Listening Post - Republican convention - 05 Sep 08 - Part 1

This week on The Listening Post, we bring you a critique of the media coverage of the run up to and during the week-long Republican National Convention.

We look back at the Ingrid Betancourt rescue by the Colombian government and ask some searching questions.

In News Divide, we see what happened when the McCain 'Straight Talk Express' made a stop at in Minnesota for the Republican National Convention, despite the threat of derailment by Hurricane Gustav and shock news of a teenage pregnancy.

Like the Democratic party did the past week during its convention, the Republicans wanted to seize this opportunity to display party unity and show off McCain's chosen running mate: Sarah Palin.

However, with Hurricane Gustav cutting a devastating path along the Gulf Coast, the party re-choreographed the event to avoid a major PR blunder. When the hurricane was at its fiercest, reporters learned that the dyed-in-the-wool conservative's daughter, Bristol Palin, was about to become a mother, out of wedlock and at the age of 17.

In the second half of our show, Salah Khadr poses the following question: was the release of Ingrid Betancourt (and 14 other hostages) by the South American FARC rebel group earlier this year too good to be true?

It has been alleged that military personnel impersonated both humanitarian workers in the form of Red Cross and journalists from pan-Latin American TV station, Telesur, as part of the ruse that enabled them to get close to the guerrillas, and release the hostages.

The against-all-the-odds success of 'Operation Checkmate' raises a whole host of questions, with regards to the mode of rescue and the long term implications it may have on journalists and aid workers in similar situations.

In Newsbytes, we revisit the case of imprisoned Egyptian blogger, Kareem Amer and the new laws that the Mubarak government is employing to keep tabs on internet users. We report on Ingushetian journalist, Magomed Yevloyev, who was shot in the head whilst in Russian police custody. Finally, still in Russia, we see how prime minister and self-styled Action Man figure, Vladimir Putin, supposedly acted the hero when he shot a predatory Siberian tiger dead.

Finally, for our Video of the Week, we show you how Al Jazeera made the news in Golden, Colorado, as reported by the Washington Post's Dana Milbank.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Listening
• Post
• Republican
• Ingrid
• Betancourt
• Colombia
• FARC
• Gustav
• Egypt
• Kareem
• Amer
• Magomed
• Yevloyev
• Dana
• Milbank

[nareemaan]

Listening Post is one the best programmes ever.

Thanks you guys at Al Jazeera.

[abfmariachi]

Love aljazeera! Stay fair and balanced!

[didoegy]

i salut everybody working in the listening post its my favourite programme

coz its show's u every thing goinon in every part of the world and with out takin anyside

[dexybyko]

Searching for latest house or maybe jazz tracks in MP3? Three 6 Mafia - Last 2 Walk Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad

Plies - The Real Testament

and more!

Go to this website to download coolest music.

zivypyres$tk

Just replace $ with .

[takerdust]

Al Jazeera would of been shut down if it wasn't still a subsidized company.

I see the many biases on all their clips as I see on the other big networks. But usually Al-Jazeera's gets away with more. Too bad you can't see that. Only Reuters has a shred of credibility, and even that is in danger of losing.

[sharshur]

Al Jazeera is the premier news network in the world. You can sneer at it if you want, but it is actual quality. While the networks in the US pull their foreign bureaus and condense and eliminate them and the newspapers can't even fund foreign journalism if they want to except if something big happens, Al Jazeera actually has reporters everywhere and brings us international perspectives and quite unmatched coverage.

[takerdust]

I met Josh Rushing, he seemed like a good guy. Kind of surprised he is working for Al Jazeera, guess he doesn't have much options.

[leitermann]

haha what's all this aboot?