(Combined Services)

Qatar—Gulf News reports an Exodus of 22 reporters at Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab broadcaster, once highly vaunted for its objectivity. The cause of the walkout? Pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias in reporting from Egypt. They were ordered to skew their stories in favor of Morsi and his colleagues, over the military-backed government.

Anchor Karem Mahmoud told Gulf News that the staff resigned in protest of “biased coverage” of the events in Egypt by the Qatari broadcaster. He cited a perceived lack of commitment and professionalism in media coverage, adding that “the management in Doha provokes sedition among the Egyptian people and has an agenda against Egypt and other Arab countries.”

Mahmoud, in an in-depth interview with Cairo Scene, made the following statements:

“…The coverage over the last few weeks was the tipping point – especially the airing of extreme speeches over the last few days, which have added to the crisis Egypt is seeing right now. There has been a strong insistence of airing unacceptable statements by some parties, as well giving much more space and air time to one group over another.

“Al Jazeera has long been perceived as being close to the Muslim Brotherhood, and whether the accusations of bias are true or not, it appears to be severely hurting the network’s ability to report on the crisis in Egypt. At a military-organized news conference earlier today, reporters from the network were kicked out, the Associated Press reports, while Reuters reports that some of the station’s offices were raided by the military (though it remains on-air).”

“Threatening leaflets dropped near AlJazeera’s offices in Cairo – bloodied hand & line ‘lies & other lies’ #Egypt pic.twitter.com/gG27BWr2wG.