Operation Cast Lead illustrates the futility of understanding ongoing events in the context of artificially set boundaries in time like ''January 1'' or ''December 31.''
A simpler way to make sense of the Mideast in 2008 would be to separate out the last four days and say 2009 began on the morning of December 27, when Israeli jets took the air for the first strikes.
Discussion of Mideast coverage could then take into account the crisis for news services. Major events around the world -- including presidential elections, the financial crisis, Iraq, the Beijing Olympics, a Tibetan uprising, Iran's nuclear program, plus the war in Georgia -- exposed how thinly spread the news services were.
And facing financial losses, publishers slashed budgets, closed bureaus, downsized newsrooms, all to emphasize local reporting; a small handful of papers, most notably the Christian Science Monitor, decided to cease daily printing altogether to focus efforts online.
Yes, the war changed the year's complexion. The seeds of conflict were sown throughout the year. In June, Israel and Hamas agreed to an oft-violated cease-fire. By July, it was becoming clear Hamas was using the truce to rearm. Then in November, the IDF discovered a tunnel leading directly into Israel. A subsequent incursion destroyed it, but the Palestinians responded with further rockets. Hamas eventually ended the truce with Israel and intensified the rocket fire.
While it's irresponsible to ignore the four days of war taking place in 2008, it's equally absurd to draw sweeping conclusions about Cast Lead so soon after the fact. So our awards only account for material produced right up to the end of 2008. The bulk of the MSM's Gaza war foibles were produced on the 2009 side of the calendar; we’ll see how they look in the context of a 2009 snapshot for our next awards.
We thank our readers for sharing their feedback on the year's worst Mideast coverage. On with the "awards."
Worst Caption: Time
Earlier this year, Hamas scored propaganda points with a self-generated blackout, sparking plenty of candlelight photos in the world's newspapers. One photo in particular was taken by Reuters and published by Time.
A look at the sunlight between the closed curtains clearly indicates the gathering took place during the day. And while Reuters' own caption did not specify night, Time wrote:
Blackout: The Israeli embargo has left the Gaza Strip without electricity. The Palestinian Parliament was forced to meet by candlelight on Tuesday night.
Time eventually revised the caption.
Lamest Correction: City TV
In August, Canada's City TV anchor Gord Martineau erroneously reported that the IDF killed 11 Palestinians during anti-fence clashes in Nilin. When HonestReporting Canada took action, City TV indeed issued an on-air ''correction'' on August 18 -- with a tersely worded statement embedded within another text report on a dynamic screen during the program's broadcast on Mideast matters:
''CNI (City News International) REPORT THURS. INDICATED 11 KILLED IN W. BANK CLASHES, MORE THAN 11 HURT, NOT KILLED.''
A more appropriate correction would have been verbally stated by the anchor. The correction was so badly buried that many readers who watched the video completely missed it and thought we linked to the wrong broadcast!
Sloppiest Fact Checking: Boston Globe
Boston Globe editors didn't bother double checking the stats when Eyad al-Sarraj and Sara Roy wrote in February:
Although Gaza daily requires 680,000 tons of flour to feed its population, Israel had cut this to 90 tons per day by November 2007, a reduction of 99 percent.
But Martin Kramer crunched the numbers, found them half-baked, then sourced the stats back to Egypt's Ahram Weekly, writing:
You don't need to be a math genius to figure out that if Gaza has a population of 1.5 million, as the authors also note, then 680,000 tons of flour a day come out to almost half a ton of flour per Gazan, per day.
The Globe posted a correction at the bottom of the web page, which Kramer rightfully called onto the carpet too:
The pounds-for-tons ''correction'' is an attempt to cover up the authors' original sin: they just copied the figure straight from the Ahram Weekly (which anyway doesn't use pounds--it uses metric measurements). The Boston Globe should go back to the authors and ask for the precise source of their figures. It's called fact-checking.
Sarraj and Roy are entitled to their opinions, but even op-eds have to be based on accurate info.
Poison Pen Award: Emad Hajjaj
The downsizing of American newspapers is hitting cartoonists. Along with reporters, Western cartoonists now focus locally more than ever. So compared to recent years, 2008 saw fewer cartoons about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This year's poison pen award goes to Emad Hajjaj, of Jordan's Al-Ghad newspaper.
A Palestinian graphically crucified on an electrical pole plays to the lowest prejudices. You'd think Muslims would be more sensitive to religiously offensive cartoons.
Adding insult to injury, Charles Enderlin, who narrated the internationally broadcast images, nearly lost his Israeli press credentials.
Most Questionable Terror Links: The Guardian
The Guardian's Israel and the Palestinian territories page features a list of ''Useful Links,'' including the ''Hamas military wing.'' The link goes directly to an English language site of ''Ezedeen Al-Qassam Brigades,'' which describes itself as ''the armed branch of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).''
Without even a shred of lip service to the spurious distinctions between Hamas' political and military ''wings,'' The Guardian's link raises questions.
Why give Hamas the legitimacy of a link? How can The Guardian equate the so-called ''military wing'' with sites like the Knesset, Haaretz, Gush Shalom, Bitterlemons, and UN relief agencies, among others? Does the link break British laws, which proscribe Hamas as a terror organization? Could The Guardian become culpable for terror?
David McKie, filling in for regular readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth, weakly responded:
Hamas is a significant player in the region in terms of politics and power and it was felt appropriate to include a link to their website.
The link remains; we await a more adequate reply.
Most Morally Blind (UK): The Economist
During the year, the MSM often characterized Palestinian rocket fire and IDF efforts to curb the Qassams as "tit-for-tat." But The Economist entered a new realm somewhere between The Twilight Zone and Star Trek:
THE latest round of fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, showed how mere chance can make events spin out of control. In the preceding weeks exchanges of Palestinian rockets and Israeli missile attacks on Gaza, in whichcause and effect had merged into a seamless continuum, had intensified.
The Economist's view -- that the conflict has no rational beginning, existence, or end -- excuses readers from making any judgments. Worse, this language breeds further terror.
Most Morally Blind (Collegiate): The Emory Wheel
The Emory Wheel (pdf format) featured a cartoon by student Dylan Woodliff. Strangely enough, Woodliff felt compelled to write a four-paragraph, 251-word "explanation" alongside it:
I have no intention of inciting a connection with the Holocaust . . .
Well, that was the whole point of the cartoon. At least editors gave Professor Deborah Lipstadt a right of response.
Most Morally Blind (USA): Los Angeles Times
As Palestinians formed a human chain along the Israel-Gaza border, rockets were fired into Israel. The Los Angeles Times wrote:
As Israelis watched nervously from across the border, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip staged parallel protests Monday against the Jewish state, placing a few thousand placard-waving demonstrators along the main highway and firing 11 rockets into Israel.
How can the Times possibly equate a peaceful human chain with rocket fire?
Biggest Snit: Johann Hari
In advance of Israel's 60th anniversary, columnist Johann Hari of The Independent crudely (and literally) compared Israel to excrement. HonestReporting responded, but Hari dug in his heels, accused us, our colleagues at CAMERA, Melanie Phillips and Alan Dershowitz of smearing Israel's critics and suppressing free speech. HonestReporting fired back, as did MelaniePhillips and other bloggers who joined the dustup.
The result: HonestReporting's biggest snit of the year, leaving us with a welcome spike in page views, but no satisfactory response from Hari.
Most Insane Holiday Greeting: Channel 4
UK's Channel 4 decked the halls with boughs of folly by inviting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give the annual "alternative Christmas message."
So by the time the Hezbollah commander died an appropriate death -- blown to pieces in a booby-trapped car -- there was no doubt he deserved the title "terrorist." Yet this NY Times headline said:
Bomb In Syria Kills Militant Sought As Terrorist
Dumbest Headline (Europe): Avriani
Looking at the US elections, Avriani, a Greek daily, came up with this headline:
The anticipated victory of Obama in US elections signals the end of the Jewish domination - Everything changes in USA and we hope that it will be more democratic and humane
Ugliest Rationalization For a Blood Libel: Roland Jabbour
Defending broadcasts of Hezbollah's Al-Manar-TV in Australia, Roland Jabbour, chairman of the Australian Arabic Council, told The Age:
He said he would not call Jews the offspring of apes and pigs, but that in the context of "the crimes of the state of Israel" it was reasonable for al-Manar to do so and to portray Israeli rabbis as killing Christian children to use their blood in Passover meals.
Most Appalling Birthday Tribute: Al Jazeera
The MSM slobbered over celebrity birthdays like Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Prince Charles, but Al-Jazeera's fawning fete for Samir Quntar took the cake. The video must be seen to be believed.
Quntar was convicted of murdering Danny Haran, his four-year-old daughter, and a policeman in a 1979 terror attack. Haran's two-year old daughter also died when her mother accidentally smothered her to keep her from crying while hiding. Shortly before his birthday, Israel released Quntar in a swap with Hezbollah for the bodies of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.
Biggest Range of Problems: BBC
Readers vented a shockingly wide array of problems.
Israel says the barrier, the route of which was declared illegal by the international court in the Hague in 2004, is for its security, but the Palestinians say it is a device to grab land.
Once in a while, reporters cross a line from covering a story to becoming part of it. Usually - like in Los Angeles and Chicago - it's due to an ethical lapse. But what if a journalist with an axe to grind deliberately becomes a part of the story?
That's what happened with Mail on Sunday columnist Lauren Booth. Although she's well-known for being the sister-in-law of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, lesser known is the fact that she works for Iran's satellite news channel, Press TV – meaning Booth's on the Iranian payroll.
In August, Booth joined two boatloads of protesters sailing to Gaza for what was essentially a Free Gaza Movement publicity stunt. She was quite open about her dual role as both activist and reporter. The BBC caught up with Booth before she set sail:
Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who is now an international envoy to the Middle East, tells me she is travelling as both supporter and reporter.
"I dearly want to go to Gaza again to support the Palestinians and to show the world the reality of what's going on there".
Rather than depart unhindered with the two ships, Booth decided to stay on. Free Gaza's next boat was weeks away -- with no assurances Israel would allow it to pass. She literally missed the boat.
Eventually, the Briton sought to leave by land, only to be rebuffed by Israel and Egypt. For security reasons, Israeli law forbids the entry of foreigners from Gaza who entered the strip illegally. (Two Israeli citizens, activist Jeff Halper and reporter Amira Hass did return to Israel through the border crossing; both may face legal action.) Egypt never explained its initial refusal to Booth.
Stuck in Gaza, Booth continued her so-called "journalism." In one particularly galling interview with George Galloway, she described Gaza as a "concentration camp," adding, the situation is "a humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur."
Even before the war, everybody agreed Gaza was in bad shape, but Booth's exaggerated sound-bites ultimately did a disservice to the Palestinians, insulted the victims of the Holocaust, and trivialized the estimated 750,000 Darfuris who were killed or became refugees.
Before the recent conflict, photos likethese didn't indicate wide-scale food shortages remotely resembling Darfur or Nazi Europe. Booth never had any intention of covering Gaza. She wanted to be a part of the story.
We respect Booth's right to be active in the causes of her choice. But by trying to legitimize her jaunt through the veneer of respectable journalism, Lauren Booth shows she misses the boat again.
* * *
We covered a lot of ground in 2008.
And with help from readers, we'll continue to monitor and hold the media to account in 2009.
Dishonest Reporter Award 2007
Our seventh annual recognition of the most skewed and biased coverage of the Mideast conflict.
What a year of surprises.
Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas talked peace in the presence of Saudi and Syrian dignitaries. BBC journalist Alan Johnston was held hostage for nearly four months. When Israel struck an unidentified Syrian facility, the only significant protest came from North Korea.
