When Ammar Al-Sankari arrived at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday morning to do his daily business report for the Al-Jazeera television network, he was ushered into a room and told to hand over his press badge.
Mr. Al-Sankari had been doing reports from the NYSE on a freelance basis for Al-Jazeera since 1999 and had never received any complaints.
"They told me, 'We are cutting back on broadcasting so you need to give us your badge and there won't be any more reporting for Al-Jazeera from the exchange,'" Mr. Al-Sankari said Tuesday in an interview from New York where he runs a financial news Web site. His colleague, Ramsey Shiber, another Al-Jazeera freelancer, was also told to hand over his credentials.
Mr. Al-Sankari, the only Arab-language broadcaster at the NYSE, said he was stunned. For years, NYSE officials had told him how much they welcomed his coverage because it reached a huge untapped group of investors.
But that all changed last weekend when Al-Jazeera, a satellite news service based in Qatar, began broadcasting pictures of dead and captured American soldiers in Iraq.
The exchange's official position Tuesday was that Al-Jazeera's credentials had been revoked as part of a reorganization of media positions, even though it was the only media outlet dropped.
"We've focused primarily on those [broadcasters] who investors look to for business and financial news and unfortunately at this point that means we can't accommodate Al-Jazeera," said Ray Pellecchia, an exchange spokesman. "Over time we have had to limit the number of [reporters] broadcasting from here because of security precautions."
Privately, an exchange official said the real reason was Al-Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq war. "A factor in our consideration was Al-Jazeera's carrying of images of captured or downed allied troops," said the official who asked not to be identified.
Mr. Al-Sankari said the NYSE's actions left him more sad than angry.
"I enjoy the freedom and freedom of speech and all of the things that this country provides," he said, adding that he is a landed immigrant from Lebanon.
"To hear that, it's just one more thing that we are not happy about as Arab Americans. I wonder who made this decision. It's just not very smart."
Mr. Al-Sankari said his NYSE reports for Al-Jazeera consisted of one two-minute segment every morning. "We strictly report what happens in the stock market that day. We don't talk politics."
Al-Jazeera said Tuesday that it regretted the NYSE's decision and defended its reporting from Iraq. "In its coverage of the war in Iraq, Al-Jazeera has broadcast footage of both Iraqi and U.S. casualties," the station said in a statement issued from its Washington bureau. "We urge the NYSE to reconsider its decision in the interests of upholding the values of the United States of America. We also sympathize deeply with the families of all victims of war."
Seven-year-old Al-Jazeera has become a powerful media force and reaches approximately 40 million people, mainly in the Middle East. The station, financed by Qatar's ruling family, has become an influential source of news and has caught the attention of politicians in Washington. The U.S. military offered the news service choice "embedded" positions with U.S. troops and assigned it special media relations officers. But the station's recent showing of captured U.S. soldiers and its perceived anti-American reporting have been criticized by many Americans.
Bob Steele, a director of the Florida-based Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said the NYSE's decision sets a dangerous precedent.
"It says that journalists can be expelled or banned from coverage of important venues because of what their news organizations are broadcasting or publishing," Mr. Steele said Tuesday.
"I understand their position in arguing that they are a private operation," he added. "But it still says that they can determine on a particular day that they don't like Al-Jazeera. Tomorrow they may not like The New York Times or The Globe and Mail. If they in some way are punishing particular journalists for their coverage, that is obviously a real challenge to freedom of the press."
The NYSE's move wasn't the only problem facing Al-Jazeera Tuesday. The news service said hackers attacked its English language Web site making it unavailable. The Web site began operating Monday. Ayman Arrashid, Internet system administrator at the Horizons Media and Information Services, the site's Web host, said the attack began Tuesday morning.
Another Web site, YellowTimes.org, said it was shut down briefly on Sunday after showing pictures of captured American soldiers.
Erich Marquadt, editor of YellowTimes, told Reuters that the Orlando, Fla.-based Web hosting company Vortech Inc. had first grounded the site on Sunday night after he posted six photos of American POWs plucked from news footage first aired by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television.
Mr. Marquadt said Vortech cited viewer complaints and argued that the images constituted a breach of the company's usage agreements. "They said we violated the adult content clause," he said. Vortech was unavailable for comment.
