As Al Jazeera prepares to launch an American channel, the Qatari-owned network saw 22 staffers from its Egyptian channel, Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr, quit this week. The New York Times reports, those who resigned cited the network’s biased coverage of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Al Jazeera’s bias in favor of the Islamist group has often been cited as a grievance against Qatar’s rulers, who are accused of using the station as an arm of their activist foreign policy.
According to GulfNews.com, Haggag Salama, a correspondent based in Luxor, accused the network of “airing lies and misleading viewers.” He announced his resignation in a phone interview with another network. GulfNews also reports, four Egyptian employees at Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha resigned in protest for what they called a “biased editorial policy.”
In 2008, Dave Marash, a longtime ABC News correspondent left his job as a Washington-based Al Jazeera English anchor after two years. At the time he told TVNewser, “the Washington bureau’s independence to set its own agenda” did not meet his expectations.