UNDER FIRE
Al Jazeera America aiming to fight lawsuit
Al Jazeera America network officials pledged at a staff meeting last week to dig in for a brutal legal battle, sources say. The new struggle comes as a former employee has launched a lawsuit alleging sexism and anti-Semitism.
The Qatar-funded Al Jazeera outlet in the U.S. had already been rocked in recent months by a raft of layoffs and staff defections. But outright scandal was avoided until Matthew Luke was fired two weeks after complaining to human resources about Osman Mahmud, the network’s senior vice-president of broadcast operations and technology.
In his $15 million lawsuit against the network and Mahmud, Luke alleges that Mahmud discriminated against women by taking them off projects and cutting them out of of email chains and meetings. He also claims that Mahmund ripped America and Israel with remarks like, “Whoever supports Israel should die a fiery death in Hell,” according to the lawsuit. Luke says that after he complained, a human resources staffer told him that he was fired because did not “fit in” with Al Jazeera America, according to the lawsuit.
At the staff meeting, top executives allegedly told staffers that Mahmud did nothing wrong — and would not be suspended.
“He is innocent,” executives said, pledging to fight.
The network, which features trusted American correspondents like Soledad O’Brien and anchor Joie Chen, has managed to stay out of the headlines — until now.
The lawsuit alleges that Mahmud has a cozy relationship with financiers and senior executives at Al Jazeera America’s parent company in Qatar — specifically with Dr. Mostefa Souag, acting director general of the company. Mahmud rose quickly in the ranks after he was hired in November 2014.
According to the suit, he miraculously leaped from being a lowly news editor to the senior vice-president of broadcast operations and technology in less than four months.
Officials at Al Jazeera America did not return calls for comment. *** A tantalizing question for media-watchers: could Comcast be mulling a bid for Netflix?
Some media watchers think so. The speculation comes just a week after Comcast bailed out of buying Time Warner Cable and arch-rival Cablevision announced a blockbuster deal with Hulu.
While details on the Cablevision/Hulu deal are scarce, there’s a good chance that the cable giant is aiming to keep “cord cutters” — people who ditch their cable subscriptions and watch TV programming on services like Netflix and Hulu.
With Hulu off the table, it makes sense that Comcast (the parent company of NBC) would at least be entertaining the notion of getting cozy with Netflix.