Asper=ations?He heh heh.....
CBC reporter rejects Asper's aspersions
Winnipeg — The head of CanWest Global Communications got it wrong, just as he accuses journalists of doing when they cover the conflict in the Middle East, the CBC's Washington correspondent said Wednesday.
Neil MacDonald was responding to comments made Tuesday night by Leonard Asper, president and CEO of CanWest Global, in a speech he gave alleging media bias against Israel.
Mr. Asper directed personal comments at Mr. MacDonald during a half-hour attack on what he termed lazy and Marxist journalists who distort the conflict to paint Israel as the villain.
"He [Mr. MacDonald] pompously and dangerously suggested that when Hezbollah was finally banned in Canada that Hezbollah was 'a national liberation movement victimized by unfair smears cast around by supporters of the Jewish state,'" said Mr. Asper.
Mr. Asper didn't just single out the CBC.
He said the BBC, the New York Times and even one of his own newspapers, the National Post, are guilty of presenting stories and or pictures that falsely portray Israel as the brutal oppressor of the Palestinians.
Mr. MacDonald said in a telephone interview from Washington that Mr. Asper did not quote him accurately and falsely suggested he was guilty of anti-Semitism.
The December 2002 story focused on the alleged reason for Canada's decision to ban Hezbollah, a quote attributed to Hezbollah's Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah advocating suicide bombing outside Palestine.
Mr. MacDonald said the quote could not be verified and was reported only in The Washington Times, a right-wing newspaper owned by the Unification Church.
He concluded his report with this remark, according to the script he e-mailed in support of his claim Mr. Asper misquoted him.
"Is Hezbollah a national liberation movement or, as Israel and its supporters maintain, a murderous global menace? To a great many people in this part of the world, to label Hezbollah a terrorist organization is to choose sides in the defining conflict of the Middle East, an intensely political decision for any government."
Mr. MacDonald, the CBC's Middle East correspondent for five years, said Mr. Asper owes him an apology, but he doesn't expect he'll get it.
"The fact that Mr. Asper got the quote so wrong says a lot about him, and a lot about the journalism of his newspapers.
"He uses the false quote to support an odious and, frankly, defamatory accusation of anti-Semitism on my part. It merits an apology, and an honorable journalist would probably print one, but I don't really expect it from the Aspers."
He said Mr. Asper's father, Israel Mr. Asper, founder of CanWest Global, made the same allegations.
"In the five years I covered the Middle East, I always found the anti-Semitism card to be the refuge of the intellectually weak. It's always easier to make that accusation than engage on the issues." |
