Fox misses Saudi journalist facing death for 'blasphemy'

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

If you haven't heard about the Saudi journalist who tweeted an imaginary conversation with Mohammed, received 30,000 mostly angry tweets, fled the country, was arrested in Malaysia and returned to Saudi Arabia where he faces the death penalty for "blasphemy," it could be because you're watching too much Fox News.

As of this writing at least, almost a week after the Kashgari story broke, I can't find a single story on it at the Fox website.

Meanwhile, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC and CNN have all reported the Kashgari story, cluing their viewers in on how far totalitarian Islam, Saudi style, will go to exert its control over the human spirit. But not Fox.

Say -- you don't suppose the fact that Prince Talal bin Alwaleed owns the second-largest block of stock (7 percent) in Newscorp, Fox News' parent company, not to mention a new $300 million stake in Twitter (almost 4 percent), has anything to do with Fox silence on this Saudi black eye of a story?

After all, it was Saudi dictator King Abdullah -- Alwaleed's uncle -- whom press accounts credit with ordering the tweeting journalist's hot pursuit and imprisonment. And it is Saudi Arabia's adherence to Islamic limits on free speech that is driving Kashgari's ordeal.

Maybe it has become institutional Fox thinking to let such news slide for fear of offending the company's Saudi prince -- or for fear of risking the kind of exposure that might remind viewers of Fox's connections to Saudi regime interests via Alwaleed.