Dear HonestReporting Subscriber,
What happens when a movie crew drops into a
conflict zone for three years and produces an 80-minute, narrowly-focused
documentary lacking context or narration?
The Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation is Canada's national public broadcaster.
According to its own
website:
The CBC occupies a unique position of trust. Not only is
it the most substantial and broadly-based broadcast
journalism organization in Canada, it is funded, through
Parliament, by the people of Canada. The CBC therefore
considers it a duty to provide consistent, high-quality
information upon which all citizens may rely.
These
standards were not in evidence, however,
on
November 20, when CBC Newsworld presented the film "CHECKPOINT" on the
documentary program "The Passionate Eye." Shot
between 2001 and 2003
by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir, Checkpoint shows
poignant and disturbing images of Israelis with weapons controlling the
movements of unarmed Palestinians. Without context or narration, the
film leaves viewers to draw their own conclusions: Are checkpoint
restrictions prompted by legitimate security concerns, the arbitrary whim of
individual soldiers, or the cruelty of a military bent on inflicting misery
and humiliation?
A Movie in a Vacuum
 |
|
Yoav Shamir |
The story of Israel's security checkpoints is one of
competing narratives. The Israeli consensus holds that checkpoints are a
necessary and effective tool to impede terrorists' movement and prevent
their infiltration into Israel. The Palestinian position is that checkpoints
are designed to humiliate and oppress Palestinians.
Filmmaker Yoav Shamir, who
described the movie as "my part in the struggle against the
injustices of occupation," steered away from the political and
historical context in which the checkpoints exist. The resulting film is a
narrowly focused documentary that conveys the Palestinian narrative while
ignoring the existence of other perspectives.
The film never touches upon
the terror attacks that lead to the checkpoints, never explores the
intelligence warnings that lead to their closure, and never reveals their
effectiveness in preventing terror attacks.
The Truth about Checkpoints
 |
|
Video: Female suicide bomber |
|
|
 |
|
Video: Child suicide bomber |
|
-
While the movie was being filmed between
2001 and 2003, over 800 Israelis were killed and nearly 5,000 were wounded
in terror attacks, including more than 100 suicide attacks (see
statistics)
-
Security forces
regularly stop suicide
bombers and weapons smugglers at
checkpoints;
in the past two months alone, 14 Palestinian minors were stopped
while attempting to detonate or smuggle weapons or explosives through
checkpoints
-
While the
movie
implies that women and children do not engage in terror, women
carry out suicide bombings and mentally handicapped children have been
exploited for that purpose
-
The same day that CBC broadcast the documentary, a
Palestinian teen and a
Palestinian
woman were arrested while trying to kill Israeli soldiers at
checkpoints
-
Many checkpoint encounters are entirely
mundane, as
these
pictures snapped by an Israeli reserve soldier show.
CBC: Responsible Journalism?
As a public broadcasting agency accountable to the Parliament
and people of Canada, did the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation meet its
obligation to be "fair, accurate, thorough, comprehensive and balanced"?
Section III of
CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices states:
5. - BALANCE: There are two sources of balance and fairness
in information programming, one provided by the journalist and the other
provided by the CBC as a journalistic organization... The CBC, as a
journalistic organization, must ensure that its programming is fair and
balanced. Program balance should be achieved, where appropriate, within a
single program or otherwise within an identifiable series of programs.
5.1 - SINGLE PROGRAM: Single programs dealing with a major
controversial issue should give adequate recognition to the range of
opinion on the subject. Fairness must be the guiding principle in
presentation, so that the audience is enabled to make a judgment on the
matter in question based on the facts.
Yet CBC
did not provide the context that would enable viewers to understand the
checkpoints. CBC's
introductory voice-over and
closing note failed to mention the deadly violence that brought
about the checkpoints. And CBC's
online
description of the film
-- 317 words long --
never informed viewers that the checkpoints were intended to stop suicide
bombings. Instead,
it spoke of Israelis' "almost unlimited position of power" and "the corruption of the conqueror brought about by extended occupation."
Letters to CBC:
audience_relations@cbc.ca
With thanks to our
affiliate,
HonestReporting Canada for producing this
communique.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle
against media bias.
HonestReporting