Of course, there were other unsurprising developments. Qassam rockets continued to fall on Sderot. This year's three unfortunate fatalities: Oshri Oz, Shirel Friedman and Chai Shalom.
Israeli MIAs Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev ended the year in captivity, as did other Israeli MIAs.
Worst News Director: Larry Register, formerly of Al-Hurra TV
Thumbs up to Joel Mowbray for a series of articles exposing how US taxpayer-funded Al-Hurra TV twisted its mission to showcase American democracy. Under director Larry Register, Al-Hurra pandered to Arab sympathies and gave a soapbox to terror propaganda and Holocaust denial. Register identified himself with the likes of Yasser Arafat and Bashar Assad.
The BBC spent £200,000 in legal fees to cover up Malcolm Balen's 2004 internal report on the news service's Mideast coverage. So far as the publicly funded news service was concerned, the money was well spent; the Beeb fended off a legal challenge by London lawyer Steven Sugar, who sought a copy under the Freedom of Information Act.
Sugar's success in an earlier stage of legal proceedings led to an avalanche of similar FOI requests (including one from HonestReporting). All were turned down.
Most Ridiculous Campus Article: Linda Quiquivix, The Daily Tar Heel
U. of North Carolina student Linda Quiquivix, who broke up with her "Zionist" boyfriend during the Second Lebanon War, describes her quest for love to Daily Tar Heel readers. Boys, don't bother with diamonds or flowers.
Most Curious Caption: Associated Press
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) militants stage a protest near the Eiffel Tower in a show of solidarity with kidnapped British journalist Alan Johnston, in Paris, Wednesday, June 20, 2007. Intensive negotiations are underway toward freeing British Broadcasting Corp. journalist Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped three months ago in Gaza, a senior Hamas official said Tuesday. (AP PHOTO/Christopher Ena)
Stupidest Unstifled Debate: The Doha Debates
Oxford students hosting The Doha Debates in May shook off the dark powers of suppression and agreed, by an impressive two-thirds majority, on the following motion:
"This House believes the pro-Israeli lobby has successfully stifled Western debate about Israel's actions."
The sheer stupidity of the topic wasn't worth the effort of suppressing -- had the motion failed, it would've been better "proof" that the issue was true.
Worst Advertising Account: International Herald-Tribune
In April, the International Herald-Tribune made waves for advertising an Iranian tender to build two nuclear power plants. Ironically enough, the ad also appeared in Israel where Haaretz distributes an IHT supplement. The IHT is owned by the NY Times.
Special Achievement in Verbal Gymnastics: Jeremy Bowen
"There is no dialogue with those murderous terrorists," Mr Abbas said, referring to Hamas militants.
Most Blatant Photo-Opportunism: Ismail Haniyeh
Not only were Gaza’s Christian leaders intimidated into attending a November speech by Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas honcho literally strong-armed Father Manuail Musalam into a photo-op brought to us by Reuters.
Dumbest Reaction to Alan Johnston’s Kidnapping: National Union of Journalists
After BBC reporter Alan Johnston was kidnapped by a Gaza clan linked to "The Army of Islam," Britain's National Union of Journalists sprang into action - by boycotting Israel. This NUJ statement explains why:
We work closely with the Palestinian union through the International Federation of Journalists and the boycott call was a gesture of support for the Palestinian people - notably those suffering in the siege of Gaza, the community Alan Johnston has been so keen to help through his reporting.
Worst Film Editor: Charles Enderlin
In his legal battle over the Mohammed al-Dura video, French media analyst Philippe Karsenty forced France 2 TV to publicly screen for the first time cameraman Talal Abu Rahma's raw, unedited footage.
When the judge asked correspondent Charles Enderlin why only 18 minutes of footage were submitted – instead of an expected 27 minutes – the veteran reporter told the court that when he transferred the images to DVD for the court, he had to manipulate some footage that wasn't relevant for that day. Although a final ruling isn't due till the end of February, the development and the footage discredited the myths of Mohammed al-Dura.
Worst Moral Equivalence: Ed O'Loughlin
The Sydney Morning Herald's Ed O'Loughlin wins for this oversimplified background information on Qassam rockets:
Since peace talks were abandoned in 2000, 12 Israelis, including three minors, have been killed by Palestinian missiles in a deadly game of tit for tat across the border between Israel and Gaza.
Hundreds of Palestinian civilians and militants, including five children in the past fortnight, have been killed by artillery, tank and air strikes, which Israel says target only terrorists.
According to an IDF study, an estimated 2380 rockets have been fired at the western Negev in the last six years, killing 10 people. In addition, 1,600 people have been treated for shock. Half the rockets landed in Sderot.
Worst Pundit: Abd Al-Bari Atwan
Bari Atwan, a regular commentator and analyst for BBC and Sky News, told ANB Lebanese television he'd dance in Trafalgar Square if Iranian nuclear missiles ever hit Israel. He’s still a talking head for both news services.
Best New Members of the Pro-Israel Cabal: Walt and Mearsheimer
We're not kidding about the people who brought you "The Israel Lobby". Here's why.
Worst Cartoon: Jonathan Shapiro a.k.a. Zapiro
For the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, the South African cartoonist for the Mail & Guardian turned history on its head:
The Blog Post We Should've Taken Seriously: Fadi Abu Sada
. . . it might be the only solution to stop the bloody fighting between brothers in the Gaza Strip.
Dishonest Reporter of the Year
This year's Dishonest Reporter voting marks a change for HonestReporting readers. Previous awards went to large, impersonal news services, but not so this year. One journalist made herself such a lightning rod in 2007 she easily defeated BBC and Reuters – the traditional disfavorites.
The results didn't surprise us, but the depth of anger and lingering resentment indicate that readers weren't just outraged by our winner's work; on some level, they were personally offended in a way far exceeding the rest of the MSM’s Mideast coverage this year. Which is why the 2007 Dishonest Reporting Award goes to Christiane Amanpour, for her in-depth, but tragically flawed CNN special series, God's Warriors.
The series sought to examine Jewish, Muslim and Christian extremism. It's not our intention to address God's Warriors yet again. However, reader criticism can be boiled down to four primary charges. In a nutshell, Amanpour's series:
Equated years-old isolated cases of Jewish extremism with Islamic terror that has killed thousands of people in New York, London, Madrid, Bali, Amman, etc.
Spuriously claimed that fringe elements of world Jewry succeeded in hijacking Israeli and American government policy.
Addressed radical Islam with kid gloves.
Belittled religious belief in general.
Religious extremism is a valid news story and an accurate, honest comparison of the three major monotheistic faiths would undoubtedly have a positive impact on public debate.
Unfortunately, the sense our readers and we have is that Amanpour didn't spend a year researching religious extremism, but rather reinforcing her own world views.
* * *
We covered a lot of ground in 2007.
And with help from readers, we'll continue to monitor and hold the media to account in 2008.
The Dishonest Reporter 'Award' 2006
Our sixth annual recognition of the most skewed and biased coverage of the Mideast conflict.
Listen to HonestReporting's Premier Podcast
Listen to HonestReporting's staff talking about some of the best and worst media from 2006 on our premier podcast. Click on the icon to the left to listen. (It may take a few seconds to download so please be patient.)
For more information about podcasting,
click here.
Most of all, we?ll remember 2006 for Israel?s two-front war in Lebanon and Gaza.
Our Dishonest Reporting awards primarily focus on ?fauxtography,? the manipulated
images, staged photos, and inaccurate captions that repeatedly tainted Mideast coverage. Space didn’t allow us to elaborate on many other noteworthy incidents of skewed
reporting. Visual veracity was the issue of 2006.
Our intent is not to make sweeping generalizations
about all photojournalists. Most are honest people admirably working under difficult conditions; many risk their lives to record history?s first draft. But important questions remain unanswered. What safeguards
help editors detect altered images? Where do the rush of deadlines and the speed of technology leave the slower work of fact-checking? What do ethical standards, if any, say about posed shots? Were some
photographers simply duped?
Foreshadow of the Year: Zoran Bozicevic
This National
Post photo editor anticipated ?fauxtography? days before war exploded in Gaza and Lebanon.
As one dubious photo after another crept into the mainstream coverage, Jules Crittenden, a Boston Herald editor,
validated Bozicevic. Crittenden?s blunt assessment:
Everyone
in the news business gets taken for a ride sooner or later. It?s an occupational hazard. What is surprising is the scale of it in Lebanon.
And what is tragic about this is, as a Boston Herald photo editor noted, editors everywhere can no longer trust
the pictures from Lebanon. The public cannot know what is staged and what is real.
Worst Director: Salem Daher, a.k.a. Abdel Qadar, a.k.a. "The Green Helmet"
Though Daher insisted to AP that he?s just a Lebanese civil rescue worker,
the German TV show ZAPP caught him directing other cameramen, posing for photos with casualties and having a body unnecessarily loaded into an ambulance
a second time for better footage. ZAPP accused the ubiquitous Daher of abusing the dead. (Wikipedia clarifies the confusion over his
name.)
Worst Caption (newspaper): NYTimes
The NY Times was caught up in the fauxtography scandal thanks to a break down in the caption-writing process. This caption in a slide
show suggested the man was dead. Bloggers wondered how a man killed in the strike could look so very
much alive in the slide show?s other images. Ironically, the Times had Hicks' correct caption for the same photo in a separate
report on July 27. The Times issued a correction and apologized to Hicks
for the bungle. In October, Hicks explained to Photo District News his view of the affair.
Worst Caption (magazine): Time
When a Hezbollah gunman was photographed near a billowing pillar of smoke, Time wrote a caption
stating the fire was started by a downed Israeli jet. But Israel didn?t lose any aircraft over Lebanon.
In fact, the fire was started by exploding Hezbollah rockets destroyed in an air strike.
As other
questions threatened to stain the reputation of photographer Bruno Stevens, he posted the story behind the photo on Lightstalkers.
He included other notable facts and photos from the scene.
Worst Use of Props: BBC
In this photo, a Lebanese child stands next to an unexploded Israeli shell. Is the child or the bomb the prop? BBC's
Martin Asser explains that it was the boy:
When Um Ali Mihdi returned to her home in the southern Lebanese city of
Bint Jbeil two days ago, she found a 1,000lb (450kg) Israeli bomb lying unexploded in her living room.
The shell is huge, bigger than the young boy pushed forward to stand reluctantly
next to it while we get our cameras out and record the scene for posterity.
Worst Buzzword: "Disproportionate"
Although Israel?s air strikes were limited to Hezbollah targets, the word "disproportionate"
became the standard catchphrase of criticism. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen debunked the disproportionate
use of that buzzword. After the war, it became clear that Israeli strikes were anythingbutdisproportionate.
Retraction of the Year: Kofi Annan
The outgoing UN Secretary General, who joined the global chorus unfairly blaming Israel for the Gaza Beach incident, to his credit, retracted
criticisms of the IDF, saying he had responded to "media speculations." We await retractions from those media speculators.
Canard of the Year (USA): Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post
Ricks accused Israel
of deliberately leaving Hezbollah rockets intact for P.R. purposes. Appearing on CNN's show, Reliable Sources, he said:
"Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rocketsin Lebanon, becauseas long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency
in their operations in Lebanon?. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in
Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well."
Canard of the Year (Europe):
Robert Fisk of the Independent
Rushing to judgment, Fisk declared Israel guilty of using uranium-based shells in Lebanon, though UN tests of soil samples
were still in progress. The tests didn't detect any unusual traces of uranium, but Independent buried the findings. We await
a retraction.
