Arab Media Analysts on CBS Interview of Osama’s Bodyguard

Abu Jandal, who worked for bin Laden from 1996 to 2000, was interviewed by CBS correspondent Bob Simon in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, in a four-hour interview. This wasn’t the first media appearance by Abu Jandal (as he was known in Al Qaeda). He made headlines in 2004 when he was interviewed by the Arab daily Al Quds Al Arabi of London. But it was the first time since 9/11 the mainstream U.S. media has interviewed someone who associated himself with the terrorist organization.

The fact that someone belonging to Al Qaeda was even interviewed on U.S. network TV shows a change in today’s media climate, says Rami Khouri, editor at large of the Daily Star in Beirut. It is no longer a taboo to broadcast the perspective of enemies of the United States, something that would have been unthinkable during the Vietnam War era, for example.

“It is a change that reflects the changing times,” says Khouri. “You’re not negotiating with the enemy by interviewing them,” he adds. “It’s within the bounds of what is journalistically valid. At the same time, you don’t want to give them a propaganda platform.”

But Jamal Dajani, director of Middle Eastern programming at Link TV, credits this change to technological advancements rather than political shifts.

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