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

Added: Dec 5, 2008

From: AlJazeeraEnglish

Duration: 12:4

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.

Channel: News

Tags: amer  betancourt  colombia  dana  egypt  farc  gustav  ingrid  kareem  listening  magomed  milbank  post  republican  yevloyev 

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