Protesting Middle East Coverage
Share
Transcript
Protesting Middle East Coverage
May 18, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Last week a Jewish group temporarily suspended its boycott of the L.A. Times. The group had been boycotting the paper because of a perceived anti-Israel bias in its coverage. The L.A. Times is just one of a long list of major American news organizations that are being protested in some way currently. Others include the Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, ABC's Nightline, National Public Radio and the paper of record, the New York Times. Fred Ehrman is helping coordinate the protest against the New York Times, and he joins us now. Fred, welcome to On the Media.
FRED EHRMAN: Hi, how are you?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Good. So, can you give me a couple of examples of an anti-Israel slant in the Times.
FRED EHRMAN: Sure. There was a big issue made about a, a photograph that appeared on the front page of the Times a week ago Monday, the day after the rally. Here you had several hundred thousand Israeli marchers; you had several hundred demonstrators, and the front page had a -- had a large photograph with the sign showing End the Occupation. It, it totally distorted what happened there!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Which the Times later conceded.
FRED EHRMAN:There was an editor's note. And, and the only reason they printed that - there was such an outcry from readers, the p-- Times didn't apologize and say it was a mistake; they just said it didn't really accurately reflect what happened. But this is not an isolated incident. There was a story maybe two months ago about two 18 year old girls. A homicide bomber, a homicide killer, a-- 18 year old girl who blew herself up and killed an innocent 18 year old girl who was shopping for the Sabbath, and it kind of idealized both of them and how their lives crossed. Imagine if the Times on September 12th would have written a story saying Mohammed Atta, a 25 year old suicide person who crashed his plane into the World Trade Center and the 25 year old bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald and how their lives crossed. This is losing moral clarity, and that's what I think the Times the missing, and this is what we are objecting to and what we are protesting against.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think that most of the mistruths committed by the Times are due to factual errors or due to intent to deceive.
FRED EHRMAN: Both. I think most of the time it is nuance.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Why not just stop reading the Times all together and pick up a paper that reports on Israel the way you'd like to see it reported?
FRED EHRMAN: Because the Times is the newspaper of record. It is highly influential. So it is vital that that newspaper report news not in a tendentious way, not slanted, and on a balanced and a fair way, and that's the only thing we're asking. We're not asking that the Times should agree with our point of view.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Let's parse some words here. You've been shying away from referring to your campaign to temporarily suspend subscriptions as a boycott. Why is that?
FRED EHRMAN: A more accurate word is protest. Can you use the boy-- word boycott? Yeah. But it's really a protest, because a boycott you're trying to hurt somebody else, and I'm not trying to hurt anybody. We're just trying to see if we can get the Times to focus on how a story is supposed to be written.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:A lot of the news that is critical of Israel isn't just occurring in the American press. The media in Israel are also reporting a lot of the same stories in the same way. Do you think that the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz is anti-Israel?
FRED EHRMAN: It's anti-government policy, yes, and I would be just as critical of Ha'aretz as I am of the New York Times.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But do you think they're biased against Israel?
FRED EHRMAN: They're biased against current Israeli policy, yes.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: It sounds to me as if anyone who disagrees with your pro-government position is dismissed by you as biased.
FRED EHRMAN: It's not a - a matter of just being pro-government. The Ha'aretz has a point of view of a left wing segment in Israel. Ha'aretz is a newspaper that continues to play the same record over and over again. Again, it, it's a point of view. Newspapers are entitled to what their own point of view. Again, I, I want to stick to morality and truth, and I think in each of the instances that we are objecting to, and, and the objections have been sent to the Times through e-mails, through letters -- they're disregarded.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Are you utterly convinced that there is only one truth to this situation?
FRED EHRMAN:You certainly can have opposing perspectives, but I think there's one truth when it comes to terrorism and when it comes to a victim. Mixing up the arsonist and the person whose house is burned is not equivalent. The moral equivalency that is too often practiced in the media is wrong, and that I believe is the truth.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thanks very much.
