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The Coverage--and Non-Coverage--of Israel-Palestine
Mortimer Zuckerman, at various times the owner of U.S. News & World Report, The Atlantic, and The New York Daily News, is passionately pro-Israel and is known, in general, for imposing his views on news content. A plethora of other owners/publishers/executives express similarly strong views, sit on pro-Israel boards, exhibit patterns of giving to Israeli organizations, etc. How significant is this factor? Do such individuals set general or specific policies for their news staffs, and if so, how are they manifested? Without further study it is impossible to know which of the above factors, possible additional factors, or combinations are creating the situation we find today. What is less complex, are the results. SHAPING COVERAGE Several San Francisco Chronicle reporters and writers who had occasionally written about Israel/Palestine have been let go, transferred or demoted. The experience of veteran Chronicle journalist Henry Norr is a case in point. Norr was fired in 2003 after he took part in an anti-war demonstration. Norr, who reported on technology, not on the war, had participated in the demonstration on his own time. He contested his firing and ended up winning a substantial out-of-court settlement from the Chronicle. Norr had also been active on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He suspects that his activities regarding Palestine, rather than his participation in the demonstration, were the underlying cause of his firing. In July 2002, Norr wrote about an Intel factory constructed illegally on Palestinian land from which Israel had ejected the Palestinian owners. In a radio interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now after his firing, Norr described the Chronicle’s reaction to the story, which had received a great deal of criticism from the Israeli lobby: “…I was told this was an inappropriate topic and I wasn’t supposed to write such things anymore.” Norr went on to discuss a vacation-time trip during which he and his wife participated in nonviolent protest activities in the West Bank. When he returned to work, he described his trip to colleagues: “I put together a little lunchtime presentation and slideshow, a little discussion of what I had seen and observed and heard. And apparently management didn’t like that very much. Apparently there was somebody who attended that presentation … [who] reported to management that I made anti-Semitic remarks and so on, which is really a big joke. I mean, I’m Jewish by background and I don’t think I’m the least bit anti-Semitic. However, I’m deeply opposed to the policy of the Israeli government.” Less than a year later Henry Norr was out. Such veiled but firm management policies don’t appear unique. John Wheat Gibson, a former journalist who worked as a reporter and journalism instructor for a number of years before finally leaving for a different career, found a similar pro-Israel climate at Cox Newspapers, one of the nation’s top newspaper chains, with 17 daily newspapers, including the Atlanta Constitution and 30 non-daily papers around the country: “As a journalist in the 1970s,” Gibson recalls, “I found that a rigid bias against objective reporting and in favor of Israel was a prerequisite for employment with a daily newspaper in the Cox chain. I never understood why, since I saw no evidence the major advertisers in the media market were Zionists.” My own personal experiences with newspaper chains have been illuminating. A few years ago a reporter from the Gannett newspapers planned to do an article about me and If Americans Knew, which had just begun operating. Gannett is one of the largest news outlets in the nation, with 102 daily newspapers in the United States, including USA Today, the nation’s largest-selling daily newspaper, for a combined daily paid circulation of 7.6 million readers. Gannett also owns a variety of non-daily publications and USA WEEKEND, a weekly newspaper magazine of 22.7 million circulation delivered in more than 600 Gannett and non-Gannett newspapers. As if this weren’t enough, Gannett also owns and operates 21 television stations covering almost 20 percent of the country. Needless to say, a Gannett article about our fledgling organization was quite exciting. He interviewed me at considerable length about my experiences in the West Bank and Gaza, sent out a photographer to take pictures of me at home, and directed her to Fed Ex them immediately. Then we waited. After a few months, I e-mailed him to ask if I’d missed the piece. He e-mailed back, no I hadn’t missed it. The article had been shelved: “… the top guy here feels like the story is ‘missing’ something.” The article, apparently, is still on the shelf.
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