But Ballout, a 45-year-old former London-based journalist of Lebanese descent, dismisses such criticism as hypocritical and self-serving. He said other 24-hour news channels like the BBC and CNN had also used footage of Iraqi POWs, hands bounds and heads bowed, that could have upset viewers.
"We have covered similar incidents, similar conflicts, in Serbia, in Bosnia, in the [Israeli-] occupied territories and in Afghanistan, and nobody said a thing," he said.
"It just strikes me a little bit funny that all the outcry is taking place" now.
Al-Jazeera is not however without its supporters in the US. The New York Times said in an editorial yesterday that "if our hope for the Arab world is, as the Bush administration never ceases to remind us, for it to enjoy a free, democratic life, al-Jazeera is the kind of television station we should encourage."
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