I can’t believe I missed this. I’m glad Abu Aardvark picked it up:
Aljazeera reported that the editor-in-chief of the Jordanian newspaper
al Ghad, Imad al Hmoud, was fired by the paper’s administrative
council in light of the of al-Hilla bombing controversy.
Abu Aardvark also indicated that the section editor in which the
controversial story appeared had already resigned before this announcement. Ayman al Safadi, the former editor-in chief of the Jordan Times, then head of Jordan TV and most recently Jordan’s UN spokesman in Iraq, will replace Hmoud as al-Ghad’s editorial head.
The most fascinating part of any analysis of this whole scandal is how long gone the days are when Jordanian/Arab media could get away with publishing irresponsible material. Nowadays, everybody is watching!
Abou Messab,
Emphasizing your idiocy by using bold type is probably the smartest thing you did here. Let me also suggest increasing the font size and underlining the text. You can also use Comics Sans.
You think Jordan has a corner on nutjobs? You can find jihadis in practically every nation on this planet. If you think Jordan, the nation, bears some responsibility for what a Jordanian, the individual, does you are dead wrong my friend.
A nation is comprised of the good, the bad and the ugly. Each nation has its own special bastards and its own illustrious angels. I’m certain you could find someone just as despicable inside your borders and I’m certain they are inside mine. The scary reality is they are everywhere just looking for an excuse to exercise their own particular malfeasance.
I suggest keeping this discussion open-ended by not trying to suggest that there is some inherent evil in the society of one country that produces particularly bad people. That kind of talk is just plain and simple bullshit and you know it.
Jordan should, first, stop creating the f**king Jihadists and keep them inside its boarders. The f**king Jordanian Jihadists did not land from Mars, they raised in your Hashemite Islamist country. Blame the people, do not blame the back door.
Wait it says Abu Messab the Jordanian? Is this for real? Sounds like a faker….not too much integrity there.
Hey, you wanna cuss, cuss. But have the guts to put your name to it…otherwise, you sound like a coward. Third-rate, too.
I wonder if he’s married to Rivda…
Abou Messab,
Personal attacks are not tolerated here. Here is the story that mentions the crossing through Syria.
And by the way, many of the Arab terrorists confessed on Iraqi TV that they crossed through Syria. This is a known fact. I didn’t make it up. I’d appreciate it if you use proper languge the next time you post here. This blog only accommodates healthy debates.
This is really ridiculous judgment. You, Natasha, should be jailed similarly to the poor journalist due to your inflammatory opinion. Who told you that “your” terrorist did pass to Iraq through Syrian boarders?
Do you really trust his father’s declarations instructed by Jordanian Moukhabarat!? Syria has to apologize!! You are kidding. Jordan should, first, stop creating the f**king Jihadists and keep them inside its boarders. The f**king Jordanian Jihadists did not land from Mars, they raised in your Hashemite Islamist country. Blame the people, do not blame the back door.
The reasoning for al-Hurra doesn’t fly with me. You are saying the other networks wouldn’t do it because of the furor it would cause. Perhaps. But why would al-Hurra. It’s not a news agency, it’s a propaganda machine and not only that it’s a propaganda machine who’s express purpose is to create a bridge between the US and the Middle East.
So you are suggesting that other networks wouldn’t run it because of the controversy. Well, I’d say applying that logic, al-Hurra would be at the top of the list. The last thing it wants to do is create controversy. And how on earth did they get the tape? Are you saying other networks got it as well and they didn’t run it?
If you are saying the latter, I don’t buy it. They run tapes from Mr. Laden, from kidnappers and beheaders but they wouldn’t run this one. I don’t accept that. And the idea that they’d not run it to protect how it would look for Jordan doesn’t fly either. How many things have been run that don’t look good for Jordan.
And more to the point, Jordan didn’t do anything here. One of its citizens did (perhaps). I don’t think any editor would’ve shied away from a hot, controversial story about a citizen of a neighboring country committing terrorist acts. And there’s proof of that: Look at the coverage of Zarqawi. So I just don’t see that as a valid argument.
As to the ‘why’ of the arrest/detainment, that’s pretty standard practice. In cases where a story is fabricated and it causes this kind of international incident it’s common for the police to arrest the reporter and question them; this happens everywhere, not just the ME. I’m not sure if they ever got to the bottom of things in their questioning/investigation of this mess, but to question the reporter is standard operating procedure.
