This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1387
Al Waleed bin Talal funding radical Islamist groups in the U.S. also funds suicide bombers families
December 10, 2005
AIM Reveals Saudi Billionaire Has Another
Link to Parent Company of Fox News
WASHINGTON -- 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. For more information, please go to www.aim.org.
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1387