Sympathy for the Devil
Award: CBC
When the CBC aired a sympathetic interview with the family of Samir Quntar about the possibility of the Lebanese terrorist's release in a prisoner swap (watch the interview
here), they all but ignored the brutal
attack that landed him in an Israeli prison, and didn't bother interviewing any relatives of his victims. After HonestReporting-Canada
took action, the CBC followed up, interviewing Smadar Haran Kaiser, the woman whose family Samir Qantar murdered
(watch the follow-up interview here).
Worst Cartoon of the Year: Martin Rowson of the Guardian
The day after publishing this nasty cartoon, The Guardian apologized, but only because the Jewish stars in the illustration "might have been interpreted as implicating
Judaism rather than the Israeli government in the present conflict."
Worst News Executive: Dr. Snuki Zikalala of the SABC
Dr. Zikalala, the news director of the South African Broadcasting Corp., gets this award for blacklisting
various reporters, commentators and analysts. Though most personalities were banned for their views on South African politics, Paula Slier found herself blacklisted because her coverage of the Mideast conflict crossed Zikalala's red lines. He wrote in a memo:
From the movement where I come from, we support PLO. But she supported what?s happening in Israel?. I said no, you can't you can't undermine
the Palestinian struggle, you can't. For me it's a principle issue.
Worst Tangle of Media, Political & Judicial Interests: The French "Establishment"
French
media analyst Philippe Karsenty was found guilty of defaming France-2 TV and reporter Charles Enderlin for criticizing the
network's footage of Mohammed Dura. Karsenty, the founder and president of Media-Ratings discussed in an exclusive
interview with HonestReporting how the trial touched on larger issues of anti-Zionism in the French media, the icon status of Mohammed Dura, Israel's response to the affair, the disturbingly close
relationship between French media and political elites, the fairness of French justice, even the role of the new France
24 international news station.
A parallel suit against Pierre
Lurcat was dismissed on technical grounds. A third suit against Charles Gousz is yet to begin.
Broadway would
envy the longevity and theatrics of the scripted clashes at Bil'in each Friday at the site of the security fence. One week,
the "media event" even included Reuters' participation.
Most Improbable Question of the Year: Is the BBC Pro-Israel?
Read
Martin Walker's commentary to find out why the answer is no. If you?re still in doubt, consider the following: the BBC rejected
key proposals put forward by the independent commission of inquiry, it stonewalls on Freedom of Information requests
for the Balen report, and high level figures admit the Beeb is out
of touch with viewers.
Dishonest Reporter of the Year: Adnan Hajj
Working for Reuters, Hajj was caught poorly altering one photo of Beirut destruction and another of an Israeli jet firing
flares. The doctored images - first spotted by Mike Thorson and blogged on Little
Green Footballs - suggested a greater extent of Israeli destruction than really existed. Unlike other "fauxtographs," the sloppiness of Hajj's work suggested not a breakdown of procedure but deliberate
doctoring.
Hajj claimed he only used Photoshop
to remove dust marks, but Reuters severed all ties with the photographer and removed all 920 of his photos from its database. The furor touched off the heightened scrutiny that led to our other ignoble
honorees.
* * *
Hopefully, we'll see in 2007 better safeguards preventing another "Photoshop of Horrors," tighter caption-writing procedures, and clearer and enforced standards addressing
posed photos. We also hope that the speed of digital photography and the rush of deadlines don't rush past the needs of fact-checking.
We covered a lot of ground in 2006, and with the help of readers -- our eyes and ears -- we'll continue monitoring the media in the coming year.
HonestReporting.com
The Dishonest Reporter 'Award' 2005
Our fifth annual recognition of the most skewed and biased coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Dear HonestReporting Subscriber,
Big
media was clearly on the defensive in 2005.
Dan Rather left the CBS News anchor desk under a heavy
cloud while other executives were fired in the wake of
Memogate. The use of anonymous sources put journalists
like
Judith Miller and the NY Times in an uncomfortable
spotlight.
Newsweek's erroneous report that US Marines desecrated a
Koran touched off a firestorm of deadly protests around the
world. CNN news chief
Eason Jordan was forced to resign over
comments at an international forum. And an
Al-Jazeera reporter was even convicted for his links to
Al-Qaida. In each controversy,
bloggers successfully pressured the news services for
accuracy and accountability.
Unfortunately, problematic coverage of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict continued.
We couldn't address all the news services or journalists who
were nominated by HonestReporting subscribers, but we thank
readers for sharing their thoughts about 2005 and for making
our fight for honest reporting your fight too. So without
further ado, we proceed with our Dishonest Reporter of the
Year Award. We begin with the runner-ups:
Reuters
Of all
the coverage we saw of the Gaza pullout, nothing stood out
more than this odious comment by
Reuters in the lead-up days:
The [Gaza] closure will give
about 8,500 settlers a taste of some of the military
restrictions and bureaucracy endured by Palestinians living
under occupation.
The
wire service also remained consistent to its warped
principles during the London terror attacks too, refusing to
describe the bombings as "terror."
To understand the logic behind Reuters' vocabulary
gymnastics, see
here.
Palestinian Stringers
Western
news services rely on Palestinian stringers for reporting,
photographs and video footage. They also rely on "fixers"
who provide all kinds of other support: arranging
interviews, navigating through difficult areas, translating
and more. But how reliable and objective are these
stringers? The
Jerusalem Post exposed a number of AP and AFP stringers
who were also on the
Palestinian Authority payroll, including
Majida al-Batsh, who was a
candidate for PA president. (Nobody protested the use of AFP
office supplies for her candidacy.) The revelations brought
to mind a related
special report on the influence of Palestinian
organizations on foreign news. But unlike a
similar scandal in the White House press corps, the
stringers' conflict of interest met deafening silence.
C-Span
C-Span executives took the idea of
"balanced coverage"
to an illogical extreme in March, deciding that a talk by
Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt needed to be balanced out
with a talk by Holocaust denier David Irving.
Lipstadt told HonestReporting:
The notion
that there are 'two sides to every story' is simplistic,
fuzzy thinking at best, and far more dangerous than that at
worst.
Now
jailed in Austria, where Holocaust denial is a crime,
Irving awaits a February trial.
The
Guardian
The Guardian found itself
red-faced by what became known as
Sassygate: As exposed by blogger
Scott Burgess, the paper hired trainee
journalist Dilpazier Aslam, whose coverage of July's London
terror attacks included a
commentary sympathizing with the bombers. It turned out
that Aslam was a member of
Hizb Ut Tahrir, an Islamist organization which calls for
the destruction of Israel and the rule of a world-wide
caliphate. When the dust settled, Aslam was fired and the
paper's executive editor for news, Albert Scardino resigned.
Aslam is now
suing The Guardian for "racial and religious
discrimination."
Eric Margolis
The
February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri shocked even the most cynical Mideast experts.
Syrian propaganda, predictably blaming Israel, was
echoed by the North American syndicated columnist
Eric Margolis. Ironically, the same week that the
Mehlis report to the UN on Hariri's murder was released,
Margolis gave a soapbox to unsubstantiated claims that
Israel had a hand in the 1988 plane crash that killed
Pakistani dictator
Zia Ul-Haq.
* * *
But one
news service's skewed coverage stood out the most, "winning"
the award in a landslide. From the first day votes came in,
it wasn't close, which may explain the dearth of nominations
for perennial runner-ups like the NY Times, Associated Press
and The Independent. The 2005 Dishonest Reporter of the Year
Award goes to the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The impact of BBC coverage
cannot be understated. A
Google study found that for breaking news, internet
users around the world were more likely to turn to the BBC
than CNN. More than 270 million TV viewers around the world
watch
BBC World. Even more people listen to
BBC World Service, which broadcasts in 42 languages.
Readers
provided a full laundry list of complaints and we found the
most effective way to condense the biggest offenses was in a
simple list form. The examples of bias from the year past
indicates a pattern of naivete, dishonesty, forcing facts
conform to a narrow worldview and, arguably, a desire to
inappropriately influence events - all paid for by British
television viewers through the
TV License Fee, which costs the typical household
126.50
GB Pounds per year.
Here
are the top 10 reasons (listed in chronological order) why
the BBC is HonestReporting's Dishonest Reporter of the Year.
10. In
January, Palestinian presidential candidate
Dr. Mustafa Barghouti (not to be confused with his
better-known distant relative, Marwan) tried to use Israel
and the Western media to get some free publicity for his
campaign by getting himself arrested at the Temple Mount.
The Independent's Donald Macintyre saw straight through Barghouti's ploy, but the BBC's
Martin Asser proved more gullible:
A large crowd of journalists
has gathered at an East Jerusalem hotel to hear him, and
there is some excitement because a rumour is going round he
will go to the al-Aqsa mosque later for Friday prayers...
It is meant to be the
photo-opportunity highlight of the day - but the Israeli
security services have other ideas...
In truth, Mr Barghouti's
programme was not unduly affected by the detention, because
his next engagement was not scheduled until 1330.
I could be wrong, but that -
rather conveniently - left ample time for his
headline-grabbing brush with the Israelis before moving on
to meet the voters.
9. Every
morning, listeners can tune into BBC for an uplifting
"Thought
of the Day." One February morning, Rev. Dr. John Bell
used the feature to describe an Arab-Israeli acquaintance
only identified as "Adam." According to Rev. Dr. Bell, this
acquaintance was "conscripted" into the Israeli army, where
"he was also imprisoned for refusing to shoot unarmed
schoolchildren." See the
full transcript here.
After
HonestReporting pointed out that Israeli-Arabs aren't
required to serve in the IDF and that the allegations that
soldiers have orders to shoot unarmed kids are wholly
unfounded, the BBC
apologized
- but only for not fact-checking Adam's age and
the issue of conscription. We still await a retraction about
the non-existent orders to shoot kids.
8. In March,
the BBC
apologized to Israel for reporter Simon Wilson's
handling of an interview with Mordechai Vanunu. A former
technician at the Dimona nuclear plant, Vanunu is prohibited
from talking to foreign reporters, but Wilson, in 2004, was
caught trying to smuggle tapes of his interview out of the
country. Although the apology - which paved the way for Wilson
to return to Israel - was supposed to remain confidential, it
was inexplicably posted on the BBC's own web site for
several hours. The BBC once intended to rent out a
luxury apartment for Vanunu paid for by British
television viewers.
[BBC] are adopting what they
see as an even handed attitude. To me this is a cowardly
attitude, it is an attitude which confuses occupier with
occupied...
6. In May,
BBC correspondent
Orla Guerin reported that construction linking Maale
Adumim to Jerusalem would split the West Bank in two,
destroying any possibility of a viable Palestinian state.
HonestReporting noted that construction in the area
known as E-1 doesn't take away territorial contiguity. A map
produced by our colleagues at
CAMERA highlights how the Palestinians would have
continuous territory, which, at its narrowest, would be nine
miles (or 15 km) wide - which also happens to be the width of
Israel's "waistline" between the Green Line and the
Mediterranean.
5. When
members of the British
Association of University Teachers considered a
boycott of Israel's Bar-Ilan and Haifa universities, BBC
radio tried to influence the vote with a report by
correspondent John Reynolds from the College of Judea and
Samaria. As
Melanie Phillips wrote in May:
Not a word about the fact
that more than 300 students at this college are Arabs, and
that the Arab mayors of local towns have enthusiastically
welcomed the opportunities it gives their students...
The BBC might as well have
had a block vote at today's AUT conference. So much for its
supposed objectivity, which once again stands exposed as a
charade.
4. When
terrorists linked to Al-Qaida struck the London
transportation system in July, many thought the BBC would
finally use the word "terror" to describe the wanton attacks
on civilians. To their credit, a small handful of initial
reports did. But appearances of the "t-word" in initial
coverage were soon
removed from the BBC's web site (but not before
Tom Gross documented the inconsistencies). Yet Roger
Mosey, the head of BBC's television news, contradicted
BBC policy when he wrote in
The Guardian that there was no ban in the first place!
