Top Journalism School Northwestern Reportedly Partners With Al Jazeera

“Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar, which is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists, think-tanks and U.S. universities to influence American public opinion and policy”

Posted by Mike LaChance Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 11:30am 1 Comment

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This seems like a much bigger story than the attention it is receiving would indicate. I imagine a school partnering with FOX News would get more coverage than this.

Campus Reform reports:

REPORT: Top journalism school Northwestern partners with Al Jazeera, owned by Qatar

Northwestern University received more than $340 million from the country of Qatar from 2012 to 2019 as it operated a campus in the Middle Eastern country and continued a years-long collaboration with Al Jazeera, a media outlet owned by the Qatari government.

That’s according to a 2019 Clarion Project report, which found that Al Jazeera and Northwestern University formed a relationship in 2008 when the Qatar Foundation, which the Clarion Project alleges of being linked to terrorism, funded a Northwestern campus in Qatar.

Northwestern, one of the top journalism schools in the U.S., partnered with Al Jazeera in an agreement to conduct “joint research and strategic studies projects, training workshops, a co-designed lecture series, internships, and faculty contributions as well as journalist-exchange programs,” according to a Memorandum of Understanding published in 2013.

“The relationship between Northwestern University and Al Jazeera began in 2008 when the Qatar Foundation, a ‘charity’ linked to terrorism and controlled by the Qatari regime, funded the establishment of a campus in Qatar for Northwestern University (NU-Q),” the report states.

According to Alex VanNess, a research analyst for the Clarion Project, foreign influence in higher education “is muddying the waters on issues relating to national security and relating to our relationships with our allies and it’s being done so by governments and entities that don’t have things like freedom of speech and are generally antagonistic to America and the American government.”

Furthermore, the report stated, “Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar, which is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists, think-tanks and U.S. universities to influence American public opinion and policy so it can get away with aiding and supporting Al-Qaeda, the Iranian regime, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.”