Don’t make those cow’s eyes at me…

People can be squeamish in the most unexpected ways. Take Al-Jazeera, for instance. Lauded for its coverage of the Middle East, and in receipt of an Index on Censorship Award for making the most of its freedom of speech, the channel has found itself under fire (literally, on occasion) for showing footage of dead Americans.

As the Diary has seen plenty of dead Iraqis on Western television, why this caused such a furore is a mystery.

One might expect a channel so committed to pushing the boundaries to take a few pictures of dead cows in its stride, then. Animal welfare group PETA discovered otherwise, however, when it tried to run an ad on the channel that included footage from US slaughterhouses. Al-Jazeera, it seemed, refused. The Diary knew they were softies really.