AIMing wide of the mark, with old news

Cliff Kincaid should really be a little more on the ball than this if he wants his "Accuracy In Media" organisation to be treated seriously, and do a little more research.

In his latest Media Monitor column, dated October 24th 2006, Cliff highlights a headline on Al-Jazeera's english language website "Death Becomes Bush" which is a headline for a story about the Film 4 / Newmarket Films production "Death Of A President" which recieved an international premiere at the 2006 Toronto International Film Feastival in September and won the Fipresci Prize. It was also aired recently on both More 4 and Channel 4 in the UK.

The Media Monitor column is full of the usual Republican talking points about Al-Jazeera, referring to the fact that it airs a lot of terrorist produced video and stating that it's another reason why Al-Jazeera International should be kept out of the USA.

Now, the problem here is that the story Cliff Kincaid is referring to, is 12 days old. The date stamp on the Al-Jazeera story is October 12th 2006. It has taken Cliff 12 days to write this article and put it on his website. The timestamp on the RSS feed indicates it was added at 6am UK time. I picked up the RSS feeds at about 10.30 am UK time, and sat down to write this response. I advise you to look at the time stamp on this article. It has taken me far less time to put together this response, including the research of the various articles and items, that I have linked in this story.

I would also advise Cliff Kincaid to go and watch the film, when it is released to cinemas in the US on October 27th. He might discover, as I did when I watched it on More 4, that the real story in the film, is not the assassination of President Bush, despite the title, but how a country copes with an event like this, and how it can get it wrong, even when the evidence points to something completely different.

The film is controversial, of that there can be no doubt. It is also very provocative. But, if you go into it with an open mind, not a closed one, you'll discover a film that challenges and provokes thought. But then, I have yet to discover an open-minded conservative.