Media bias against Arabs comes out at Saudi press conference

Upfront at the table of mainstream news media bias and hypocrisy at a press briefing held at the Saudi Embassy in Washington D.C. The event only reinforced my belief that the U.S. news media is anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian.

By Ray Hanania

I had the opportunity to attend a press briefing last week at the Saudi Embassy in Washington D.C. where Minister of State Adel al-Jubeir addressed a wide range of issues including the continuing investigation of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Khashoggi, a former champion of Saudi officials until his pals were ousted in a widespread corruption probe, had fled Saudi Arabia and began writing caustic columns attacking not only the Saudi government but viciously attacking Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was leading the crackdown.

The Washington Post immediately hired Khashoggi to give his vicious personal attacks a higher more powerful platform. You don’t think the Washington Post hired Khashoggi because they thought he was a great opinion columnist? His talents had nothing to do with it. The Washington Post is all about pro-Israel Arab-bashing, the process of demeaning Arabs whenever they veer into the area of defending Palestine and criticizing Israel.

Saudi Arabia Washington D.C. embassy. Photo courtesy Ray Hanania

Does anyone think the Washington Post would hire a columnist who wrote about Israel’s government the same way Khashoggi wrote about the Saudi Government over and over again every week? No way.

So I sat there and listened as the journalists from the big media, the “media elite” practically ignored everything al-Jubeir said and instead concentrated on Khashoggi’s death, throwing every rumor and innuendo they could including the assertion that the Saudis had a role in “embarrassing Jeff Bezos” in the National Enquirer release of nude selfies Bezos took of himself and sent to a TV journalist girlfriend he was dating while ending his longtime marriage to his wife.

The Saudis were embarrassing Bezos???

Wow. How about Bezos embarrassed himself and is being treated the same way the media elite treats all other officials they dislike?

Before the press briefing, I listened as the “journalists” ridiculed and demonized the Saudis, suggesting they didn’t know if their lives were safe at a Saudi Embassy, or that the chairs might be rigged to eject a reporter who asks an “inappropriate question,” or even whether or not that they could trust the refreshments the Saudis had put out as a courtesy for the journalists.

And of course, I was the only American columnist who had the balls to ask the one question most other American journalists at mainstream news media fears asking, one questioning the hypocrisies or Israel and the U.S. Congress and BDS.

Here’s a link to the column in the Arab News, where Khashoggi once wrote before leaving Saudi Arabia.

rayhanania

Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster at The Arab Daily News

RAY HANANIA — Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster

Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.

Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).

Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.

Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.

His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.

Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.

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