FRED EHRMAN: Thank you very much.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Fred Ehrman has organized a one-month protest against the New York Times. Not all those who think newspapers could be doing a better job covering the Middle East fairly are canceling their subscriptions, however. In an editorial in the Jewish Week, editor and publisher Gary Rosenblatt states that he, too, finds the Times' coverage lacking on occasion, but he still feels queasy about the use of a boycott. "It's a dirty word to Jews, for good reason," he writes. Gary joins us from his office in Times Square. [AMBIENT SOUND TIMES SQUARE UNDER] Gary, welcome to the show.
GARY ROSENBLATT: Thanks very much.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So why don't you think the boycott is a good idea?
GARY ROSENBLATT: Well first I think it's ineffective. I don't think it's really going to hurt the New York Times, and I, and I think the Jewish community does best in an open society and that we risk becoming marginalized and diminishing our voice when we sort of cut ourselves off from an institution like the Times.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:You wrote in your column about the numbing effect that protests like this could have on the editors and reporters who put together the news. You wrote that they "may conclude in their own frustration that nothing they can do to a newspaper can pacify the complainers."
GARY ROSENBLATT: Yes, I once interviewed the editor of the Baltimore Sun when I was in Baltimore, and people in the Jewish community there felt the Baltimore Sun was anti-Israel, and-- he happened to be Jewish, and he kind of threw up his hands and said if we printed the Torah on the front page of this paper every day, it wouldn't do any good. [LAUGHTER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well what about the frustration of the boycotters? What do you suggest that people with grievances do in lieu of boycotting?
GARY ROSENBLATT:Well, as I suggest in the piece, you know writing letters. Making calls. Even meeting with editors -- you know, making your case. I don't think it's a closed society that doesn't respond to criticism.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But you know the leaders of the current protest against the New York Times say that they've done precisely what you suggest --that they write, they call the editors, and they've only decided on a boycott after not noticing any change in the coverage.
GARY ROSENBLATT: Well the irony is just this past Sunday the New York Times Magazine cover story was a lengthy and really well done piece by Scott Anderson [sp?] who followed a group of Israeli reservists during the course of the West Bank incursion. It was kind of a piece I would, you know, encourage anybody who questions the morality of, of Israel's military to read. So-- did it happen because there was this boycott? I don't think so. I think it was probably in the works, you know, for a long time, and-- sometimes their op-eds and editorials we agree with and sometimes we don't, but I guess it's a matter of how we, we deal with our frustration. I think there's a lot of misplaced anger in the Jewish community these days.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: You have a particular distaste for the notion of boycotting. Why?
GARY ROSENBLATT:Well the Jewish community's well aware of the Arab boycott that was in place against Israel for decades; even the people who are leading this protest which in effect is a boycott don't use the word boycott because they're not comfortable with the word.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Jewish groups aren't just targeting the New York Times here. They're making protests against almost every major newspaper and news outlet in the United States. Do you think this speaks to a, a mild form of paranoia among some American Jews or is there an inherent problem in the way Israel is covered?
GARY ROSENBLATT: Well I think it's a key question, and you know they say even paranoids have real enemies. Many people in the Jewish community who are, who are passionate about their concern for Israel start with that truth -- that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East; that it has tried to make peace with the Arab states who have gone to war with them since the day Israel was founded, and I think the struggle for many people in the community is to acknowledge that, you know, the other side has another truth whether or not we agree with it, but that the job of the newspaper is to try and, and be fair to all sides. As one newspaperman said to me, "A lot of people in the community think that newspapers run like banks, and they really run more like deli's." They're messy. And I think people in the business recognize that and acknowledge that mistakes are made, that people screw up. What concerns me is the feeling that some people have is that there's this inherent bias that starts in the executive offices and is filtered down. And I don't think that's the case. I think more likely is this almost obsession in the media with symmetry in, in covering issues, and again it leads to, you know, Israel Retaliated Today with a, you know, a Helicopter Attack Against an Empty Police Building -- in response to, you know, A Suicide Bombing that Killed 10 People. I don't think it's tit for tat. And I think there's great frustration that the media doesn't, you know, point that out more often.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well thank you very much.
GARY ROSENBLATT: My pleasure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Gary Rosenblatt is the editor and publisher of The Jewish Week.