Then there has been a
controversy about our use of language - particularly the
question of whether the BBC banned the word "terrorist".
There is no ban. It's true the word is contentious in some
contexts on our international services, hence the
recommendation that it be employed with care. But we have
used and will continue to use the words terror, terrorism
and terrorist - as we did in all our flagship bulletins from
Thursday.
Not
surprisingly,
subsequent coverage of the London bombings and their
aftermath remained "terror free." At the end of the year,
however,
The Guardian reported that BBC journalists received new
"guidance" discouraging - but not banning - the "t-word." Time
will tell if this will have a positive impact in 2006.
I do not pay my license fee
to watch an unrepresentative Muslim audience like this.
The
BBC's response?
In order to ensure a range
of voices on these issues, the studio audience contained a
higher proportion of Muslims in the audience than in the
population as a whole - around 15% of the audience as
opposed to 2.7% of the country as a whole...
This
isn't the first time the BBC got in hot water for loading
the audience. In 2001, anti-American invective from a
Question Time audience discussing the 9/11 attacks got
so out of hand that news director Greg Dyke had to apologize
to US ambassador Philip Lader, who participated in the show.
Can
anyone imagine a BBC program on Israel loaded with Israelis
and Jews?
2. Within
hours after Israel completed its pull-out from the Gaza
Strip, Palestinians wasted no time desecrating synagogues
and looting greenhouses. BBC's
Orla Guerin was one of
several journalists who actually justified the sad,
senseless destruction:
Palestinians
came streaming to the settlements that caused them so much
pain, to sightsee and to loot. Israel stole thirty-eight
years from them; today, many were ready to take back
anything they could.
1. Whatever
happened to
Malcolm Balen, who was appointed to help improve the
BBC's Mideast reporting? Back in November, 2003, the BBC
hired him as a "senior editorial advisor," or, as some put
it, "a Middle East policeman." Some HonestReporting readers
were hopeful when
Haaretz reported that Balen was supposed to present a
"conclusive and comprehensive report" to BBC executives. Balen even told Haaretz:
What I do
is a long-term editorial review, and by definition, the
review is retrospective, rather than a look at day-to-day
output. The truth is, in any editorial job, you are so tied
up with your program and deadline, that you simply do not
have the time to stand back and look at the coverage as a
whole," says Balen.
"Nobody has the time in a journalistic job
to trace the course of a single story in an organization as
large as the BBC, which is what I was appointed to do. I can
concentrate on a single story and look at all sorts of
angles and aspects. I can join the dots together,
[determine] what the coverage feels like, what the tone is
like - crucially, what the content is like, what the balance
is like."
Yet
with all the resources of the BBC at his disposal, Balen, to
our knowledge, has not presented any report. In contrast,
Trevor Asserson, a British lawyer working on his own
initiative, put together several
exhaustive critiques. HonestReporting readers, who also
chose the BBC as Dishonest Reporter of the Year in
2001, connected the dots.
Has
Balen?
* * *
By
October, the deteriorating coverage reached a point where
the
Board of Governors requested Sir Quentin Thomas to lead
an
independent panel to investigate its Mideast reporting.
(See
here for more details.) The panel is supposed to release
its findings in the spring. When the Board of Governors
released its
Programme Complaints: Appeals to the Governors, the
forward by the chairman of the complaints committee noted
that the majority of the complaints (20 out of 27 in fact)
dealt with Mideast coverage. Only one - against
Barbara Plett
- was upheld.
Yet
even in December, former director-general
Greg Dyke, a casualty of the
Hutton Report, insists that the network's Mideast
reporting continues to be fair:
We investigated many of the
complaints and most of the time found our reporting had been
totally fair. Of course the pro-Israeli lobby didn't accept
that but then they had a different agenda.
The
stakes are certainly high. News services skewing reports
from the Mideast are just as capable of warping other
important areas of coverage. For the BBC, that's most
notably
Iraq. The BBC's
royal charter expires at the end of 2006 - one year from
now -- and officials must explain how it spends income from
the
TV License Fee. In 2003, this TV tax brought the BBC
nearly
2.4 billion
GB Pounds in income. Simply put, the British public
is subsidizing lousy news.
As far
as we're concerned, the excuses and apologies have worn
thin. The BBC must be held accountable.
We appreciate you, our readers for writing the media,
alerting us to questionable reports and sharing your
insights with us.
HonestReporting covered a lot of ground in 2005 and we'll
continue monitoring the media in the coming year. We hope
2006 proves to be a better year of honest reporting.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle
against media bias.
HonestReporting
The Dishonest Reporter 'Award' 2004
Our fourth annual recognition of the most skewed and biased coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
2004. It was the end of the Arafat era, the end of Sheik Yassin's
terror reign. The year Israel's security fence saved innumerable lives ― yet was condemned
at The Hague. Deadly Kassam rockets from the south, Ketushas from the north,
and suicide bombings in Ashdod, Beersheva, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The year
of Iraq conspiracy theories, and vicious anti-Israel material disguised as
art, science, and urbane opinion.
On one hand, the media are looking better. This year, the western press became more careful in
its reporting of the Mideast
conflict, with news stories only rarely exhibiting the overt anti-Israel
bias prevalent in previous years.
On the other hand, the bias that persists has become more subtle, implicit,
and downright libelous. For example, the media have allowed the following terminology to
gain broad legitimacy: The security fence as an 'Apartheid wall', Israel
practicing 'ethnic cleansing' of Palestinians, and a sinister 'Likud cabal' infesting Washington ― such terms have gained currency on
the pages of major newspapers, despite having no basis in reality.
Thanks for sending in your nominations. Now, without further ado, we present this year's Dishonest Reporting 'Award' winners:
THE 'CAMERA SEES ALL' AWARD
Winner:
While photojournalists were recording a seemingly
candid expression of Palestinian suffering alongside the security
fence, AP's
Enric Marti shot the scene from another angle, including the pack
of photographers in his frame:
This image speaks volumes about media coverage of Palestinian
life. The photographers are not merely 'capturing the scene,' but
rather creating it ― either actively (by asking the woman to
pose) or passively (allowing themselves to be manipulated by her
posing for their cameras).
The 'Award' winners in this category are the five unidentified
photographers who sent to their newsrooms the version depicted here (at right).
SYMPATHY FOR TERRORISTS AWARD
Winner: Barbara Plett, BBC. When Yasser Arafat's health failed in November,
BBC's West Bank reporter Plett
openly wept for the Godfather of Modern Terror. Plett's weeping revealed an
unprofessional (and, some would say, bizarre) identification with one side of the
conflict that she is employed to cover in an objective fashion.
Runners-up:
●
The
Guardian for hailing Arafat's 'undisputed courage as a guerrilla leader,'
exceeded only 'by his extraordinary courage' as a peace negotiator.
●
Syndicated columnist
Gwynne Dyer, for proclaiming that what Arafat 'did right' in his life were 'successful acts of terror' that drew attention to the Palestinian cause.
●
And Jonathan Cook, writing in the International Herald Tribune for expressing his understanding and appreciation of Palestinian terrorism as the 'surest way to get their struggle noticed.' (The IHT was also
caught altering New York Times articles to make Israel look worse,
and Palestinian terrorists look better.)
SLIP-OF-THE-TONGUE AWARD
Winner: David A. Schlesinger, Reuters. In a remarkable moment of candor,
Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor, admitted that one
reason his agency refuses to use the term 'terrorist' has nothing to
do with editorial pursuit of objectivity, but is rather 'to protect our
reporters.' Schlesinger described the 'serious consequences' if
certain 'people in the Mideast' were to believe Reuters called those who detonate civilian buses and open fire on pregnant women
'terrorists.'
Runner-up: Washington Post ombudsman
Michael Getler, for rationalizing the Post's ongoing refusal to use the
'T-word' in reporting on Palestinian terror. The term 'terrorism'
is 'not helpful,' Getler explained, since using it would 'adopt the
language of one side.' Moreover, said Getler, 'Palestinians view many
Israeli actions... as terrorism.'
ISRAEL CONSPIRACY AWARD
Winner: Neil MacDonald, Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation. In May, while delivering CBC television's lead story on the political fallout from the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses,
Macdonald shifted attention away from Iraq and toward Israel,
proposing to viewers that
the occupation of Iraq and George Bush's
unprecedented alliance with the right wing government of Israel has
placed Americans overseas in danger.
Macdonald then brought on camera a retired US diplomat
who made the outlandish claim that the Israeli Mossad was behind the
Abu Ghraib tortures.
Then in December, Macdonald did it again. Reporting on the deadly al-Qaeda attack on a US consulate in Saudi Arabia, Macdonald gratuitously dragged Israel into the story, going out of his way to find someone willing to blame America's relationship with Israel for the attack. Macdonald put one Allen Keiswetter on the air, who said
I think the principal reason is our policies on the Arab-Israeli issues. This is extremely important. We're now regarded as being very much in the pockets of Sharon. And the second reason of course is Iraq.
CBC Ombudsman David Bazay, in response to allegations of anti-Israeli bias in the May incident, declared that while Macdonald was not guilty of bias,
'editors and producers must not only avoid bias; they must avoid the appearance of bias. And, I agree, the May 4 report did expose [CBC]
to the appearance of bias.'
With Macdonald, CBC is finding it increasingly difficult to discount the allegations of bias.
ALTERNATIVE MEDIA AWARD
In 2004, anti-Israel invective made its way off the newspaper page and
became propagated via 'alternative' media:
Winner:
Dror Feiler. A Stockholm art show
(accompanying an international conference on preventing genocide) included a large
exhibit by Feiler glorifying the Palestinian terrorist who murdered 21 Israelis
at Haifa's Maxim restaurant. Dubbed 'Snow White and the Madness of
Truth,' the exhibit showed a tiny sailboat floating on a pool of red water, and
the accompanying text cast the mass murderer as a 'Snow White' victim.
In a spontaneous act of protest, Israeli ambassador to
Sweden Zvi Mazel threw a light fixture into the red pool, then said: 'I could not remain indifferent to such an obscene misrepresentation of reality. This was not a piece of art. This was a monstrosity.'
Runners-up:
● The City of Melbourne,
Australia, for sponsoring a professionally-designed
window
display(at left) of the flag of Israel, covered with red text spelling out
'statistics' on alleged horrors committed by Israel since 1948. Besides unfairly singling out democratic Israel for a publicly-funded harangue halfway around the world, the
text also contained a number of libelous fabrications ― e.g. claiming that '200,000 Palestinians have been killed and 200,000 settlements have been built.'
And in December, Hamas supporters placed on a busy Melbourne street
four
large lightboxes paying homage to fallen terrorist leaders.
● The town of
Oleiros, Spain, whose public information signs flashed the message 'Let's stop the animal!!! Sharon the assassin, stop the
neo-Nazis.'
●
A Houston art studio for hosting a Palestinian art exhibit containing a painting
(at right) of
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
collecting
and boiling a young Palestinian's blood. The Westchester NY County Center
hosted a fundraiser to bring this exhibit to the New York metropolitan
region.
●The
British Medical Journal, for an
article entitled 'Palestine: The assault on health
and other war crimes,' by Dr. Derrick Summerfield. Summerfield falsely branded
Israel as guilty of 'war crimes,' deliberate child-killing, illegal
colonization and apartheid, and made no mention of how Palestinian
terror and political corruption have contributed to the unfortunate state of
the Palestinian heath system.
Summerfield's article is a prime example of how such terms and
outlandish accusations have become legitimized in public discourse.
The very editors and publications that remain reluctant to use the
term 'terrorist' to describe Palestinian atrocities are increasingly willing to float
accusations against Israel for committing 'crimes against humanity.'
