Shooting messenger diminishes truth
thestar.com
By Antonia Zerbisias
TRUTH HAS yet to be killed in the war
on terror. Sure, sometimes it goes
AWOL, especially in the United States
where, still, not enough journalists are
asking the tough questions of the White
House.
Often it gets taken hostage. That's
what's happening now, as news
organizations, including ABC, NBC,
CNN, The New York Times and the
Washington Post, are un-reporting facts
they reported four years ago. They're
saying that U.N. weapons inspectors
were "kicked out" of Iraq when, in
1998, they said that they were "pulled
out."
Then there's how truth gets raped.
President George W. Bush does that
when, for example, he cites reports that
say Iraq is close to having a nuclear
weapon when the cited reports say no such thing.
Today's topic is how truth gets caught in the crossfire: Two recent incidents
involving media coverage of Israel and its occupied territories made me lift
mine eyes off SniperVision and back unto the Middle East.
The first involves The Star's Sandro Contenta who, in August, left Jerusalem
to become our European correspondent. No sooner is he gone than Daniel
Seaman, director of Israel's Government Press Office, tells the magazine Kol
Ha'Ir that he engineered Contenta's departure, along with that of three other
journalists from other organizations, because he "boycotted" them.
"The(ir) editorial boards got the message and replaced their people."
Without a grievance from reporters' unions? Astonishing.
Of course, this ridiculous charge was denied by all.
In the same piece, Seaman also claims that reporters for the BBC, CNN,
Reuters, Associated Press, ABC and CBS are all under the direct control of the
Palestinian Authority.
As if AOL Time Warner, Viacom, Disney etc. take their marching orders from
Yasser Arafat. (Mind you, right now they're taking direction from the Beltway
Sniper, a master media manipulator - at least until his ratings drop.)
Seaman presents himself as a man concerned with the truth. But he hurts his
cause more than he helps it. At a time when the pro-Israel side says it needs all
the positive coverage it can get, the guy dealing with the very people -
journalists - who can make or break that coverage, needs to freshen up his
media relations skills.
Which brings us to incident number two: Once again, CBC-TV's Neil
Macdonald is the target of a concerted e-mail attack by a pro-Israeli watchdog
group objecting to his Oct. 3 report about Palestinians being harassed out of
their olive groves by Jewish settlers.
"In the report, the Jewish settlers were portrayed as callous usurpers and
oppressors, the Palestinians as innocent victims of Israeli oppression,"
complains the Vancouver-based Israel Action Committee. "This one-sidedness
is irresponsible journalism and a betrayal of public trust."
Cautioning its members not to reveal the source of the campaign, the
committee asks them "to flood the CBC" with missives "protesting this bias
and informing the CBC that we will continue to bombard their offices with
messages of protest until their Middle East coverage improves."
And so it came to pass that CBC had e-mails from Alabama, Arizona and
Arkansas, places where the network can't be seen.
"So many of these campaigns are just so totally fabricated and organized on
the basis of very misleading information," says CBC chief journalist Tony
Burman. "We're aware of the incredible emotions this story generates. But
there are parts of this debate that crossed the line into total hysteria."
In the Internet age, these e-mail campaigns are common. CNN, for example,
has received thousands in a single day.
According to The Star's letters page editor Gabe Gonda, this paper has also
been targeted.
"I've had, in specific campaigns, hundreds of letters emanating from links on a
bias-in-media site - and they've come from both sides, pro-Israeli,
pro-Palestinian," he says.
"What happens is, organizations whose job it is to monitor so-called accuracy
in media, which means monitoring for your own bias or for your own cause,
are set up."
And many of them are being set up all the time. So many charges of bias are
being hurled almost indiscriminately, perhaps obscuring the legitimate
complaints that may arise.
"I agree," says B'nai Brith's Frank Dimant, who has often criticized The Star's
coverage in The Jewish Tribune. "If there is a campaign over everything, it
diminishes the value of a real campaign."
It also diminishes the truth.
That's because, if media are expected to act as nothing more than megaphones
for the "official truth," the awful truth is that there will be no truth left
standing.
thestar.com
Antonia Zerbisias appears every Thursday. She can be reached at
azerbis@thestar.ca.
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