Sunday, April 10, 2016

Panama Papers and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: links to media of Saudi princes

For some reason, the mouthpiece of Prince Khalid Bin Sultan, Al-Hayat, is part of the Arab media represented in the Arabic branch (ARIJ) of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.  The media of Saudi princes are not known, naturally, for any investigative work.  I thought it was a lapse. So I decided to visit the website of the International Consortium: and lo and behold they also picked a writer for the mouthpiece of Prince Khalid Bin Sultan, Al-Hayat, as one of "our journalists". I have seen her name but have not read much by her so I decided to do just that: while I didn't find any investigative journalism, obviously--what do you expect in the media of Saudi princes--I did find the usual propaganda in Saudi regime media and even found an article in which she said that there is freedom in oil regime media and that anybody who criticize Saudi regime media must be a supporter of the Iranian regime. There is one article (and many of her articles are typical diatribes against Hizbullah and other enemies of Saudi regime) in which she considers the terrorism by Syrian Jihadi groups in Lebanon as beneficial as they bring balance to politics in Lebanon. Kid you not. Also, the International Consortium includes Yossi Melman, who has been for years the voice of the Israeli military-intelligence apparatus.  Finally, for some reason the International Consortium and its Arabic branch have been attacking Wikileaks for some inexplicable reason.