In this case it was all the more relevant because of the bias inherent in the story. See, this is where I think the editors erred. Many a time have I seen a slanted story come across my desk. It should stop there. The reporter goes back, gets the opinion AND “the other opinion” and creates a balanced piece that doesn’t interject personal feelings. When feelings are so hot and heavy sometimes it’s a challenge to get a reporter to step away.
It’s like writing that angry letter; the best advice is to always write it and then wait, cool off a bit and then start again. Here, a story comes that apparently this journalist was interested in because he felt the martyr’s wedding was just and deserved recognition. The editor should’ve stopped him in his tracks and made him balance it.
You see, if this celebration occurred (and I think it did), it should’ve been covered. But it should’ve been covered properly. The fact that it wasn’t and that this inflammatory story about it was published falls squarely at the feet of the section editor and his boss, the ed-in-chief.
There wasn’t even any question that the section editor should go and he’s gone. There was some debate over the ed-in-chief. The top ed doesn’t always know what’s going on down below. But they should. I think firing was appropriate because it showed there was something wrong with the al-Ghad system that allowed this major incident to fly in and under the radar onto the published page. That just shouldn’t happen and the ed-in-chief is responsible.
Firing a chief editor is not the big deal it’s being made into anyway. Chief eds are political appointees, in essence. They move about according to the desires of those that own the paper, matching the owner’s position or editorial bias, which always exists. When the chief editor’s position and that of the board/owner no longer jibe, the editor is out. It happens that way everywhere.
As far as the ‘firing and jailing won’t fix anything’ idea, I’d disagree. When I was first working in Jordan another journo was jailed over a story and there was some controversy (and I believe jailing) over a cartoon/cartoonist. It definitely gets the chatter going amongst journalists and editors alike. It has an effect, I assure you: a chilling effect that’s not necessarily healthy. Jordan has had this sort of love/hate affair with a free and open press. It gets open, everyone cheers and then something like this slips out and out come the handcuffs.
Before king Abdullah, his father had regular wranglings with the weeklies, as I understand it. They regularly printed amazing falsehoods that threatened the stability of the kingdom. He kept tight reigns on the media because of that. Abdullah has tried to loosen those reigns and allow things to be more free. But there are always bumps in the road. We always felt that we at The Jordan Times were given the freedom we had (something that sometimes exceeded every other paper in the kingdom) because we knew those limits. We knew that simple premise that controls free speech and applies across the board: You don’t screw around and yell fire in a crowded theater.
Well, Amal, the bomber didn’t go to Iraq through Jordan. He went through Syria as Jordan keeps its borders close to all of these whacko Jihadis . So the country that should apologize in this case is Syria for giving Jihadis from all over the globe an access into Iraq .
Amal, Jordan was among the first Arab countries to condemn al hilla attack and all the other attacks in Iraq for that matter. Jordan’s position from terrorism is very clear: it condemns it loudly and clearly.
I repeat, arresting the journalist in this case was more than necessary as his ill-informed, inflammatory article caused a national scandal.
Al-Hurra did indeed air such a tape, with the family even digging into trays of ‘munsaf’ 🙂
Now, the reason al-Hurra would carry something like this and not Arabiya or Jazeera is pretty clear to me: it’s a scandal. Neither of these channels I think would present Arabs-particularly Muslims for that matter-celebrating such an event at a time like this. All eyes are turned to the Mideast and believe me, if either of these channels would have aired such a tape it would have opened up a whole new can of worms. I mean, how bad would that look for Jordan? Maureen Dowd would have had a field day with it!
What upsets me about this whole issue is that I thought that the journalist had made up the entire story. Then, I wanted his blood. But now it seems that he didn’t make it up.
Whether he wrote the article portraying the bomber as a hero is another story Natasha. My problem with jailing him is that he is not the first-or last-journalist/writer who is doing this. And if there was a decision to start cracking down on ALL journalists like this to put an end to inflammatory articles, then I would not have a problem with the editor getting canned.
But this was not done as an example for others. It was Jordan’s way of saying, ‘Look, we’re not going to actually apologise for letting a murderer across our border. But we will fire the journalists’.
Natasha, I repeat, if this was a beginning of a new phase, I’d support it. But it’s not. This kind of journalism will continue, unfortunately. We will continue to see journalists, editors, boards of directors supporting suicide bombings, car bombs, beheadings and kidnappings. Will is stop because al-Ghad’s editor was fired? Unfortunately no.
Come on, you think the powers that be at Al-Ghad weren’t pressured to fire the guy? Natasha is right.
Look, a pig is flying, and wait, Elvis is riding him.
Go Elvis, who’s your er…daddy!
Hey Amal, what’s rockin your world these days …