From Yago: "According to the pro-Israeli BBC, Al-Ahkar is
pro-Syrian.
I know you have written about this before regarding the New
York Times but I thought you would be interested to know
Monday, December 17, 2012
Al-Akhbar newspaper
"the pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper
Al Akhbar reported".
This is how Al-Akhbar is identified in the New York Times today. Now, it is
known that I don't agree with Al-Akhbar's editorial line on Syria but this is
quite inaccurate. If you go to Al-Akhbar Arabic webpage, there is an picture of
a Syrian dissident and call for his release from Syrian regime jail. Al-Akhbar
has been banned from Syrian government offices for more than a year now, and
several of its correspondents have been kicked out of Syria. There has been
criticisms published against the Syrian regime in Al-Akhbar (not as much as I
would like, of course) but this characterization is not really accurate
especially when it is written by people who don't read Arabic and who are not in
a position to judge anyway. But that is not why I am commenting: do you know
that newspapers that are owned by Saudi princes (Al-Hayat and Ash-Sharq
Al-Awsat) are identified in the Times as "pan-Arab" papers? This shows you that
even labels are politicized in the Times."
