One letter written to Osama bin Laden that was released today by the U.S. Government concerns media efforts to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
U.S. Intelligence believes the letter was written by Adam Gadahn, an American who has been a senior operative in Al Qaeda. It was found in the trove of electronic documents retrieved by the U.S. Navy SEAL team that killed bin Laden a year ago this week.
It not only goes over how best to get out any message from bin Laden or other top Al Qaeda officials, but also gives a cursory review of most of the major American TV networks and their news product.
For example, the letter writer (assumed to be Gadahn) is not pleased that MSNBC fired Keith Olberman and not thrilled with the professionalism of Fox News.
This document even suggests that Fox News be left out of any Al Qaeda distribution, "let her die in her anger," it reads.
Here is part of the letter, which covers, "The Issue of preparing for the Tenth Anniversary, and how it will be marketed in the Media, and How to Exploit the Media in General."
"As far as the American channel that could be used to deliver our messages, whether on the tenth anniversary or before or after, in my personal opinion there are no distinct differences between the channels from the standpoint of professionalism and neutrality.
From the professional point of view, they are all on one level except (Fox News) channel which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks neutrality too.
As for the neutrality of CNN in English, it seems to be in cooperation with the government more than the others (except Fox News of course). Its Arabic version brings good and detailed reports about al-Sahab releases, with a lot of quotations from the original text. That means they copy directly from the releases or its gist. It is not like what other channels and sites do, copying from news agencies like Reuters, AP and others.
I used to think that MSNBC channel may be good and neutral a bit, but is has lately fired two of the most famous journalists Keith Olberman and Octavia Nasser the Lebanese because they released some statements that were open for argument (The Lebanese had praised a Shia Imam Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah after his death and called him "One of the marvels of Hizballah" it seems she is a Shia.)
CBS channel was mentioned by the Shaykh, I see that it is like the other channels, but it has a famous program (60 Minutes) that has some popularity and a good reputation for its long broadcasting time. Only God knows the reality, as I am not really in a position to do so.
ABC channel is all right; actually it could be one of the best channels, as far as we are concerned. It is interested in al- Qa'ida issues, particularly the journalist Brian Ross, who is specialized in terrorism. The channel is still proud for its interview with the Shaykh. It also broadcasted excerpts from a speech of mine on the fourth anniversary, it also published most of that text on its site on the internet.
In conclusion, we can say that there is no single channel that we could rely on for our messages. I may ignore them, and even the channel that broadcast them, probably it would distort them somehow. This is accomplished by bringing analysts and experts that would interpret its meaning in the way they want it to be. Or they may ignore the message and conduct a smearing of the individuals, to the end of the list of what you know about their cunning methods.
But if the display -in the next anniversary for example- of a special type, like a special interview with Shaykh Usama or Shaykh Ayman, and with questions chosen by the channel, and with a good camera, we might find a channel that would accept its broadcasting. But they would accept this time, so as to get an exclusive press scoop: The first press interview of Shaykh Usama or Shaykh Ayman since 10 years ago! Particularly if the Shaykh is the one to be interviewed. This is because of the scarcity of his appearance during the last nine years. Because of the poor photographic quality of the last two releases I do not know the photo quality this time- this led those believers in conspiracy theory to speculate if the person was the Shaykh, and you may have seen the program (Ben Ladin, alive or dead ) that was broadcast by Al Jazeera.
Accordingly, a high quality speech (HD) may receive some interest by some channels in the tenth anniversary. If the quality of the new Shaykh's speech is high, relative to the two previous speeches, you may think to compress it or take some measures to decrease the quality, to be similar to the previous ones, and I am talking seriously.
In general, and no matter what material we send, I suggest that we should distribute it to more than one channel, so that there will be healthy competition between the channels in broadcasting the material, so that no other channel takes the lead. It should be sent for example to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and maybe PBS and VOA. As for Fox News, let her die in her anger. That is if there was no agreement with a specific channel to publish a specific material, or conduct an interview, or the like."
One letter written to Osama bin Laden that was released today by the U.S. Government concerns media efforts to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. U.S. Intelligence believes the letter was written by Adam Gadahn, an American who has been a senior operative in Al Qaeda. It was ...
