[Nettime-bold] The Prince and the Media

["Steve McAlexander" <mcalexander@veriomail.com>]

The Prince and the Media
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

It's been several weeks since Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal attempted
to donate $10 million to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for costs
associated with the terror attack on the city.
Giuliani rightly told the prince to take his check and stick it where
the sun don't shine. Why? Because of highly inappropriate remarks the
prince made while making the contribution.
He suggested the terror attack was a result of America's role in
attempting to resolve the Mideast conflict. "This untended sore will
fester, spread," the eighth richest man in the world said. "The reality
is that until the Israeli-Palestinian situation is resolved, the world
remains at risk."
Nonsense. And Giuliani recognized it as such. This was money that was
coming with strings attached. The prince was trying to buy influence,
goodwill, even sympathy for his cause. But while he was told to go
packing by Giuliani, the prince has been more than successful at buying
influence in the financial world and particularly with the western media
that big business controls.
For instance, the prince now owns a whopping $2.05 billion worth of AOL
stock. AOL/Time-Warner, as you know, controls, among many other media
enterprises, CNN, the influential global news network.
He also owns at least $50 million worth of Disney stock, the company
that controls, among other media enterprises, ABC. He also controls at
least 3 percent of News Corporation, the parent company of the New York
Post, Fox News Channel, the London Times and many other media outlets
around the world. He also has large holdings in such American corporate
names as Compaq, Kodak, Xerox, Amazon, eBay, Internet Capital Group,
Infospace, DoubleClick, Coke, Pepsi, Ford, McDonald's, Gillette and
Procter & Gamble.
But, it is the prince's media holdings of most interest to me.
Here's a guy who wants influence and has demonstrated his desire to use
it. How will that influence be manifested in western media holdings? The
prince told the London Times he frequently makes calls to bosses of the
companies in which he is invested.
"I am always in close touch with them, but I don't play an active role,"
he said. "If I feel very strongly about something, I convey a message
directly to the chairman or the chief executive."
Thank God he's not an investor in WorldNetDaily  nor will he ever be as
long as the company I founded remains in private hands. You see, I don't
believe the massacres at the World Trade Center and Pentagon can ever be
rationalized as the prince attempted to do. And, particularly, no member
of the Saudi royal family has any moral authority to do so.
If he wants to use his influence to do some good in the world, let the
prince begin in his own homeland – which, by the way, is not without
some responsibility and culpability for having spawned the brand of
Islamicist terrorism that struck the United States Sept. 11.
It bred Osama bin Laden. It incubated him. It supported him for years.
Now it is in full cover-up mode. When the FBI sought to interview
members of the bin Laden family in the United States, Saudi officials
immediately flew 24 family members home in a deliberate effort to
subvert the inquiry. The Saudis covered up bin Laden's role in the
bombing of the Khobar Towers, the U.S. air base in that country. The
Saudis have refused to cooperate fully in the investigation of the
hijackers themselves, at least 10 of whom were Saudi citizens.
The Saudis are the principal sponsors of the brainwashing camps they
call Islamic schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the indoctrination
centers that produce new bin Ladens and new leaders for the Taliban.
Saudi Arabia, far from being the moderate state most Americans have
believed, is a brutal totalitarian police state – one that persecutes
Christians and recognizes no rights to free speech, free press and
freedom of religion. There's not a single church in all of Saudi Arabia,
and Christians have been jailed and executed for worshipping in the
privacy of their own homes. For those, like me, who applauded Giuliani's
decision to give the money back, it's time to ask yourself just how the
good prince is using his influence in the U.S. financial world – and
particularly in the U.S. media.




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