May 18, 2002
BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Last week a Jewish group temporarily suspended its boycott of the L.A. Times. The group had been boycotting the paper because of a perceived anti-Israel bias in its coverage. The L.A. Times is just one of a long list of major American news organizations that are being protested in some way currently. Others include the Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, ABC's Nightline, National Public Radio and the paper of record, the New York Times. Fred Ehrman is helping coordinate the protest against the New York Times, and he joins us now. Fred, welcome to On the Media.
FRED EHRMAN: Hi, how are you?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Good. So, can you give me a couple of examples of an anti-Israel slant in the Times.
FRED EHRMAN: Sure. There was a big issue made about a, a photograph that appeared on the front page of the Times a week ago Monday, the day after the rally. Here you had several hundred thousand Israeli marchers; you had several hundred demonstrators, and the front page had a -- had a large photograph with the sign showing End the Occupation. It, it totally distorted what happened there!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Which the Times later conceded.
FRED EHRMAN:There was an editor's note. And, and the only reason they printed that - there was such an outcry from readers, the p-- Times didn't apologize and say it was a mistake; they just said it didn't really accurately reflect what happened. But this is not an isolated incident. There was a story maybe two months ago about two 18 year old girls. A homicide bomber, a homicide killer, a-- 18 year old girl who blew herself up and killed an innocent 18 year old girl who was shopping for the Sabbath, and it kind of idealized both of them and how their lives crossed. Imagine if the Times on September 12th would have written a story saying Mohammed Atta, a 25 year old suicide person who crashed his plane into the World Trade Center and the 25 year old bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald and how their lives crossed. This is losing moral clarity, and that's what I think the Times the missing, and this is what we are objecting to and what we are protesting against.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think that most of the mistruths committed by the Times are due to factual errors or due to intent to deceive.
FRED EHRMAN: Both. I think most of the time it is nuance.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Why not just stop reading the Times all together and pick up a paper that reports on Israel the way you'd like to see it reported?
FRED EHRMAN: Because the Times is the newspaper of record. It is highly influential. So it is vital that that newspaper report news not in a tendentious way, not slanted, and on a balanced and a fair way, and that's the only thing we're asking. We're not asking that the Times should agree with our point of view.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Let's parse some words here. You've been shying away from referring to your campaign to temporarily suspend subscriptions as a boycott. Why is that?
FRED EHRMAN: A more accurate word is protest. Can you use the boy-- word boycott? Yeah. But it's really a protest, because a boycott you're trying to hurt somebody else, and I'm not trying to hurt anybody. We're just trying to see if we can get the Times to focus on how a story is supposed to be written.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:A lot of the news that is critical of Israel isn't just occurring in the American press. The media in Israel are also reporting a lot of the same stories in the same way. Do you think that the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz is anti-Israel?
FRED EHRMAN: It's anti-government policy, yes, and I would be just as critical of Ha'aretz as I am of the New York Times.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But do you think they're biased against Israel?
FRED EHRMAN: They're biased against current Israeli policy, yes.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: It sounds to me as if anyone who disagrees with your pro-government position is dismissed by you as biased.
FRED EHRMAN: It's not a - a matter of just being pro-government. The Ha'aretz has a point of view of a left wing segment in Israel. Ha'aretz is a newspaper that continues to play the same record over and over again. Again, it, it's a point of view. Newspapers are entitled to what their own point of view. Again, I, I want to stick to morality and truth, and I think in each of the instances that we are objecting to, and, and the objections have been sent to the Times through e-mails, through letters -- they're disregarded.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Are you utterly convinced that there is only one truth to this situation?
FRED EHRMAN:You certainly can have opposing perspectives, but I think there's one truth when it comes to terrorism and when it comes to a victim. Mixing up the arsonist and the person whose house is burned is not equivalent. The moral equivalency that is too often practiced in the media is wrong, and that I believe is the truth.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thanks very much.
