Fox News Popular in Saudi Arabia, Liberal Journalists Baffled
A diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks has revealed that American television programming is making strides in the war of ideas against Islamic radicalism that far outpace any American government-backed programming in the Arab world.
A favorite among Saudis, according to the UK Guardian, is a TV channel called Rotana, which is partially owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. And yes, Rotana does broadcast the Fox News Channel.
That last fact really stumped the Guardian and CBS News. The former called it "particularly surprising," given that FNC "takes a hard line against Islamic radicalism and has strongly supported US military intervention in the Middle East."
CBS had this to say about the apparent popularity of Fox News in Saudi Arabia:
…it's something of a surprise that [Saudis] enjoy watching Fox News programming. American critics of Fox News have accused it of pushing a right-wing, anti-Islam agenda.
It's only a surprise if you accept that Fox does in fact push an "anti-Islam agenda." CBS is surprised, so clearly they share that view.
But then, American media have been quicker to see an "anti-Islam agenda" than even Arabs have! During the contentious debate over the so-called Ground Zero mosque, survey data showed that Arabs were, on the whole, more opposed to the construction of the mosque than the three American news networks.
A majority of network soundbites (55 percent) came down on the pro-mosque side of that debate, according to a Media Research Center study. In contrast, a poll taken by an Arab news service found that 58 percent of respondents think the mosque should be moved elsewhere.
Furthermore, as I wrote at the time:
The MRC study also found that on the question of whether opposition to the mosque demonstrated a widely held "Islamophobia" among Americans, 93 percent of network news soundbites answered in the affirmative. In contrast, when asked whether the United States is a "tolerant" or "bigoted" society, 63 percent of Elaph respondents chose the former.
CBS's surprise is, well, unsurprising. When you're more disposed to see a conspiracy of bigots than the supposed targets of their bigotry, it's time to check your premises.
- Lachlan Markay's blog
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Comments
Fox isn't anti-islam, they
Submitted by Bruzilla on Thu, 12/09/2010 - 12:43pm.
Fox isn't anti-islam, they are anti-Radical Islam, and if the stories we've heard are true, that being that the rank and file Muslims hate the radicals too, it should come as no surprise that they prefer FNC over the pro-radical Islam channels.
The Saudis would rather watch Megyn than Maddow?
Submitted by SickofLibs on Thu, 12/09/2010 - 1:06pm.
Shocking.
And what about Al-Olbqa? Why, he's the biggest supporter of Islamoterrorism we have.
Everybody knows the
Submitted by Barack_must_go..... on Thu, 12/09/2010 - 1:55pm.
Everybody knows the progressive / socialists in the government and lame street media in our own country are, for the most part, way more anti-American than non-Americans around the world.
Saudi Arabia even, behind the scene begged the U.S. to bomb Iran's nuclear ambitions back to the stone age.
It's just a matter of time before the entire Middle East comes out of the terrorist closet. Just look at places like India and Dubai and their commitment to the fundamental transformation ( unlike with the Obama Socialist Regime ) for the better of the entire region.
Pretty soon all the born here America haters will be forced to move to Africa, Cuba or maybe Venezuela to find that special ( ed ) socialist utopia they and Barackio pine for.
We the real American People will supply their tickets, as long as they agree never to return.
Barack_Must_Go.....
wikileaks =...
Submitted by jimbo297 on Thu, 12/09/2010 - 3:58pm.
...VINDICATION.
Every story I hear about some new revelation from Wikileaks seems to be supporting what we all knew in our gut...American Thinker has a good post on Iraqi WMD's and yellowcake--kinda ironic that the Wikileaks was twisted right around to include PlameGate.
Although this FOX/Saudi Arabia thing is a bit surprising.
Do women get to hold the remote control in Saudi Arabia? They don't in my house, but I think that's the only aspect of my life that I share with the religion of peace.