So while 2004 saw real progress in certain areas, Israel remains
the target of biased and distorted reporting the world over. In 2005,
HonestReporting subscribers will need to remain diligent to this
crucial facet of the Mideast conflict.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media
bias.
HonestReporting
The Dishonest Reporter 'Award' 2003
Our third annual recognition of the most skewed and biased coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
2003: It was the year of the road map, the year of the
hudna.
Abu Mazen and Abu Ala, war in Iraq, targeted strikes in Gaza, the
security fence. Destruction of Maxim in Haifa, Cafe Hillel in
Jerusalem, the horrific "Children's Attack" on bus #2. The year
that brought us an Israeli in space, Der Stuermer in the UK, the
homicide donkey, child guinea pigs, and Rachel Corrie.
2003 was another trying year for Israel ― a nation fighting
simultaneous, uphill battles against terror and for fair coverage
in the world media.
With the year drawing to a close, HonestReporting regretfully
presents the third annual Dishonest Reporting "Award," our yearly
recognition of the most skewed and biased coverage of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thanks for your nominations and
votes! We begin with the ignoble award "winner," followed by
recipients of Dishonorable Mention:
IGNOBLE AWARD WINNER: REUTERS
With over 200 news
bureaus worldwide, Reuters stakes its
claim as
"the largest international multi-media news agency."
Though Reuters' own
editorial
policy claims the agency's reporters "do not offer subjective
opinion," and intend merely "to enable readers and viewers to form
their own judgement," in fact Reuters' coverage of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is
flagrantly biased against Israel. Some examples from 2003:
* In
January, Reuters blamed Israel for "killing" Palestinian
suicide bombers:
Iraq has paid millions of
dollars to families of Palestinians, including those of suicide
bombers, killed by Israeli forces since the start of the uprising
in September 2000.
* As Israel prepared to build a wall to protect worshippers at
Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, Reuters published this
headline:
"Israel to Split Christ's Birthplace with Barrier"
To emphasize its (completely external) point, Reuters repeated
the word "Christ" or "Christian" in each of the article's first
four sentences.
* On Nov. 18, two Israeli
soldiers were killed outside
Bethlehem and a number of Palestinians were wounded in Gaza.
Reuters had pictures of both events, but journalists who subscribe
to Reuters' photo service were encouraged to publish the
Palestinian victims in this email
(emphasis added):
Dear User of the Reuters Pictures
Archive,
Please find below a single picture presentation showing two
Palestinians rushing a wounded Palestinian to hospital in the Rafah
refugee camp in the southern part of the Gaza strip, November 18,
2003 :
* When Palestinian terrorist groups
announced a hudna with the PA, Israel was not a party in the
agreement, and the official road map demanded a full disarming of
terror groups ―
not a
temporary hudna cease-fire. Yet Reuters took the opportunity to
vilify
Israel with the
headline:
"Israel Pours Scorn on Truce With Militants"
And
when Israel did show flexibility for Palestinian demands,
above and beyond the roadmap's requirements? On Nov. 3, Reuters reported that Israel
reinstated 15,000 Palestinian work permits, and included this comment
in a news report:
150,000 Palestinians [previously] made a living in Israel, so
Sunday's restoration of 15,000 Israeli work permits is still only a
drop in the ocean.
Actually, 15,000 was fully 10%, and a risky loosening of anti-terror
policy. Even the Palestinian official quoted by Reuters called it "an
important step."
* * *
The
previous examples are specific to particular articles, but Reuters'
anti-Israel bias extends to general editorial policy on terminology
and headlines:
REUTERS' TERMINOLOGY
Reuters' refusal to use the term "terrorism" or "terrorist" reached
new levels of absurdity this year. In November,
Reuters released a list of "Worst Guerilla Attacks since
September 11" that omitted terror in Israel entirely.
But
beyond distancing itself from the term "terror," Reuters regularly
legitimized Palestinian terrorist groups and their murderous acts by
ascribing to them a worthy (though false) motive ― the pursuit
of independence:
The military wing of the Islamic militant group Hamas
claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement faxed to Reuters.
Hamas has spearheaded a 28-month-old Palestinian militant uprising
against Israel for a state in Gaza and the West Bank. (Feb. 15
- emphasis added)
Or take this Oct. 3 Reuters
photo and caption:
Members of the Islamic
movement Hamas burn the Israeli and the U.S. flag over a model of the
Star of David during a march through the streets of the Jabalya
refugee camp in Gaza and vow to continue the
three-year-old uprising for statehood.
(emphasis added)
Hamas makes it perfectly clear in their
official charter that their goal is the destruction of the State
of Israel, and not merely an independent Palestinian state.
Legitimate liberation struggles do not target innocent civilians in a
systematic manner. Yet Reuters persists in this charade, justifying
the horrific terrorist acts.
The terminology even reaches articles addressing Israeli
perspectives. After the tragic space shuttle
explosion in February,
Reuters described Israelis' sadness over the
death of astronaut Ilan Ramon:
The launch of Ramon's space
flight had virtually erased news of the country's woes, spreading
space fever among Israelis embittered by a Palestinian uprising for
statehood, a scandal-plagued national election and a domestic
recession. (Feb. 2, emphasis added)
Israelis were not
embittered by an "uprising for statehood." They were, as always,
prepared to offer Palestinians a state. They were embittered by
relentless Palestinian terror.
Reuters refuses to use the term "terrorist" because (as
global news editor Steven Jukes states) "one man's terrorist is
another's freedom fighter." But by continually using the term
"uprising for statehood" to describe the terrorist wave, Reuters
chooses to present them as freedom fighters. So much for
journalistic neutrality.
Reuters regularly makes the
effort to help readers "understand" the human side of Palestinian
terrorists. When two Israelis were killed in Negohot, Reuters included
this background information to help readers rationalize the terrorist
act:
Palestinians regard Jewish
settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as major obstacles to
peace and have regularly attacked them. (Sept. 26)
This description
suggests ― preposterously ― that Palestinian terrorists perpetrate the
willful murder of civilians out of their quest for peace.
REUTERS' HEADLINES
In July,
HonestReporting released
a study of one month of
Reuters headlines on the conflict. Some findings:
▪
In violent acts by Israelis, "Israel" was named in
100% of the headlines, and the verb was in the active voice in
100% of the headlines, i.e.:
"Israeli Troops Shoot Dead Palestinian in W. Bank" (July 3)
▪ But in violent acts by Palestinians, the Palestinian
perpetrator was
named in just 33% of the headlines, and the verb was generally
in the passive voice, i.e.:
"Bus
Blows Up in Central Jerusalem" (June 11)
That is, in the world
of Reuters headlines, when Israel acts, Israel is always perpetrating
an active assault and the Palestinian victim is consistently
identified. But when Palestinian terrorists act, the event just
"happens" and Israeli victims are left faceless.
Moreover, Reuters
presents Palestinian
diplomats as pursuing peace, but frustrated by their obstinate Israeli
counterparts:
"Palestinians Urge Israel to Free Prisoners" (July
4) "Israel Sets Tough Terms for Prisoner Release" (July
6) "Israel Fumes at U.S. Opening to Doves, Steps Up Raids" (Dec. 3)
The overwhelming
message from Reuters headlines is tendentious indeed: Israel is the
aggressor, and Palestinians are hapless victims.
* * *
Though maintaining that
"the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Reuters must be
upheld at all times," Reuters' news reports indicate that the
agency has
clearly taken sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ceasing to
provide neutral information, Reuters has instead become a sort of
world ambassador for Palestinian factions, operating via the
ubiquitous Reuters news wire.
And for this, the
Reuters "news service" deserves the Dishonest Reporting "Award" for
2003.
DISHONORABLE MENTION
(in alphabetical order)
Associated Press
The world's largest
wire agency featured pro-Palestinian editorializing in
straight news stories, factual mistakes, and coverage that downplayed Palestinian terrorism:
* In late April, a
Palestinian suicide bomber struck a crowded Tel Aviv nightclub. The
attack came just hours after the Palestinian Legislative Council
confirmed the nomination of Mahmoud Abbas as the new
Palestinian Prime Minister. The AP headline:
"Bomb Mars Historic Day For Palestinians." (Actually, the bomb "marred
the day" for three dead Israelis and their families.)
* AP glamorized
Palestinian terrorists ― a Feb. 25 tribute to dead terrorist Abdallah al-Saba waxed eloquent: "a
new chapter in Palestinian lore was being spun" as this "longtime
Islamic militant chose to fight and die rather than give in to Israeli
wrecking crews." AP issued a lengthy, sympathetic
biography
of Hamas terrorist extraordinaire Abdel Aziz Rantisi: "pediatrician
and poet," a caring and gracious patriarch of "six children and 10
grandchildren. He has written poetry for one of them, a girl named
Assma." The AP article then proceeded to quote effusive verses from
Rantisi's love poem.
* In March, AP
brushed off terrorist rockets as insignificant: "Palestinians have
been firing primitive, homemade Qassam rockets from northern Gaza at
the Israeli town of Sderot. Most of them miss their target, and those
that land cause little damage with their small explosive warheads."
(March 6)
In fact, the
increasingly sophisticated
Qassam missile constitutes an extremely
serious threat to Israeli cities, and the over 2,000 Qassams fired by
Hamas have injured numerous Israelis, some seriously. Would AP
minimize the threat if, say, Mexicans began lobbing missiles toward
Houston?
* In May, AP began
using the term "bystanders" to refer to Israeli victims of
Palestinian terror: "In 93 suicide attacks since the current violence
erupted in September 2000, 357 bystanders have been killed." (May 18)
A "bystander" is an individual peripheral to the central action in a
given event. AP's term masks the true, civilian target of nearly all
Palestinian terror.
* In one week in March, an Iraqi
killed five American soldiers by blowing himself up in a taxi, while
in Netanya, a Palestinian ignited his explosive belt at the
entrance to a cafe, causing 50 Israeli casualties. AP listed the Iraqi attack among other
historical "terror attacks against the U.S. military," but called the
Netanya attack the work of a "Palestinian militant."
*In a report addressing
the Palestinian claim to a "right of return," AP erroneously stated:
"Israel has always objected to the right of return for about 4 million
Arabs who fled the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948, but
never made renouncing the demand a condition for peace talks before."
(May 7)
In fact, no party
has ever claimed that 4 million Arabs fled Israel during its War of
Independence. The actual number of Arab refugees in 1948-9 was,
according to Israeli sources, 538,000. The UN puts the figure at 720,000,
while Palestinians have claimed up to
850,000.
* When American
Rachel Corrie died under
an IDF bulldozer in March, AP distributed a photo showing Corrie,
standing in direct view of the bulldozer driver, dressed in orange and
speaking into a megaphone in the direction of the oncoming vehicle:
The AP caption read:
"Rachel was run over Sunday by the bulldozer that she was trying to
stop from tearing down a building in the Rafah refugee camp, witnesses
said."
The photo was carried in hundreds of newspapers worldwide.
The AP
caption led readers to believe that this photo depicted the very scene
and moment of the accident, and implied cruel, criminal recklessness
on the part of the IDF driver. But in fact, the photo was taken hours
before Corrie's death, which the IDF later deemed an unfortunate
accident. Corrie's death occurred while she was hidden from the
driver's view.
* On numerous
occasions, AP called Palestinian terrorists "revenge bombers"
―
Israeli anti-terror strikes were said to "trigger" "revenge attacks." For example: "Generally the militant group Hamas carries out revenge
attacks ― as it did
this week, when a suicide bomber killed 17 people in a Jerusalem bus
blast." (June 13) This term paints Israel as the source of
the conflict, and denies the sworn, documented
commitment of Hamas and other terrorist groups to destroy Israel
regardless of Israeli actions.
