By Craig Offman and Pamela McClintock
New York - It wasn't a United States news network that scooped Al-Jazeera on Tuesday in breaking word of the latest purported Osama bin Laden tape - it was the Bush administration, which seemed eager to play the tape to the masses.
Not long after 9/11 National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice requested that American news operations not run footage of the terror leader and his virulent anti-American message.
But Washington didn't protest the airing of this tape, perhaps because its contents support the Bush administration's allegation that Bin Laden's terrorist group Al-Qaeda and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein are allied.
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| 'We struck a balance between what we need to know vs propaganda' |
US Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed the existence of the latest Bin Laden tape when testifying on Capitol Hill in the morning.
Referring to a transcript, Powell said the tape proves there is "a nexus" between terrorists and states such as Iraq.
One TV news executive questioned the administration's turnaround and wondered whether Washington was taking advantage of journos.
The issue came up again and again during the daily White House briefing.
Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said nothing had changed.
"I think the message remains just as we said before: that people should use their discretion and think twice about playing something in its entirety," said Fleischer. "Those are judgments we leave up to the news media to make the final decisions on. We're not in a position to dictate or to say."
Each cable news outlet in the US had its own approach to the tape.
At 3pm Eastern Time, Fox News ran the entire tape in simulcast with Al-Jazeera, with which it has had a licensing agreement since the 9/11 attacks.
John Moody, Fox News' senior VP of news editorial, said Powell's claim that the tape would provide a link between Al-Qaeda and Baghdad made it "quite newsworthy".
Both Fox News and Al-Jazeera ran a follow-up interview with State Department spokesperson Richard Baucher.
CNN ran snippets of the tape while it aired file footage.
Spokesperson Matthew Furman said the network cherrypicked through the tape.
"We struck a balance between what we need to know vs propaganda," he said.
MSNBC, on the other hand, did not run the tape at all. Instead, it chose to run commentary on it.
"We thought that it was a more prudent decision to have a translator go through it first," said spokesperson Alan Winnikoff.
Powell said the tape had been received by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera.
The news satellite broadcaster had previously been rebuked by the Bush administration for playing Bin Laden messages.
It turned out Al-Jazeera hadn't even played the tape before Powell's revelation.
The news network said it received the tape just as Powell was making his comments.
On the audiotape, the purported voice of Bin Laden threatened more attacks if Iraq is invaded and encouraged Iraqis to engage Americans in hostilities.
"We stress the importance of martyrdom operations against the enemy, these attacks that have scared Americans and Israelis like never before," said the voice.
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