From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 19:50:33
To: undisclosed-recipients:,
Subject: CAMERA's Assault on NPR and the Truth-A classic analysis
CAMERA'S CONTINUED ASSAULT ON NPR AND THE TRUTH
August 21, 2001
by Ali Abunimah
"National Public Radio reporters may not be fair or balanced when it comes
to covering the Middle East, they may not be paragons of accuracy, or
exemplars of journalistic ethics, but say this much for them they are
consistent. When it comes to putting forth a pro-Palestinian line, day in
and day out, they have no equals in the United States."
So says the pro-Israeli group CAMERA ("Committee for Accuracy in Middle
East Reporting in America") in its latest attack on National Public Radio
(NPR). But it is CAMERA that once again proves that it is the party that
has regard neither for accuracy nor for ethics.
CAMERA's August 12 action alert "National Public Radio - All Bias, All the
Time" (see http://world.std.com/~camera/docs/alert/nprbias.html) cites
just two reports to make its case, one on July 27 and one on August 9,
both by NPR's Linda Gradstein.
But NPR broadcast more than 20 reports between July 27 and August 12, so
why did CAMERA only pick two to comment on? The answer is that CAMERA
relies solely on omission and distortion to make a case.
CAMERA writes: "On the morning of July 27, for example, there were two
Middle East stories for NPR to cover: (1) Palestinian gunmen shot and
killed a seventeen-year-old Israeli boy named Ronen Landau as he was
driving home with his father and brother. Just before this attack the same
gunmen had shot at Israeli children in a playground. (2) The funeral of
Saleh Darwazeh, a senior Hamas operative who had been killed by Israeli
troops. Darwazeh had engineered numerous fatal attacks against Israelis."
"Which story did NPR emphasize," CAMERA asks, "which person did the
publicly-funded network humanize with details and names and
interviews?" "In an 1141 word story," CAMERA complains, "NPR devoted
exactly 26 words to the murder of the Israeli boy in front of his father
and brother, not even bothering to mention his name."
In fact, in addition to this report, NPR ran several news spots the same
morning which gave prominence to the killing of the Israeli teenager. Only
a few days before, on July 24, by contrast Gradstein filed a news spot
which reported graphically on the killing of another Israeli teenager
without mentioning a 15-year old Palestinian boy killed just hours earlier
by Israeli occupation troops (see
http://www.abunimah.org/nprletters/010724gradstein.html)
CAMERA complains that Gradstein's July 27 report "interviewed no Israelis
who might have articulated" that Palestinians started a "virtual
war" against Israel, and describing the dangers that Israeli settlers face
on the roads. In fact, if we look at NPR's reporting in just the three
days following the July 27 report, up to and including July 31, we find
that it interviewed the following Israelis in addition to some
Palestinians:
Raanan Gissin, Israeli government spokesman
Yaakov Levy, Israeli diplomat
Shmuel Rabinovitch, Rabbi of the Western Wall
Danny Ayalon, Israeli government spokesman
Chemi Shalev, Israeli analyst, Maariv newspaper
Michael Kleiner, Knesset Member from "hard right"
Chaim Shebe, Israeli analyst, Yediot Aharonot newspaper
Michael Orrin, historian, Shlaim Center
Hirsch Goodman, senior fellow, Jafee Center for Strategic Studies (Tel
Aviv)
Not only did all of these people provide Israeli perspectives, but on July
31, the same day that Israel carried out a missile attack on Nablus
killing eight Palestinians, including two children, Gradstein filed a
report on "Israel's options" which included interviews with four Israelis
and no Palestinians at all.
(see http://www.abunimah.org/nprletters/010731gradstein.html)
Prior to this, on July 30, NPR's Jennifer Ludden filed a report that
focussed exclusively on how Israelis are coping with the stress that they
feel as a result of the conflict (All Things Considered).
As for the August 9 All Things Considered report that CAMERA cites, about
the bombing that day in Jerusalem which killed 15 Israelis, CAMERA
complains that Gradstein "first interviewed Israelis, but then gave the
last word to Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian information minister."
This is correct, but it came only after Gradstein had already interviewed
an Israeli eyewitness, an Israeli government spokesman and Israel's "Mayor
of Jerusalem" Ehud Olmert, who together provided a combined total of 177
words as against the precisely 31 from Mr. Abed Rabbo.
More importantly, having earlier complained that NPR does not
"humanize" Israelis with "details, names and interviews," CAMERA does not
mention that Gradstein's August 9 report contained vivid details and
eyewitness interviews of a kind Gradstein almost never provides for
Palestinians. (see http://www.abunimah.org/nprletters/010809reports.html)
Nor does CAMERA acknowledge in any way an interview Gradstein gave to NPR
anchor Melissa Block on All Things Considered for Friday August 10, whose
sole purpose seemed to be to humanize the Israeli victims of the bombing
with names and details, in particular one family that lost five
members. This segment, unparalleled as far as NPR's coverage of
Palestinian funerals is concerned, included the following exchange:
LINDA GRADSTEIN: They were living in Petach Tikva, which was in central
Israel. About seven years ago they moved to a small settlement in the West
Bank called Niryah(ph). It was west of Ramallah. They went because they
felt that they wanted to strengthen Israel's tie to the West
Bank. Mordecai was originally an importer of chemicals, but a year and a
half ago he opened a school for first-, second- and third-graders. And
Syra was a speech therapist in an institute for the deaf. And several
people who knew her said she was very empathetic to the children she was
working with, and that she really tried to understand where they were
coming from. Three of the sons, the three oldest sons were not at the
restaurant. Two of the sons are in the army, and they had to identify the
bodies. And it was obviously very wrenching for them. Then there were also
two of the daughters who were injured.
BLOCK: I wonder if this kind of violence is the sort of thing that people
on the West Bank would associate with the West Bank but not necessarily
with Jerusalem.
GRADSTEIN: Well, there's something sort of ironic in that three months ago
their car was shot at. And Mordecai was very nervous about having his
family traveling on the roads. And just last week, somebody from a
settlement right near theirs had been killed in a drive-by shooting, and
so they came to Jerusalem to take a vacation from the tensions that they
had been living with, and then obviously this tragedy happened.
BLOCK: It's hard to imagine the speed at which people, especially
children, might have to absorb a tragedy like this. And I understand that
one of the daughters who was injured in the explosion yesterday actually
went to the funeral today to see her family be buried.
GRADSTEIN: Yes. Leah(ph). She insisted on coming to the funeral. She is
eight years old, and she was actually wheeled into the funeral on a
stretcher with an intravenous drip stuck into her. And she had said that
she very much needed to attend the funeral. And when she came in,
everybody--many of the mourners started crying. And it was obviously very
emotional. Syra's father, Avraham Freidman(ph), obviously was sobbing. And
he said that he had survived a concentration camp, his parents had
survived concentration camps and then they came to Israel to, as he said,
'be murdered by people who were worse than the Nazis.' It was a very
emotional funeral. Ben-Sion(ph), the eldest son, who's 22, who's in the
army, said, 'Father, you were always so afraid of us traveling on the
roads and, here, look what happened right in the center of Jerusalem.'
(END EXCERPT)
Why is it that between July 27 and August 12, CAMERA only managed to find
two NPR reports out of the dozens broadcast to complain about? Is it
because they weren't listening, or because they don't want their followers
to know just how distorted their view of the world is?
Ali Abunimah
http://www.abunimah.org
Learn more about CAMERA's distortions at:
http://www.abunimah.org/lobbyindex.html
Learn more about NPR's coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at:
http://www.abunimah.org/nprletters/nprindex.html
Visit NPR and hear archived reports at http://www.npr.org
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