Al-Jazeera website attacked
The Sydney Morning Herald.
http://www.smh.com.au
March 27 2003

Hacker attacks and technical glitches have caused a string of headaches for a new English-language website launched by Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera.

The Qatar-based network has faced a storm of criticism in the United States for broadcasting Iraqi footage of five US prisoners of war and at least eight corpses.

Its new site (english.aljazeera .net) went live on Monday, but was quickly hit by hacker attacks - as was the Arabic-language site (www.aljazeera.net).

Managing editor Joanne Tucker said staff were unable to update the English site for about four hours on Tuesday.

"We've had a lot of obstacles thrown in our way," Ms Tucker said. "I thought the launch would be quite smooth and wouldn't make make too many waves, but the reaction has been amazing. It has been almost surreal."


Al-Jazeera ran into more problems yesterday when the New York Stock Exchange banned its reporters from the trading floor - a move widely seen as retaliation for the channel's war coverage.

The ban prompted criticism from a host of media watchdogs.

Stock exchange spokesman Ray Pellecchia said the decision to rescind the accreditation of the two journalists had been taken to accommodate a surge in requests from television networks for access to the stock exchange.

"We've had to prioritise requests ... and focus our efforts on those who focus on providing responsible business coverage, and as a result we cannot accommodate Al-Jazeera at this time," Mr Pellecchia said.

Agencies


This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/26/1048653750427.html