Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 4 Num 213 Wed. December 31, 2003  
   
Letters to Editor


NYT story


Many years ago I had an argument with an American friend where I raised the issue of the US media's blind support for Israel. I cited the sacrosanct New York Times' one-sided view of the Palestinian Intifada as an example of the stranglehold the Zionist lobby had over the mass media in the US. At that time, his simple counter argument proved fatal when he uttered, "New York Times is a public limited company; its shares are publicly traded in the market accessible to all, it's a transparent company, therefore the ownership is not concentrated to a vested group or entity. The insinuation that a single lobby group (Zionist/Israeli) could influence the opinions/news being published is absolutely ludicrous". I was dumbstruck. I had little knowledge. I was silenced. I had lost the argument.

It was not until much later when I read ( probably in The Economist) that 88% of the voting rights of the venerated New York Times' board basically belonged to one Jewish family (Sulzberger/Dryfoos). That being the case, it is not surprising that the NYT has chosen to marginalise a Muslim majority country like Bangladesh -- no matter how secular, or democratic, or moderate most Bangladeshis are; they (NYT) have been the mouthpiece of a pro-Zionist/Israeli lobby since Adolph S. Ochs purchased the controlling shares in 1896. What is unfortunate is that despite the billions of petro dollars amassed by our so-called Arab/Muslim brothers, the Arab leadership has failed miserably to counterbalance this lopsided view of the western media towards Muslims.