This year, the Beeb (the 2001 Dishonest Reporting "Award" laureate)
was brought to its knees by domestic controversy, but found time to promote and
broadcast a
film that makes the outrageous claim that Israel used nerve gas against
Palestinians in the Khan Younis refugee camp. And in September, when a
terrorist killed two Israelis while they were eating a holiday meal
(and was then felled by a nearby soldier),
BBC
headlined the event: "Three Dead in West Bank Attack."
Former Palestinian Prime Minster Mahmoud Abbas authored a book that
denies the horrors of the Holocaust, but you wouldn't know it from the
BBC profile that introduced Abbas to their readers: "A highly
intellectual man, Abu Mazen [Abbas] studied law in Egypt before doing
a PhD in Moscow. He is the author of several books." (BBC later
updated the profile to include criticism of Abbas' positions.)
When twin
suicide bombers murdered two Israelis and injured many others one
August day, the
Christian Science Monitor's
homepage headline
read: "Suicide attacks jolt Mideast peace
hopes; Bombings may hurt Palestinian effort to stop Israel's
barrier." The
text of the article first indicated that the
bombings "threaten to undermine the Palestinian Authority's
campaign to stop Israel's barrier," and only afterward
noted that the terror attack "left two Israelis dead and 11
wounded." Apparently, the warped moral compass of CSM determined
that the most serious injury the twin suicide bombings inflicted
was not to actual human victims, but to the "hurt" Palestinian
political goals.
In a grave act of
disrespect, The Guardian (UK) exploited the death of Col. Ilan Ramon
to take a swipe at the Israeli government. In a
report headlined,
"Israel remembers astronaut as Sharon capitalises on US links," Chris
McGreal wrote that the Israeli government "used the tragedy to paint
Israel as a democratic western nation standing firm with the US
against the barbarians."
In August, Yasser Arafat made a claim to
"mass arrests of Palestinians," and
The Guardian repeated Arafat's
unsubstantiated claim as fact.
The Guardian
noted the hundreds of emails from HonestReporting
subscribers on this matter, then surreptitiously moved back the frame
of reference for their "mass arrests" claim, to a full month before
the date referred to in the original article. We noticed.
In January, The Independent (UK) published an editorial cartoon by
Dave Brown depicting Ariel Sharon biting into the flesh of a
Palestinian baby:
In a decision as
shocking as the original one to publish the cartoon, the British
Political
Cartoon Society awarded its
Cartoon of the Year for 2003 to Brown's appalling and libelous
work. (The Society deflected criticism by saying the award was based
on popular vote.)
In July,
The Independent
painted Sharon as sly and evasive in
Washington ― the Israeli Prime Minister "reverted to the familiar tactic of laying the blame on the
Palestinians for not moving more forcefully to crack down on
terrorism." (Far from a diversionary "tactic," the
uprooting of Palestinian terror would certainly foster peace.) And The Independent was apparently irritated by the warm
personal relationship the two leaders have built: "Though Israel gave
so little discernable ground, the two men were all smiles and
friendliness, referring to each other as 'Ariel' and 'George.'"
In July, the LA
Times made the patently false assertion: "Along with prisoner
releases, the next important element in moving ahead with the 'road
map' is the Palestinian demand that Israel withdraw from more of the
West Bank." In fact, prisoner releases are not even mentioned in the
road map.
And according to the road map, the PA's obligation to uproot terror
was clearly "the next important element."
In August, after the
IDF killed a Hamas leader, a
Hamas
spokesman fed reporters this line: "The Zionist enemy has
assassinated the truce," so therefore "we consider ourselves no longer
bound by this cease-fire." This, despite the fact that Hamas
themselves admitted to engineering the horrific Jerusalem bus bombing
the week before. Nonetheless, the
LA Times swallowed Hamas' propaganda and issued the headline:
"Truce Ended After Israeli Airstrike."
A July
San Diego Union-Tribune article merited the ignominious honor of
generating the most letters from HonestReporting subscribers.
The Union-Tribune blithely compared the death of an innocent terror
victim to Rachel Corrie, whose militant organization was found
harboring an Islamic Jihad terrorist in March. Both young West Coast
women, said the Union-Tribune,
"believed in their struggle."
A July Washington Post editorial repeatedly called Palestinian
terrorist organizations "militant groups," and then
―
sandwiched among those references
―
referred to "militant Jewish settlers." The editorial claimed these
two groups constitute "the extremists on both sides." HonestReporting investigated,
but has yet to find any cases of Jewish
suicide bombers.
After Israeli planes
hit an abandoned Syrian camp, the
Washington Post
opined that "Mr. Sharon prodded a country suspected of supporting
terrorism." Suspected? Since 1979, Syria has never failed to make the
U.S. State Department's annual listing of nations that sponsor
terrorism.
On April 30, the road
map was delivered in Israel, and on that very day a terrorist struck a
Tel Aviv bar, killing 3 and wounding 40. The Washington Post not only
failed to give the terrorist attack headline coverage, but granted it
only one brief paragraph, buried deep in the article covering the
launch of the road map.
On the other hand,
the very next day (May 2), on the front page above the fold, The
Washington Post published an article headlined "Israeli
Incursion Kills 13 in Gaza, 'Map' Sabotaged Palestinians Say."
* * *
HonestReporting encourages subscribers to write to Reuters, expressing
your perspective on their "news" coverage:
editor@reuters.com
Thank you for your
ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting.com
The Dishonest Reporter 'Award' 2002
Our annual award for the most skewed and biased reporting.
We thank all the HonestReporting members for submitting nominations for this year's Dishonest Reporting "Award". There were many ignoble candidates, and we distilled the list down to the worst offenders.
HonestReporting took many factors into account: Was there a policy of deliberate bias? Were reports based on unreliable sources or no sources at all? Did the reporter or publication refuse to admit its errors?
So without further ado, we regretfully present the Dishonest Reporting Award 2002. "Dishonorable mentions" are listed first (in alphabetical order), followed by the bias champion.
== ASSOCIATED PRESS HEADLINE WRITERS ==
In January 2002, two separate incidents occurred on the same day: 1) A Palestinian terrorist sprayed machine-gun fire on shoppers in downtown Jerusalem, and 2) Israel uncovered a bomb factory in the West Bank, subsequently killing the 4 Hamas terrorists who operated it. In a vile case of "moral equivalency," the Associated Press ran the following headline: "ISRAEL KILLS 4, PALESTINIAN WOUNDS 8".
A few days later, a Palestinian rampaged through central Israel in stolen cars for 3 hours, driving over police, soldiers and pedestrians, before finally being shot. A terribly misleading headline appeared on an Associated Press story (in the Times of London): "PALESTINIAN SHOT DEAD IN TEL AVIV".
Earlier that week, AP delivered another botched headline, in reporting on Israel's incursion into the town of Tulkarem: "ISRAEL TAKES OVER ENTIRE WEST BANK".
Extrapolate from there and you'll get an idea of the bias that AP headline writers were engaging in all year.
==== BBC ====
Last year's winner of the Dishonest Reporting Award received a slew of nominations again this year. Members particularly criticized B BC for being caught altering a quote by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, substituting the word "terror" with the word "violence" in reference to Palestinians. Does BBC still believe that terror only occurs in the British Isles?
==== CBC ====
Canadian members nominated correspondent Neil MacDonald of the CBC for trying to disprove comments made by Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, in which he promised to export "martyrdom operations" worldwide. The comments -- reported by journalist Paul Martin -- sparked a Canadian ban on Hezbollah. MacDonald suggested that Martin fabricated the comments -- prompting Martin to file a defamation suit against CBC.
Also in April, CBC devoted three days to intensive broadcasting on the Middle East, presenting documentaries rehashing the 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacre ("The Accused"), glorifying Arafat ("Arafat: The Struggle for Palestine"), a personal profile of a homicide bomber ("Suicide As a Weapon"), and showing aggressive Israeli military actions against Palestinians ("The Ugly War: Israel Undercover"). The films were accompanied by the "Counterspin" talk show that gave forum to anti-Israel voices.
==== CNN ====
In May, HonestReporting members took CNN to task for originally giving more airtime to the family of a suicide bomber, than to the Israeli victims' family. Resentment built up more after founder Ted Turner equated Israeli security measures with Palestinian terror. Israeli satellite TV companies nearly dropped the network in favor of Fox News, and CNN instituted some sweeping editorial changes. The New York Times cited HonestReporting for its role in affecting policy, and the Jerusalem Post reported that "HonestReporting.com readers sent up to 6,000 e-mails a day to CNN executives, effectively paralyzing their internal e-mail system."
==== MSNBC ====
MSNBC ombudsman Dan Fisher wrote that "reporters and producers have been instructed not to use [the term 'terrorism'] in news reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict except in direct quotations."
When HonestReporting criticized this bizarre policy, MSNBC columnist Michael Moran wrote that HonestReporting is "aimed at muzzling free speech," and sensationalized that HonestReporting "has urged its subscribers to vent their collective spleen by pelting the accused with angry e-mails demanding that we fall into line, or else."
Calling for journalistic accountability is hardly equated with muzzling free speech, and surely the vast majority of HonestReporting members have non-vented spleens.
MSNBC.com also featured a web log by Eric Alterman, who called the arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti "the very definition of a freedom fighter," and said that Ariel Sharon is "like Hamas" and is leading the "horrifying spiral of death."
==== NPR ====
Most NPR nominations singled out for censure "The Mideast: A Century in Conflict," a seven-part historical series by Mike Schuster. The October broadcast "whitewashed a history of Arab violence and extremism while attempting to paint Israel as a colonial power," as one member succinctly wrote.
==== NEW YORK TIMES ====
Among the many nominations for the NY Times, an April report by Joel Greenberg stood out. "2 Girls, Divided by War, Joined in Carnage" shocked readers with moral equivalence between Rachel Levy, killed while shopping for the Sabbath, and Ayat al-Akhras, who blew herself up, killing Levy and a security guard. (A Newsweek cover story made the same side-by-side comparison.)
In January 2002, the first woman suicide bomber, Wafa Idris blew herself up on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem. In a gross example of misplaced sympathy, The Times described Idris as "chestnut hair curling past her shoulders... [who] raised doves and adored children." This despite the fact that she had killed or wounded 150 innocent civilians.
==== JOHN PILGER ====
For weeks, outrage poured in from UK, Australia and South African over Pilger's documentary, "Palestine is Still the Issue." In the UK, the documentary aired immediately after Yom Kippur, exacerbating the ill-will. Even Michael Green, chairman of Carlton Television which produced the documentary, called Pilger's show, "factually incorrect, historically incorrect," and a "tragedy for Israel so far as accuracy is concerned."
==== REUTERS ====
Reuters reported on the deportation of two Palestinians to the Gaza Strip, saying that they were "dumped... to fend for themselves." Reuters made no mention of the fact that Israel arranged a family reunion prior to the deportation, and gave them food and bottled water, plus 1000 shekels each for relocation assistance, and that they spent the night comfortably at a Red Cross facility in Gaza. A far cry from "dumped to fend for themselves."
==== GERALDO RIVERA ====
Covering Operation Defensive Wall, Geraldo Rivera told Fox viewers: "When you use tanks and F-16s, and these sledgehammers against thickly populated civilian towns and cities, that's not fighting terrorism. That is inflicting terrorism... I have been a Zionist my entire life. I would die for Israel. But watching the suffering of the Palestinian people, I'm also becoming a Palestinian-ist..." Rivera said he received 18,000 emails in response to his comment.
