network brass. The International channel also approached Mr. Koppel, according to sources close to the anchor, but nothing came of the meeting.

Rebecca Lipkin, a former London-based Nightline producer who was among the first American journalists to switch to Al Jazeera, recommended the move.

"When she went and started talking to me about what she was doing, and the atmosphere and the ambitions there, I mostly just kvelled for her," Mr. Marash said. "But then, when it became clear my Nightline future was drawing to a close, she said, 'You oughta call them.' I did, and I found them very receptive."

Al Jazeera, which has made headlines recently as a possible one-time target of President Bush's aggression (and bombs), is still in an uphill public-relations battle among Western audiences, distributers and journalists. Mr. Marash said he thought long and hard about that before signing with the channel.

"You'd have to be dumb and blind not to be thinking about these issues," he said. "The fact is, of course, that Al Jazeera has never aired any beheadings. Their news standards seem to me to be very similar to our news standards."

About the reports that President Bush was once narrowly dissuaded from bombing the Arab-language network's headquarters in Doha, Mr. Marash said, "I hope he was joking."

The Al Jazeera International announcement capped a flurry of other Nightline veteran news on Thursday. The New York Times announced that Mr. Koppel, in addition to serving as the managing editor of the Discovery Channel, will be writing a column for the New York Times. And NPR announced that Mr. Koppel will be providing commentary for its radio networks, as well. Michel Martin, a former Nightline correspodent, is also going to NPR, where she will host her own talk show.  read more »

"The Nightline Alumni Association is rockin' today," Mr. Marash said.

--Rebecca Dana

Riz Khan, former host of the CNN talk show Q&A, shocked his friends when he told them that he was ta  read more »

Riz Khan, former host of the CNN talk show Q&A, shocked his friends when he told them that he was ta  read more »

Riz Khan, former host of the CNN talk show Q&A, shocked his friends when he told them that he wa  read more »

Around here, Hillary's all about making all the right friends, and in the Arab world she seems to be making just the enemies an American politician might seek: the new, Islamist-leaning Iraqi prime minister, and the good folks at an Islamist-leaning website called Al Jazeerah. According to the Times of London, the presumptive PM, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, didn't take kindly to Hillary's suggestion that his rise is "grounds both for concern and for... vigilance."

"Clearly irritated, the candidate...brushed aside the remark yesterday. 'We are not at an American traffic light to be given a red or green signal. I am speaking on behalf of a collective decision. I will stop when the Iraqi people say to stop,' he said. 'Hillary Clinton, as far as I know, does not represent any political decision or the American Administration and I don't know why she said this. She knows nothing about the Iraqi situation.'"

And over at a website called "Al Jazeerah" and apparently not related to the Qatar-based television network, contributor Sam Hamod added these kind words: "Once again, showing that she's as evil politically as her husband, ex-president Clinton, the shill for Israel--Hillary Clinton is in the infamous American fortress called 'the green zone,' telling the Iraqis who should be their next Prime Minister.... After all, who tells Hillary what to do, and gives her the money to remain in office--the biggest zionist voting bloc in history, in New York City. Thus, Hillary is there to do the bidding of her zionist constituency, not the American people's constituency, nor for freedom or justice in the world."

Juan Cole, who thinks Hillary's wrong on the merits, has a somewhat saner analysis of the situation.  read more »

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this post, we mistakenly attributed Sam Hamod's views to the television network Al Jazeera; his op-ed is in fact posted on a website with a very similar name, Al-Jazeerah, but wilder-eyed views. We appear not to be the only ones who made this mistake.

What is our state of mind? What is the enemy's?  read more »