Al Jazeera preempts Osama tape for Michael Jackson special

Jewish World Review March 4, 2003 / 30 Adar I, 5763
Andy Borowitz
Al Jazeera preempts Osama tape for Michael Jackson special
Yet another blow for al Qaeda

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | In what is shaping up as a bad week for al Qaeda, the al Jazeera network preempted the latest tape from Qaeda honcho Osama bin Laden last night, opting to air a new special about Michael Jackson instead.

Mr. bin Laden was only two minutes into his latest chilling message when the tape was abruptly interrupted by the special, "LaToya Speaks: An Exclusive Chat With Michael's Sister."

Already shaken by the FBI's apprehension of one of his top lieutenants, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Mr. bin Laden was reportedly "devastated" when he learned he had been preempted by the Jackson special, an aide to the madman said.

"It's bad enough to be preempted by Michael Jackson," the bin Laden aide said, "but Osama was preempted by LaToya Jackson. That's got to hurt."

Executives at the al Jazeera network defended the move to pull the plug on Mr. bin Laden, noting that their network had finished a distant last place in the just-completed February sweeps.

The executives blamed their network's poor rating performance on a failure to jump onboard the reality TV bandwagon quickly enough, and on an over-reliance on chilling videotapes from Osama bin Laden.

While some at al Jazeera claimed that recent tapes from Mr. bin Laden lacked the production values of his earlier ones, other executives pointed the finger of blame directly at the network itself.

"We were putting Osama on five nights a week and the audience just got sick of him," one executive said. "Basically, we turned Osama bin Laden into Regis Philbin."