2 Networks Pass on Bin Laden Tape
By DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK - Two cable news networks, after being asked by the Bush administration to use discretion in showing videotapes from Osama bin Laden's organization, refused to show the latest tape delivered Saturday.
CNN aired a brief portion of the message from bin Laden spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith about an hour after it was received from the Al-Jazeera television network, but Fox News Channel and MSNBC executives said the tape was not newsworthy.
The news channels and ABC, CBS and NBC agreed last week not to air transmissions from the al-Qaida group without first screening and possibly editing them. The Bush administration called the transmissions propaganda and said there was a possibility that bin Laden was using the tapes to deliver coded messages.
The taped statement released Saturday was the third since the military bombing of Afghanistan began Oct. 7. Abu Gheith repeated earlier threats of airline attacks and said Muslims in the United States and Britain "should avoid traveling by air or living in high buildings or towers."
He called for the United States and Britain to remove military forces from the Arabian Peninsula because "the land will burn under their feet, God willing."
It was the first tape delivered since network presidents were asked by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to think twice before airing them.
"It was not news. It was rhetoric," Fox News Channel spokesman Brian Lewis said. The network aired a still photograph of Abu Gheith and paraphrased his comments. It had no plans to air the tape, Lewis said.
Similarly, MSNBC aired a still photograph of bin Laden and briefly summed up the comments from his spokesman.
"It's not newsworthy," spokesman Mark O'Connor said. "What they're saying is what they've been saying."
When CNN received the tape from Al-Jazeera, a Qatar-based independent TV network, an executive committee led by Chairman Walter Isaacson reviewed it, spokesman Matt Furman said.
The tape will not be aired in its entirety, but portions of it were deemed newsworthy enough to be shown, he said.
None of the broadcast networks broke into their regular programming to show the tape. When bin Laden's first tape was delivered last Sunday, the networks had aired it right away.
ABC had no newscast scheduled on Saturday. The tape is being reviewed to see if portions will be shown in coming days, spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said.
CBS planned to air about 10 seconds of the tape on its Saturday evening news broadcast, to introduce a story about propaganda and whether the terrorist network was using the American media, spokeswoman Sandra Genelius said.
NBC was reviewing the tape for newsworthiness, spokeswoman Barbara Levin said.
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