FRED EHRMAN: Thank you very much.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Fred Ehrman has organized a one-month protest against the New York Times. Not all those who think newspapers could be doing a better job covering the Middle East fairly are canceling their subscriptions, however. In an editorial in the Jewish Week, editor and publisher Gary Rosenblatt states that he, too, finds the Times' coverage lacking on occasion, but he still feels queasy about the use of a boycott. "It's a dirty word to Jews, for good reason," he writes. Gary joins us from his office in Times Square. [AMBIENT SOUND TIMES SQUARE UNDER] Gary, welcome to the show.
GARY ROSENBLATT: Thanks very much.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So why don't you think the boycott is a good idea?
GARY ROSENBLATT: Well first I think it's ineffective. I don't think it's really going to hurt the New York Times, and I, and I think the Jewish community does best in an open society and that we risk becoming marginalized and diminishing our voice when we sort of cut ourselves off from an institution like the Times.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:You wrote in your column about the numbing effect that protests like this could have on the editors and reporters who put together the news. You wrote that they "may conclude in their own frustration that nothing they can do to a newspaper can pacify the complainers."
GARY ROSENBLATT: Yes, I once interviewed the editor of the Baltimore Sun when I was in Baltimore, and people in the Jewish community there felt the Baltimore Sun was anti-Israel, and-- he happened to be Jewish, and he kind of threw up his hands and said if we printed the Torah on the front page of this paper every day, it wouldn't do any good. [LAUGHTER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well what about the frustration of the boycotters? What do you suggest that people with grievances do in lieu of boycotting?
GARY ROSENBLATT:Well, as I suggest in the piece, you know writing letters. Making calls. Even meeting with editors -- you know, making your case. I don't think it's a closed society that doesn't respond to criticism.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:But you know the leaders of the current protest against the New York Times say that they've done precisely what you suggest --that they write, they call the editors, and they've only decided on a boycott after not noticing any change in the coverage.
GARY ROSENBLATT: Well the irony is just this past Sunday the New York Times Magazine cover story was a lengthy and really well done piece by Scott Anderson [sp?] who followed a group of Israeli reservists during the course of the West Bank incursion. It was kind of a piece I would, you know, encourage anybody who questions the morality of, of Israel's military to read. So-- did it happen because there was this boycott? I don't think so. I think it was probably in the works, you know, for a long time, and-- sometimes their op-eds and editorials we agree with and sometimes we don't, but I guess it's a matter of how we, we deal with our frustration. I think there's a lot of misplaced anger in the Jewish community these days.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: You have a particular distaste for the notion of boycotting. Why?
GARY ROSENBLATT:Well the Jewish community's well aware of the Arab boycott that was in place against Israel for decades; even the people who are leading this protest which in effect is a boycott don't use the word boycott because they're not comfortable with the word.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:Jewish groups aren't just targeting the New York Times here. They're making protests against almost every major newspaper and news outlet in the United States. Do you think this speaks to a, a mild form of paranoia among some American Jews or is there an inherent problem in the way Israel is covered?
GARY ROSENBLATT: Well I think it's a key question, and you know they say even paranoids have real enemies. Many people in the Jewish community who are, who are passionate about their concern for Israel start with that truth -- that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East; that it has tried to make peace with the Arab states who have gone to war with them since the day Israel was founded, and I think the struggle for many people in the community is to acknowledge that, you know, the other side has another truth whether or not we agree with it, but that the job of the newspaper is to try and, and be fair to all sides. As one newspaperman said to me, "A lot of people in the community think that newspapers run like banks, and they really run more like deli's." They're messy. And I think people in the business recognize that and acknowledge that mistakes are made, that people screw up. What concerns me is the feeling that some people have is that there's this inherent bias that starts in the executive offices and is filtered down. And I don't think that's the case. I think more likely is this almost obsession in the media with symmetry in, in covering issues, and again it leads to, you know, Israel Retaliated Today with a, you know, a Helicopter Attack Against an Empty Police Building -- in response to, you know, A Suicide Bombing that Killed 10 People. I don't think it's tit for tat. And I think there's great frustration that the media doesn't, you know, point that out more often.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well thank you very much.
GARY ROSENBLATT: My pleasure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Gary Rosenblatt is the editor and publisher of The Jewish Week.
Produced by WNYC Studios