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Al Jazeera Arabic’s pro-Brotherhood methodology is two-pronged. First, it predominantly hosts guests that it can be fairly certain would be gentle in their criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood, and second, its anchors refrain from asking Muslim Brotherhood members and spokesmen embarrassing questions.

The alliance between Qatar, the host and backer of Al Jazeera, with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is no secret.

Al Jazeera Arabic’s love affair with the Muslim Brotherhood has done damage to more than one country’s revolutionary cause. In Syria, Al Jazeera Arabic’s championing of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated and highly ineffective opposition Syrian National Council has cost the channel much credibility. Al Jazeera Arabic refrains from criticising the group or highlighting its repeated failures. It also instructs its reporters to follow a certain narrative, prompting numerous resignations. 

I think if anything the Obama administration has indicated to Al Jazeera that it sees us as part of the solution, not part of the problem

"It is downright un-American to still refuse to carry it," wrote Jeff Jarvis on Sunday. "Vital, world-changing news is occurring in the Middle East and no one-not the xenophobic or celebrity-obsessed or cut-to-the-bone American media-can bring the perspective, insight, and on-the-scene reporting Al Jazeera English can."

Al Jazeera is the scourge of authoritarian governments around the Middle East, which attempt to block it. The network, however, covers much more than the Middle East, and now has more bureaus in Latin America than CNN and the BBC, said Burman. "As proud as we are of our Middle Eastern coverage, we are in other places in the world that are never, never seen on television in American homes," he said.

One key factor was missing, though, at least early on. Al Jazeera has played a vital, instrumental role in framing this popular narrative by its intense, innovative coverage of Tunisia and its explicit broadening of that experience to the region. Its coverage today has been frankly baffling, though. During the key period when the protests were picking up steam, Al Jazeera aired a documentary cultural program on a very nice seeming Egyptian novelist and musical groups, and then to sports. Now (10:30am EST) it is finally covering the protests in depth, but its early lack of coverage may hurt its credibility. I can't remember another case of Al Jazeera simply punting on a major story in a political space which it has owned.

More broadly, it's astonishing how much is now in motion in Arab politics after such a long period of seeming stagnation. There's a vivid sense of an era coming to a close and an uncertain new vista opening. Even if Al Jazeera's release of the so-called "Palestine Papers" doesn't bring down Abu Mazen's negotiating team or the PA it feels like the autopsy of a long-dead peace process. Hezbollah's Parliamentary maneuver to bring down the Hariri government and replace him with veteran politician and businessman Najib Miqati, a response to the Special Tribunal's reported indictments which has sparked violent protests by Hariri backers, may mean an end to the era of U.S. alliance with a March 14-led Lebanon. It's hard to know where to focus --- but in fact I continue to see these seemingly unrelated events as part of a broader story of the crumbling of an Arab status quo which has long seemed unsustainable.

3pm:  Al-Jazeera's lack of coverage of the protests has become a major story.   It doesn't seem to have gotten any better since this morning --- since getting back on line I've seen an episode of a talk show, more Palestine Papers, and only short snippets of breaking news on Egypt.  Al-Arabiya apparently hasn't done any better.  My Twitter feed and email are full of comments like "AJ Arabic is covering childrens gymnastics programs in Indonesia right now. Good call." (@mwhanna1) and "Exposed. Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya's failure in covering #Jan25" (@SultanAlQassemi).   Egyptian activists are complaining bitterly, and most seem to think that Mubarak cut a deal with the Qatari and Saudi governments. 

Facebook and Twitter might be the media keywords in these "Days of Anger," but in Egypt, television dominates as a way of disseminating information; it is why protests went on even when the government shut down the Internet and cell phone service. Al Jazeera's coverage has been characterized by its scope and commitment, as well as its timeline: on Friday, 28 January, while state TV ignored the protests, Al Jazeera broadcast constant live footage from the 6th of October bridge.

