Al Jazeera spends more than $500,000 defending itself against attacks
The Qatari broadcaster is under attack from Doha’s Gulf rivals.
Al Jazeera spent more than $500,000 over just three months defending itself against allegations that it is a foreign agent of the Qatari government, lobbying records reviewed by Al-Monitor show.
The Doha-based media company paid multinational law firm DLA Piper a whopping $540,000 in the third quarter of 2019 to lobby Congress, up $500,000 from the previous quarter. DLA Piper subcontractor CLS Strategies in turn got $60,000 over the same period.
The massive spend comes as Al Jazeera’s conservative foes on Capitol Hill and in right-wing media are ramping up efforts to force the network to register with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Doing so would require Al Jazeera to disclose all its contacts with US officials as well as certain financial information, which critics say amounts to censorship.
Al Jazeera has long been a bugbear for some US conservatives who fault its critical coverage of US policy in the Middle East and what they perceive as its pro-Islamist and anti-Israel bias. The recent uptick in activity, however, has also been fueled by a multimillion dollar lobbying and digital information campaign by Qatar’s rivals Saudi Arabia and especially the United Arab Emirates.
