Media

"It's not in the budget, but we're doing what we have to do," said the senior vice-president for news at CBS. "Clearly, if and when Osama is found, having resources over there is going to be critical," said ABC's senior vice-president for international news. Thousands of Pakistani troops and "a dozen or so" American intelligence agents are carrying out an intensive raid against Al-Quaeda leaders believed to be in Pakistan's South Waziristan region.

Two Saudi clerics have said that Muslims should not watch, work for, or advertise on the new U.S. funded Al-Hurra satellite channel. In a written fatwa, Sheik Ibrahim al-Khudairi said the channel was "founded by America to fight Islam, and to propagate massive decay to Americanise the world." Al-Hurra, which means the free one, is the latest Arabic-language media project run by the Broadcasting Board of Governors. According to U.S. officials, the channel, which will cost U.S.

Traditional journalists love to criticize the reliability of information found on the Internet, but Paul Carr points out that traditional journalism is feeding some of the Internet's worst offenders: "Thanks to people like Drudge, the internet is turning into a gigantic gossip laundering operation for cowardly print hacks. Heard a juicy rumour about a presidential candidate? Know it's probably total rubbish but want to print it anyway? No problem!

"Like this image of Arabian stallions at full gallop, the new Alhurra Arabic-language television network is off and running this week with news coverage beamed at the Middle East, despite significant competition and mounting controversy," Television Week writes. Top branding and advertising specialists hope their work for the US-funded Alhurra ("The Free One" in Arabic) will grab the attention of Arabic viewers, already skeptical of the network's content.