==== WASHINGTON POST ====
Top Hamas terrorist Nasser Jarrar lost both his legs and an arm last year when a bomb he was making exploded; he then continued to organize suicide bombings. In August, when Israel made a pinpoint strike against Jarrar, the Washington Post published the following distorted headline: "DISABLED MILITANT'S DEFIANT LAST BATTLE: LEGLESS, ONE-ARMED PALESTINIAN DIES SHOOTING." Writer Molly Moore glorified Jarrar as some type of folk hero, referring to his "resilient career," and only in the final paragraph mentioned how Jarrar's bomb-making caused the loss of his own limbs.
And now for the winner of the Dishonest Reporting Award 2002. A huge number of nominations expressed alarm over media coverage of the Jenin battle in April. Most notably, the British media reported "facts" of IDF massacres, atrocities, summary executions, and mass graves -- which in the end were shown by United Nations and Human Rights Watch reports to have been fabricated by overzealous Palestinian "witnesses."
Here are a few examples of how the British media reported on Jenin:
"We are talking here of massacre, and a cover-up, of genocide..." -- London Evening Standard
"Rarely, in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life." -- The Times of London
Israel's actions in Jenin were "every bit as repellent" as Osama Bin Laden's attack on New York on September 11. -- The Guardian
"Hundreds of victims 'were buried by bulldozer in mass grave'." -- Daily Telegraph
Why the overzealous reaction based on spurious evidence?
Alon Ben-David, a veteran military correspondent for the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (and currently at Harvard), told UPI: "A large part of the European media regards itself as not just reporters but as ideological crusaders. They are in the business of journalism not just for the business. They want to do good in the world. They have agendas."
Looking back, the alarmist Jenin coverage has impacted the Mideast conflict in three key respects:
1) Palestinian Mythology
By allowing unfounded rumors to be reported as factual, the media has helped create a false Palestinian mythology over the battle of Jenin: i.e. the few fought the many and bravely chose to die in battle rather than surrender. Just as plenty of people are willing to believe that the Israeli Mossad was somehow behind September 11, plenty are willing to believe that the IDF got away with murder in Jenin, too.
This slipshod coverage adds fuel to the fire of those who falsely accuse the IDF of using excessive force. In reality, by using ground troops instead of an aerial assault, IDF troops put themselves in danger in order to spare Palestinian casualties -- and lost 23 soldiers in Jenin.
Since these myths are now part of Palestinian lore, true reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians becomes more difficult. Palestinians will resurrect and spuriously compare Jenin to Sabra and Shatilla (where Christian Phalangists indeed massacred hundreds of Palestinian refugees), proving how poor media coverage of can further widen the Israeli-Palestinian gulf.
* * *
2) Residual References
Even after the allegations of a "massacre" were proven false, some of the media can't seem to let go. In August, Peter Cave of Australia's ABC insisted:
"I personally saw 30 Palestinian corpses at the hospital on April the 20th, and with dozens of other foreign reporters, watched them being buried at a mass grave just up the road from the hospital... Just as in Tiananmen Square, the power of the gun and the tank ensured there was no proper body count or accounting. Just as happened in Tiananmen Square, the uninformed and those with their own agenda, are now claiming there was no massacre. There was a massacre, a considerable number of human beings were indiscriminately and unnecessarily slaughtered..."
The media continues to trump up the Jenin charges in other ways. In November, when former IDF chief of staff Shaul Mofaz was appointed Defense Minister, BBC reported that Mofaz "directed some of Israel's most controversial operations in the West Bank earlier this year, including Jenin -- where Palestinians claim a massacre took place -- and Ramallah."
After HonestReporting complaints, BBC subsequently changed the wording to "Jenin -- where a Palestinian refugee camp was all but demolished..." This, too, is biased wording, as fighting only took place in a 200-square-meter area -- about 6% of the total area of the camp.
* * *
3) Credibility of Palestinian Spokesmen
HonestReporting has encouraged the media to challenge specious and inaccurate claims made by Palestinian spokesmen, particularly the charges of massacres. On April 14, Saeb Erekat was challenged by CNN's Bill Hemmer: "You said specifically, and others said 500 in Jenin... Where are you getting evidence that shows 500 people were killed there? ...If [Israel's] numbers are right and your initial numbers are wrong, will you come back here on our network and retract what you said?"
Erekat: "Absolutely."
(We're still waiting.)
With so many Palestinian spokesmen issuing false accusations about Jenin, this calls into question the general advisability of the media relying on Palestinian claims.
In April, Palestinian spokesman Nabil Sha'ath went on CNN to report that 30 Palestinian women died in labor at Israeli checkpoints. The canard joins other Palestinian claims of Israel using radioactive ammunition, Nazi tactics, and nerve gas, along with the charges that Jewish settlers tortured Palestinians (though investigations later revealed they had actually died in traffic accidents or were executed by Palestinians as "collaborators").
Also in April, Palestinian spokesmen claimed that documents confiscated from Arafat's compound in Ramallah, detailing Arafat's senior advisors' involvement in suicide bombings and terrorism, were fraudulent forgeries. Abdel Rahman told CNN: "This is a fraud by the Israeli intelligence, sir. The Israelis have a department that specializes in putting out lies." And Nasser Al-Kidwa (Palestinian representative to the UN) told CNN: "...some kind of James Bond activities... bits and pieces of rumors and unsubstantiated claims."
If Palestinian spokespeople repeatedly use the media as a platform to promote outright lies, doesn't the media have a responsibility to ban that spokesperson, and to generally be wary of unquestionably swallowing Palestinian claims?
* * *
It may take years for the Jenin dust to settle. But one thing we have learned: The British media will not hesitate to promote a biased anti-Israel agenda, whether or not the facts are there to back it up.
We recall how the global chorus of condemnation prompted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to call on Israel on to halt its military operations. "Can the whole world be wrong?" he asked.
In fact, the whole world was wrong. Phil Reeves of The Independent, known as a frequent critic of Israel, wrote of Jenin: "Even journalists have to admit they're wrong sometimes."
But it was too little, too late. The damage had been done. And for that, the British media deserves the Dishonest Reporting Award 2002.
The Dishonest Reporter 'Award' 2001
Our annual award for the most skewed and biased reporting.
This article is translated into Hebrew at Hidden News.
We thank all the members of HonestReporting for sending recommendations for this year's Dishonest Reporting 'Award'. There were many candidates for the ignominious honor, and we distilled the list down to the worst offenders.
HonestReporting took many factors into account: Was there a policy of deliberate bias? Did a reporter base reports on unreliable sources or no sources at all? Did the reporter or publication refuse to admit its errors?
So now, without further ado, we regretfully present the Dishonest Reporting "Award" 2001. There were many fine candidates, but only one winner. The "dishonorable mentions" (in alphabetical order) are followed by the bias champion. URLs have been included where available. And we hope that next year, this list will be much, much shorter.
In March 2001, a Palestinian sniper looked through the crosshairs of his scope and murdered Shalhevet Pass, a 10-month old Jewish baby in Hebron. AP's headline writers declared: "Jewish Toddler Dies In West Bank."
AP made no mention of who perpetrated the murder, and there is no indication of the ghastly nature of the crime. According to AP, the baby just "died" -- as if from natural causes or an accident. More accurately, Shalhevet Pass was murdered, shot, gunned down, or assassinated -- by a killer, gunman, terrorist, or sniper.
More AP bias appeared in June, following the heinous suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv disco. AP published the headline: "Explosion Kills Bomber in Tel Aviv."
This was an early AP report, when the final death toll was not available, but at that point it was already known that there were scores of Israeli casualties. So why did AP downplay this bestial act as an "explosion," and focus on the suffering -- not of innocent teens -- but of the evil bomber?
In November, when a Palestinian terrorist sprayed machine-gun fire at a bus in Jerusalem, killing two teenagers and wounding 40, AP reported: "On Sunday, a Palestinian shooting attack on a bus in a disputed section of Jerusalem killed two teen-agers, one of them a U.S.-born settler." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011105/aponline152339_000.htm
The American citizen, 16-year-old Shoshana Ben-Yishai, is described by AP as a "settler." But she was murdered in Jerusalem. To add insult to injury, another AP report refers to the heroic Israeli civilian who killed the terrorist as, you guessed it, "a West Bank settler." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011105/aponline021704_000.htm
Associated Press boasts some 8,500 client newspapers around the world. No other news agency wields so much clout. Therefore, no news agency bears as much responsibility for honest reporting.
===== CNN =====
Early in the Intifada, HonestReporting conducted a comprehensive study of CNN, analyzing all 133 lead articles in the Mideast section of CNN.com during October 2000, the first month of violence.
In these 133 articles, CNN depicted Arabs in 128 photos, while Israelis were depicted in 60 photos. Photos are important in building reader sympathies with one side or the other, and on this case, CNN's bias was skewed more than double in favor of the Palestinians.
In those same 133 CNN articles, 68 accusations by Arab spokespeople were allowed to stand unchallenged. By comparison, only 28 Israeli quotes were left unchallenged -- a CNN bias skewed more than double in favor of the Palestinians.
CNN bias during 2001 was typified by its coverage of a rally of 250,000 Israelis gathered outside the Old City walls in support of Jerusalem. The early edition of CNN devoted a paltry 5 sentences to the event. In the later edition, when many more details were available, the rally was not mentioned in the headline at all -- and CNN did not give details of the rally until paragraph #14.
The later CNN article, published after all the speeches had been made, did not offer even one quote from any of the quarter-million attendees. The lone CNN quote came from Muslim Waqf Adnan Husseini, who called the rally "provocative." Were no Jews available for comment?!
In the same article, CNN gravely diminished the Jewish connection. There was no mention of the Temple Mount as Judaism's holiest site, nor to Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people (as it has been for over 3,000 years -- 1,500 years before Islam ever existed). CNN's description: "The site is known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, the third-holiest site in the Islamic world."
Further, in a bizarre reference, CNN says the site of the rally was: "Jaffa Gate, or Bab al-Khalil, the main western entrance to the walled city." "Jaffa Gate" is the standard reference in any encyclopedia, university textbook, diplomatic document, media style guide, or any other acceptable Western source. So why does CNN go out of its way -- particularly in the context of reporting a Jewish rally -- to dredge up Bab al-Khalil, an obscure Arabic reference? http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/01/08/mideast.04/index.html
= ROBERT FISK - THE INDEPENDENT (UK) =
For more than two decades, Robert Fisk has used his correspondent card to proudly become a crusader for Arab and Palestinian causes. In the 1970s, Fisk reported from Beirut for the London Times. And now, writing for the Independent (UK), Fisk blames Israel for all the Palestinians' ills, and blames the West for all Muslim disgruntlement.
The day after the September 11 attacks, Fisk defied the civilized world and blamed Israel, America, and even the defeat of the Ottoman Empire for the WTC terrorist attack. Fisk proclaimed:
"...This is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps."
Fisk claimed that there would be an "immoral" attempt to "obscure the historical wrongs and the injustices that lie behind yesterday's firestorms."
Even as Taliban supporters in Afghanistan beat him to a pulp last month, Fisk rationalized: "I couldn't blame them for what they were doing. In fact, if I were the Afghan refugees of Kila Abdullah, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, I would have done just the same to Robert Fisk."
Fisk is overt in his anti-Israel crusade, and portrays any reporter not willing to criticize Israel as a coward: "Our gutlessness, our refusal to tell the truth, our fear of being slandered as 'anti-Semites' -- the most loathsome of libels against any journalist -- means that we are aiding and abetting terrible deeds in the Middle East."
