Kicking The Media Out

The Committee to Protect Journalists:

Responding to restrictions and attacks on its staff, Al-Jazeera has suspended its operations inside Syria indefinitely […] Damascus has subjected Syrian employees of Al-Jazeera to sustained pressure to resign from the widely viewed satellite news channel

My rule of thumb is: If a regime kicks out journalists, I won’t even make an effort to listen to its side of the story. Regime hotheads like Dr. Ibrahim Taleb fulminate with righteous indignation on Arabic talk shows that the coverage of Syria on satellite TV is unfair, but no argument can cover the fact that his government wants to hide the truth, not show it..