A group of Congressmen has written to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, arguing that Arab TV satellite company Al Jazeera — established and funded by the Government of Qatar — should be required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The Justice Dept. last August required RTTV America, which is funded by Russia, to file under FARA.
The letter quotes Qatar’s US ambassador calling AJ “one of Qatar’s most valuable political and diplomatic tools,” and an outlet “used as a chip” to shape Qatar’s relations with other governments.
 |
The Congressmen are troubled that AJ’s content “undermines American interests with favorable coverage of US State Dept.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.”
They told Sessions that AJ’s “record of radical anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-Israel broadcasts warrants scrutiny from regulators to determine whether this network is in violation of US law.”
American citizens “deserve to know whether the information and news media they consume is impartial, or if it is deceptive propaganda pushed by foreign nations.”
New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D) and New York’s Lee Zeldin (R) organized the letter signed by 16 other Congressmen and Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R).
AJ has a TV presence in US DC, New York, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles. Its broadcasts are accessible on social media.
It’s PR unit has not yet commented on the FARA letter.
Trump Media & Technology Group today reported a $58.2M net loss on $4.1M in 2023 revenues, a disclosure that drove its stock price down 22.6 percent to $47.96.
Barry Pollack, an attorney at Wall Street’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler, has registered Julian Assange as a client with the Justice Dept. “out of an abundance of caution.”
Paramount Global to slash 800 jobs in what chief executive Bob Bakish calls part of an effort to “return the company to earnings growth"... Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman is exiting at the end of the month due to disagreements with chief executive Gus Wenner over the direction the magazine is taking... The New York Times broke the $1 billion barrier in annual revenue from digital subscriptions in 2023... Press Forward is investing more than $500 million to strengthen local newsrooms.
The majority of news articles are read within the first three days of publication, according to a recent report.
The Los Angeles Times gives pink slips to 115 people or 20 percent of its newsroom staff... TIME is also laying off about 30 employees, which is approximately 15 percent of its editorial staff... The Baltimore Banner, which was launched by Stewart Bainum in 2022 after he failed to buy the Baltimore Sun, added 500 subscribers per day in the three days following Sinclair Broadcast Group's deal to purchase the Sun.
Have a comment? Send it to 
No comments have been submitted for this story yet.