Al-Jazeera's "Gulf War moment"

Over the past twelve days, state television has been providing skewed coverage or willfully ignorant non-coverage of the demonstrations that has amounted to unabashed propaganda. Broadcasts have attempted to evidence some of the most destructive rumors: that protesters morphed into looters as soon as police were withdrawn; that foreign journalists were part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government; that the majority of Egyptians, Mubarak supporters, are being bullied and intimidated by thuggish activists whose uprising has paralyzed Egypt's economy. One protester described state TV to Moheyldin this way: "It would make Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels proud."

An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced six people to death, including two Al Jazeera journalists, who were accused of leaking state secrets to Qatar.

The defendants include Ibrahim Helal, former director of news at Al Jazeera's Arabic channel. He is not in Egypt and was tried in absentia. Another, also tried in absentia, is Jordanian citizen Alaa Omar Mohamed Sablan, identified by the prosecution as an Al Jazeera journalist. Asmaa Mohamed al-Khatib, identified as a reporter with the pro-Brotherhood Rassd news outlet, was also sentenced to death in absentia. Al Jazeera has long denounced Egypt's treatment of its journalists with the hashtag #journalismisnotacrime.

Most international news organisations have no presence in the country (and, some say, a lack of interest in the protests). Media posted online by Tunisian web activists has been some of the only material that has slipped through the blackout, even if their videos and photos haven't generated quite the same enthusiastic coverage by Western media as the Iranian protest movement did in 2009.

Several sources Al Jazeera spoke with said that web activists had been receiving anonymous phone calls, warning them to delete critical posts on their Facebook pages or face the consequences.

Sami Ben Gharbia, who monitors Tunisia's web censorship for Global Voices, said that Google and Facebook were in no way complicit in the sophisticated phishing technique. The initial signs that something was underway came on Saturday, he said, when the secure https protocol became unavailable in Tunisia. This forced web users to use the non-secure http protocol. The government's internet team then appears to have gone phishing for individuals' usernames and passwords on services including Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo and Hotmail. Web activists and journalists alerted others of the alleged hacking by the government via Twitter, which is not susceptible to the same types of operations. "The goal, amongst others, is to delete the Facebook pages which these people administer," a Tunisian internet professional, who has also been in contact with Anonymous, told Al Jazeera in an emailed interview. The same source, who asked to remain unidentified due to the potential consequences for speaking out, said that in communication with the international group, he had come up with a Greasemonkey script for fireFox internet browsers that deactivated the government's malicious code.

A Cairo prosecutor has ordered the detention of an Egyptian accused of altering photographs before sending them to the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network and of belonging to a terrorist organisation

Hassan El Banna is accused of belonging to a terrorist group, an apparent reference to the Brotherhood, and of doctoring pictures to damage the image of security forces

A security source said his movements had been monitored before his arrest and that he had supplied Al Jazeera's Egyptian channel with manipulated photographs, but was not an employee of the channel. A judicial source said he was not a professional photographer and did not officially work for Al Jazeera.

Bahrain’s foreign minister says Gulf states are launching a joint military command based in Saudi Arabia to counter threats from militant jihadis and Shia Iran.

Sheikh Khalid al-Khalifa said the joint command force, which analysts say will eventually have several hundred thousand soldiers under its control, would begin military operations after a Gulf Co-operation Council summit due to take place later this month in Qatar.

“Look at the fragmentation in Iraq and the abominable situation in Syria,” Sheikh Khalid told the Financial Times in an interview. “If Afghanistan was a primary school for terrorists, then Syria and Iraq are a university for them – these are serious threats and lots of people from our country have gone and joined them.”

On July 25, 2021, Tunisia’s current president, Kais Saied, suspended parliament, dismissed the prime minister, and seized extraordinary powers. The next day, security forces evicted Al Jazeera’s staff from their Tunis bureau and confiscated their equipment.

Al  Jazeera set up a makeshift studio in the front yard of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists. Denied authorization to go out and film, the station has been airing borrowed footage alongside Hajji doing a stand-up each day in that yard

“No one in authority has given us any justification for closing our office,” Hajji told me. “There is no court decision. No official will tell us what we have done wrong, how long it will last, or to whom we can appeal.”