= SUZANNE GOLDENBERG - THE GUARDIAN (UK) =
Suzanne Goldenberg's coverage consistently whitewashed Palestinian terrorist activity and painted Israeli reaction as aggression. In February 2001, when a Palestinian driver plowed his bus into a bus stop, killing eight Israeli civilians, Goldenberg was quick to defend him:
"Far from being... a dedicated terrorist," she wrote, he was a "man who has been taking medication for depression for two years... That Wednesday morning he added antihistamines and antibiotics to the pharmaceutical cocktail. Both can cause drowsiness, according to the pharmacist." This is even after the bus driver admitted to Israeli General Security Service investigators that the attack was intentional and premeditated. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4137274,00.html
Incredibly, Goldenberg has won several journalism awards this year from British institutions. The London Press Club said her coverage was a display of "courageous and objective journalism." At another award ceremony, Goldenberg was lauded: "This journalist has been subjected to a campaign of vilification" -- in reference to criticism levied by HonestReporting.
The Guardian waged its own campaign of vilification against Israelis. In February 2001, in reference to Ariel Sharon's visit to the Western Wall (the standard Israeli custom after all elections), The Guardian carried the headline, "Sharon Twists Knife in Muslim Wounds." The Guardian also ran a cartoon that obscenely depicted Sharon's bloody handprints on the Western Wall. The cartoon desecrated the holiest Jewish site and encroached on brash anti-Semitism. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/graphic/0,5543,435245,00.html
In February 2001, the Guardian published an editorial column entitled "Media Manipulators," chronicling HonestReporting's criticism of the Guardian. Yet the Guardian ignored the message and attacked the messenger -- calling HonestReporting e-mails "bizarre... inconvenient... scary... harassment," and referred to some HonestReporting members as "shadowy... extremists." http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4140042,00.html
In May 2001, Newsweek's bureau chief in Israel, Joshua Hammer and his photographer, conducted an interview with Palestinian leaders in Gaza. As the interview was completed, the Palestinians informed Hammer and the photographer they were being held captive. After four hours, they were released. One would expect a kidnap victim to be traumatized and angry. But Hammer had only compliments for his Palestinian captors, as described in Newsweek:
"...Hammer says he never feared his captors would hurt him or Knight. 'They never threatened us or pointed their guns at us,' Hammer says. 'They actually fed us one of the best meals I've eaten in Gaza.'"
In another report, Hammer wrote that most "Palestinians have given up hope of real political progress" as long as Sharon is in power. He questions if the Palestinians have the patience to wait for a "more moderate Israeli leader." The fact is that Palestinians have already rejected far-reaching compromises offered by "a more moderate leader," Ehud Barak.
In December, Newsweek presented "A Tale of Two Enemies," a side-by-side comparison of Arafat and Sharon. Arafat is described glowingly as a "revolutionary," a "civil engineer," and a trailblazing diplomat who was the first to be accorded special status at the United Nations. Yet nowhere is Arafat described as a founder of a terrorist organization, nor is there any mention of his connection to terror acts.
===== CHRIS HEDGES - HARPERS =====
In the October edition of Harpers, Chris Hedges wrote his sensationalized "Gaza Diary: Scenes from the Palestinian Uprising." The entire article is a diatribe against Israel without any response by Israeli spokesmen. The climax is a section in which Hedges accuses Israeli soldiers in Gaza of goading Palestinian children to their death: "I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."
Hedges offers no corroborating evidence -- no photos, no videos, no outside verification. Hedges never even saw or heard the shots of the alleged crime. He wrote that the Palestinian youth "descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers."
In preparing his slander, Hedges apparently was unaware that silencers do not exist in the Israeli arsenal, and it is difficult -- if not impossible -- to outfit an M-16 high velocity rifle with a silencer. Hedges apparently confused "silencers" with canisters of rubber projectiles -- a non-lethal alternative used by the IDF soldiers on the end of their M-16s.
= LEE HOCKSTADER - THE WASHINGTON POST =
In July 2001, Hockstader presented a shocking 1,300-word defense of Aziz Salha, the Palestinian who proudly waved his bloody hands out of the window of a Ramallah police station after the brutal lynching of two Israelis. Hockstader provided a sympathetic psychoanalysis of the murderer:
"The young man was very ill when he was a baby, he stuttered, he was shy... maybe it really wasn't him photographed in the window... people's emotions were boiling over because of Palestinians teens shot by Israeli soldiers... Israel's settlements and occupation were on Salha's mind... he was a calm, good-natured and athletic kid..."
In August, Hockstader filed "Palestinians Find Heroes in Hamas," a profile of the terrorist organization that dispatches suicide bombers against Israeli targets. Hockstader paints the organization in moderate shades:
"The group's goal is an independent homeland in at least the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- and, Israelis fear, on the territory of the Jewish state."
But Hockstader has been around long enough to know that the destruction of Israel is one of Hamas' main tenets and not just a figment of "Israeli fears." The Hamas covenant clearly states, "There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad." The U.S. State Department's annual terrorism report defines Hamas' goal as "establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel."
Dishonorable mention goes to Washington Post ombudsman Mike Getler, who in March 2001, unhappy by the flood of HonestReporting e-mails, complained at having been "smeared by your robot-like members [who] responded in knee-jerk fashion."
===== REUTERS =====
Reuters set new standards of inappropriate "even-handedness," by refusing to refer to Palestinian suicide bombers -- or even the September 11 attackers -- as "terrorists." Steven Jukes, Reuters' global head of news, said:
"We all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist... To be frank, it adds little to call the attack on the World Trade Center a terrorist attack."
Even-handedness characterized Reuters coverage throughout the year. In April, a Reuters report on the 1948 War of Independence stated: "Palestinians mark the birth of Israel on May 15, 1948, as their 'Nakba' or catastrophe, which led to the loss of 78 percent of historic Palestine. Some 700,000 Palestinians left or were forced to flee their homes in the fighting that accompanied the declaration of the Jewish state."
Reuters made no mention of the fact that Israel was invaded by 5 Arab armies, and no mention that Israel lost key parcels of land including the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and towns in Gaza and the West Bank. And Reuters made no mention of the 650,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries who similarly "left or were forced to flee their homes."
Reuters' Israel correspondent Christine Hauser delivered her own unique form of "even-handed" bias. In a report on Israel actions in the Arab town of Beit Jala, Hauser ignored the fact that Israeli troops were responding to Palestinian salvoes and snipers shooting at Gilo.
Hauser mimicked the Palestinian line, saying that "Gilo is a settlement," without presenting the other view of Gilo as a mainstream Jewish neighborhood within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries. According to Hauser, the Palestinians were "fighting for an end to Jewish settlements and the Israeli occupation."
In the same report, Hauser exhibited either ignorance or propaganda when she wrote: "All of the [Beit Jala residents] have ashtrays brimming with collected spent bullet casings." Sorry, Christine. Spent bullet casings are found at the point of origin of the shooting, not at the target.
In December, when terrorists attacked a busload of Israeli civilians near Emmanuel, killing 10, Reuters offered justification for the murder spree: "Most of the Israeli dead were settlers, whom [Palestinian] militants consider targets as occupiers of Palestinian land."
== DEBORAH SONTAG - THE NEW YORK TIMES ==
Deborah Sontag thankfully left Israel in July, but before leaving she took a parting shot at Israel in a front-page, 6,000-word tome entitled, "Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why It Failed." Sontag took great pains to defend Yasser Arafat: "[M]any diplomats and officials believe that the dynamic was far more complex and that Mr. Arafat does not bear sole responsibility for the breakdown of the peace effort." http://nytimes.com/2001/07/26/international/26MIDE.html
Sontag's article has many serious flaws, but one stands out as particularly glaring and biased: She quoted extensively from various Palestinian and American negotiators, but totally ignored the comments made one week earlier in a major policy address by Israel's chief negotiator, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who outlined Arafat's culpability.
In April, Sontag portrayed 10-moth-old Shalhevet Pass, murdered by a Palestinian sniper, as a despised settler: "Many Israelis have long considered the Hebron settlers to be extremists, living in a world apart. But they rallied behind the community after Shalhevet was killed; newspaper headlines referred to the killing of an Israeli baby and not a "settler baby." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/02/world/02MIDE.html
Sontag made the outrageous implication that Jews might normally disregard the ruthless murder of another Jew, simply because they don't share the same political views. Is the average Israeli so cold-hearted? No. But perhaps Sontag is.
In February 2001, Sontag and the Guardian's Goldenberg engaged in classic "pack journalism" by filing nearly identical stories about a Ramallah "martyrs" museum. Both Sontag and Goldenberg used the uncommon word "totem" and then delivered this identical (plagiarized?) one-two bias punch, using the "critics would say" technique of assigning words to a hypothetical Israeli -- had the reporters bothered to ask.
Sontag: "Israeli critics would say that the exhibit, '100 Martyrs - 100 Lives,' glorifies death and encourages the cult of the shaheed, or martyr."
Goldenberg: "Israeli critics would argue that the exhibit glorifies violent death, and promotes a cult of martyrdom."
If two university students had handed these in as term papers, the professor probably would have tossed one or both of them back at the students for cheating.
==============================
========== THE WINNER: ==========
BBC - BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION
==============================
The ignoble winner of the Dishonest Reporting "Award" 2001 is the BBC, for consistently demonstrating fierce anti-Israel bias.
In May 2001, BBC fabricated a film clip in an attempt to show Israeli brutality. When Israelis struck a Palestinian base in Gaza, there were no pictures of victims -- since Israel struck at empty buildings. But BBC editors inserted a film clip of Israeli victims of Palestinian terror arriving at an Israeli hospital, to suggest that these were victims of Israeli attack. The newsreader in London, a former BBC correspondent in Israel herself, ended the segment with "These are the pictures from Gaza."
In June 2001, BBC's flagship "Panorama" program tried to portray Ariel Sharon as a war criminal, in connection with the Lebanese Christian massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla in 1982. An Israeli commission of inquiry decided that Sharon was not responsible for any direct involvement, but BBC asked: "In the light of developments in international war crimes prosecutions... [should] the evidence lead to indictments for what happened in the camps."
Much of BBC's case rested on the view of War Crimes Judge Richard Goldstone, who subsequently accused the BBC of badly distorting the context of his words: "I agreed to speak to [the BBC] as an expert on the law in general, on command responsibility, but I said I would not in any way comment on any liability, criminal or civil, of Ariel Sharon and I didn't do so. I haven't yet seen the program, but if it comes across that way it's incorrect... I certainly didn't comment on the responsibility of Sharon." (Jerusalem Post)
Further, BBC's duplicity in handling the Israeli-Arab conflict was evident in its refusal to label Palestinian atrocities against Israeli civilians as "terrorism." In correspondence with HonestReporting, BBC admitted to a double standard, saying:
"It has long been the policy of the [BBC] domestic service to refer to terrorists in Northern Ireland of any religious persuasion as [terrorists], but the policy of the World Service is not to refer to anyone in those terms."
BBC's coverage was so outrageous that it came under attack by a leading British politician, Iain Duncan Smith, head of the Tory party. "Surely it is time that our national broadcasters, not just, but including the BBC, stopped describing Hamas and Jihad with such euphemisms as radical and militant," Smith declared. "Let us call things what they are: they are terrorist organizations. Such fudging of what Hamas or Islamic Jihad are confers some sort of legitimacy on people who are terrorists." http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1702000/1702120.stm
BBC's bias is perhaps summed up best by one of its own employees, Fayad Abu Shamala, the BBC correspondent in Gaza for the past 10 years. Speaking at a Hamas rally on May 6, 2001, he declared:
"Journalists and media organizations [are] waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people."
In the face of this blatant violation of journalistic ethics, BBC mustered a pathetic response: "Fayad's remarks were made in a private capacity. His reports have always matched the best standards of balance required by the BBC."
If that is the standards of balance required by the BBC, then there is no doubt: BBC has justly earned the Dishonest Reporting "Award" 2001.