by Chris Bodenner
Marc Lynch scratches his head over the network's slow response to today's historic protests in Egypt:
Al Jazeera has played a vital, instrumental role in framing this popular narrative by its intense, innovative coverage of Tunisia and its explicit broadening of that experience to the region. Its coverage today has been frankly baffling, though. During the key period when the protests were picking up steam, Al Jazeera aired a documentary cultural program on a very nice seeming Egyptian novelist and musical groups, and then to sports. Now (10:30am EST) it is finally covering the protests in depth, but its early lack of coverage may hurt its credibility. I can't remember another case of Al Jazeera simply punting on a major story in a political space which it has owned.
Some speculation from Angry Arab:
Many Egyptians are furious that Aljazeera has not been covering the massive protests in Egypt today. Explanation? Mubarak visited Emir of Qatar last month and basically reached an agreement to reduce Aljazeera's critical coverage of Egypt and Mubarak's tyranny.