From angryarab.blogspot.com

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب

Pressures on the Daily Star: How the US government is Pressuring the Lebanese press to refrain from criticizing Sanyurah or even Solidaire. Many of you were surprised to see a fine investigative article about Solidaire by Lysandra Ohrstrom in the Daily Star, of all places. You were correct to be surprised. My highly reliable (and well-placed) sources in Beirut are telling me that there were very strong reactions against the article by the Sanyurah government and its allies in the US embassy. The strongest reaction came from the USAID which funds the investigative page through an "accountability and transparency" grant. Don't you like how the US defines "accountability and transparency"? The person who secured the USAID grant wrote that "the political agenda of the donors is not to undermine the fuoad Siniora government"....

Then:
US Pressures on the Daily Star in Lebanon: More. I received the following email:
"I workerd on the Daily Star between 2000-03 as a sub editor and can confirm the stories of harrasement by the US embassy. The most blatant case happened the day after the fall of Baghdad when I arrived at work early to find US embassy staffers lambasting Rami Khoury while their entourage of hired goons sat at our desks (with their feet on our tables... goddamit). Apparently they were unhappy at our "negative coverage" of the invasion and were keen to "correct" Rami. Suffice it to say the odious Michael Young appeared shortly afterwards and Rami became "editor at large". there followed an exodus... 'nough said." (The person allowed me to use his name and to cite the message).
PS My source added this:
"Just that? or how they got rid of veteran US journalist and editor Barry
Came when he wrote an editorial criticising a police raid on Virgin
megastore?...or how they promoted 'placed' right-wingers (pro-LF) even though they
were virtually illiterate...or how silenced the journos we sent to Iraq before the invasion because they found that Iraqis were saying in private that although they hated
saddam, they would fight the US?...or how they tried to fire Jim Quilty because he wrote a less that complimentary review of Pearl Harbour (would you believe it!)...or maybe how managing editor Marc Siroi tried to rally the journos during the July War to go out and "faithfully report the truth"... only to be cut short and told only to "run pictures"?"

And again:
US pressures on Daily Star: More II. My source adds: "The day that Baghdad fell (April 9, 2003) I came in early-- around 10 am. My normal shift was 2pm until we went to press. The mornings were always quiet as most of the reporters would have been briefed and sent off to get stories. so I rushed in to look at the wires (AP Reuters etc) for some up-to-the-minute reports, only to find the office full of Lebanese tough guy-types everywhere. Rami's office was behind my desk and I can see a couple of these clean-cut westerners lecturing him. Now Rami is very mild mannered, but I could see that he was clearly upset. Of course I had no idea who these goons were, (and why they where sitting at my desk) so I started for his office thinking "Rami is being intimidated I won't sand for it" . (funny, my first thought was that they could be Syrians...lol) Anyway didn't get very far as the goons intervened and told me to fuck off-one of them had a little US flag on his lapel. I didnt leave the office, but was too far to hear what was being said. All I could see was Rami getting shouted at and holding his hands up as if to say
"calm down" "its OK" etc. For the rest of the day he was very shaken and upset. It was after this incident I noticed a big change at the Star... and left soon after the first "editorial meeting" with Michael Young."

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