Exclusive: Media company recently signed lucrative deal with Saudi government-controlled MBC Group

Exclusive: Media company recently signed lucrative deal with Saudi government-controlled MBC Group

  •  Syldon   ( @Syldon@feddit.uk ) English
    37•11 months ago

    We have to ban foreign nationals owning our media. They do not purchase media companies as business interests anymore; it is only ever about changing public opinion.

  •  AutoTL;DR   ( @autotldr@lemmings.world ) BEnglish
    13•11 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Editors in Vice’s news division actively welcomed the piece, Lubbock said, as it fitted with the outlet’s track record of reporting on LGBTQ+ rights, autocratic regimes and the Middle East.

    In another recent example, a film in the Vice world news Investigators series about Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was deleted from the internet after being uploaded.

    Five years ago the company paused its work in Saudi Arabia following the state-backed murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi but has since enthusiastically embraced the kingdom.

    This time around, rather than pulling back from the country and enabling such pieces to be published, Vice, which last week was bought out of bankruptcy, is rapidly expanding in Saudi Arabia, as part of a wider strategy of shifting away from news and towards lifestyle content.

    Until recently, ordinary Saudis feared a visit from the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, a powerful religious authority that enforced strict Islamic morals and cracked down on youth culture.

    Saudi Arabia’s national investment fund has already bought Newcastle United, managed to wrestle partial control of golf and is paying unprecedented sums to lure some of the world’s top footballers to the country.

    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    •  Jack   ( @Jack@lemmy.ca ) English
      2•10 months ago

      Editors in Vice’s news division actively welcomed the piece, Lubbock said, as it fitted with the outlet’s track record of reporting on LGBTQ+ rights, autocratic regimes and the Middle East.

      Bad bot. The sentences before and after this are needed to understand the quoted sentence:

      “Their reporting claimed the Saudi state is helping families to harass and threaten transgender Saudis based overseas.”

      […]

      “However, publication of the article was repeatedly postponed and then cancelled at the last minute. Multiple sources at Vice said it was pulled after a high-level intervention by senior Vice managers, who said its publication could pose a threat to the safety of the company’s staff working in Saudi Arabia.”

    •  RealJoL   ( @RealJoL@feddit.de ) 
      3•10 months ago

      One small upcoming one is Popular Front, but they seem to have a stronger focus on conflict reporting and the subcultures associated with it. Seems to be a Vice News for Gen Z.

    •  charlytune   ( @charlytune@mander.xyz ) 
      2•10 months ago

      I’m fairly sure the Guardian were accused of toning down human rights stories about one country (I think like Bahrain or Oman or Qatar maybe?) as they were running an advertising supplement for their tourism board. It was covered in Private Eye so I don’t know if the article will be available online. So if I’m remembering that correctly, the Guardian have got a bit of a cheek here.

    •  Skyler   ( @Skyler@kbin.social ) 
      7•11 months ago

      “It’s good that Saudi Arabia is causing our media to censor itself because we invaded Iraq.”

      If that’s not the point you’re conveying, then whatever point it is that you’re feebly TRYING to convey is falling flat on its face.

        •  Jack   ( @Jack@lemmy.ca ) English
          2•10 months ago

          This whataboutism may not be saying that what the Saudis are doing is excusable, but instead pointing out the hypocrisy and saying that if you’re going to complain about the psychotic Saudi regime, you have to admit that the voters who elected Bush and then re-elected him after his invasion of Iraq, are vastly worse than the Saudis. It’s important to know if we are the baddies, especially if we are vastly worse and propping up the Saudis.

          I think it’s important to criticize and boycott the psychotic Saudi regime, but also to keep in perspective that there are worse people out there: people who are orders-of-magnitude worse.

          Iraqi deaths in the Iraq war in the 8 years from 2003 to 2011 = approximately 461 000 (PLOS Medicine 2013) to 655 000 (Lancet 2006 (PDF)).

          That’s currently even worse than the psychotic Russian invasion of Ukraine:

          I’m not sure about the Saudi/Kuwait/UAE/Egypt/Morocco/Jordan/Sudan/Senegal/Bahrain/Blackwater (supported by US/UK/France) coalition’s actions in the war in Yemen since 2015.

          Edit: I’m also not sure how many the Saudis have killed in the Iran-Saudi proxy wars, so maybe the Saudis do actually have more direct blood on their hands than the western powers in the last 50 years or so.