Turns out this thread is not the only place that passions are running high over the Jenin story. MSNBC has a interesting article on it.
In Jenin's ruins, a search for truth
Blocked from witnessing a key battle, journalists must now discover what really happened in Palestinian camp assault
By Dan Fisher
MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
COMPLAINTS OF ALLEGED bias in Mideast coverage are not new. But those that have followed in the wake of Jenin are notable for their volume and also because among the specific issues raised are two that seem to me particularly worthy of comment: differences between the U.S. and European news organizations and the treatment of eyewitness accounts.
I've received an unprecedented burst of nearly 1,500 e-mails concerning Jenin in just the last two weeks, the majority clearly the result of orchestrated campaigns. By far, most of the e-mail is pro-Palestinian and depicts Israeli army actions in the camp as war crimes. Fewer, but equally adamant e-mails from supporters of Israel praise the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for reputedly acting with uncommon concern for civilian casualties.
The pro-Palestinian mail charges that the news media has either failed to record or has downplayed reports of Israeli atrocities in Jenin. The pro-Israeli mail accuses the press of uncritically publishing "Palestinian propaganda."
BURIED IN THE RUBBLE
Few of the e-mails express any doubt or question about events, despite the fact that at least part of the truth of what happened in Jenin still lies buried beneath the rubble that used to be the center of the camp. Those who are already staunchly committed to one side or the other in the conflict tend to accept, pretty much without question, any reports that support their preconceptions, whether those reports are substantiated or not. And they see any accounts that challenge their favored version of events, or that simply suggest that the jury is still out, as evidence of media bias.
"Palestinians who committed violations of their people's human rights, basically destroying their own family homes and blaming it on the IDF to gain world sympathy, that's barbaric tactics out of the dark ages. Outrageous and shameful!, wrote one correspondent, who also opined that exposing the "atrocities committed by Yasser Arafat's terrorists? would have made the coverage of Jenin, more real."
"As the Israeli military finally allowed reporters and humanitarian aid to enter Jenin camp in the West Bank, reports are pouring out from European media about the casualties, the atrocities and the war crimes committed by the IDF," wrote another. "Yet American media seems reluctant to take part in informing its American constituency about what really happened. Please take action immediately to report on the war crimes, to call them by their name and to put them on the front pages where they belong."
DIFFERENT STANDARDS
There's no question but that European news organizations have included in their coverage of Jenin reports unlike most of those that characterize the mainstream American press. For one thing, there is more of a tradition of partisanship in the European media. Correspondents often have a much freer hand to write with a point of view than do their U.S. counterparts, who are more constrained by professional ideals of verification and journalistic independence from the groups and causes that they cover. Some of the European media also tend to put heavy emphasis on what amount to reporters diaries, a journalistic technique that often leads to richly detailed stories, but ones which are so narrowly focused that they can blur important aspects of the broader picture. From what I've seen, the results of these differences in the case of Jenin have generally meant more openly critical coverage of IDF actions in Europe than in the United States.
Compounding the difficulties of covering this story is the fact that reporters, rescue workers and other nonpartisan observers were kept out of the camp by the IDF during the fighting. As a result, the only reports of what actually occurred are from people, either Israeli or Palestinian, with a clear stake in how the story is told. Palestinians contend that the reason for the lockout was to hide IDF atrocities and facilitate a cover-up. It's also possible, of course, that the IDF simply wanted to keep these noncombatants out of harm?s way. In any event, news organizations and other investigators are left to try to piece together after-the-fact accounts of the battle largely from interviews rather than first-hand knowledge of anything other than the obvious destruction that occurred.
That tended to give the official Israeli version of events more prominence during the worst of the fighting. So when it was finally possible for journalists to enter the camp, they naturally reported what the residents had to say. And here, both sides of the conflict complained about the coverage, the pro-Israel camp that journalists were too accepting of whatever the residents told them, the pro-Palestinian side that journalists were overly skeptical of the same reports.
Reporting eyewitness accounts in such highly charged circumstances means walking a professional tightrope. Journalists probe for details that help them judge the credibility of the account. They seek confirmation from others. The best reporters include in their dispatches enough information about their probing so viewers/listeners/readers understand why the journalists evaluated the account the way they did and make their own judgment.
From my perspective, the coverage of Jenin by MSNBC.com and its content partners so far, at least, has been appropriate, given the level of access to events and the standards of verification and independence that are central to American-style journalism. But the job is clearly not done. There have been early attempts in the mainstream U.S. media to probe more deeply into what happened in Jenin, all of which stress their preliminary nature. (See, for example, "In Jenin, Sorting out Elusive Truth" from The Washington Post; "In Rubble of a Refugee Camp, Bitter Lessons for 2 Enemies," from The New York Times, and "The Battle That Defines the Israeli Offensive" from The Los Angeles Times
SEEKING CLARITY
Real clarity, or at least the closest we're going to get to it, will take more time. Time to clear the rubble; time to piece together and try to confirm individual accounts of those who stayed and those who fled the battle; time for the United Nations inquiry launched this week to do its work. Were civilians always warned to abandon buildings before those structures were bulldozed? Did Israeli soldiers use Palestinian civilians as human shields? Did Palestinian fighters do the same thing? How many died? And how many of those were civilians?
No media coverage of Jenin, no matter how comprehensive, is going to satisfy everybody. As the New York Times put it: "The battle here is already gathering force as an enduring lesson and inspiration, another sorrowful chapter in the contested narrative about the struggle over this land."
But the battle over Jenin is too important to let slip out of the headlines until MSNBC.com, and responsible journalists everywhere, can offer better answers to those outstanding questions than have been available so far.
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Dan Fisher is the MSNBC.com ombudsman, an independent critic of the journalism that appears on this site. Contact him at ombudsman@msnbc.com.
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