On April 24th, 2001, Palestine
Media Watch met with the Philadelphia Inquirer's Foreign
News Desk. Present from the Inquirer were Paul Nussbaum, Foreign
Desk editor, Rebecca Klock, Deputy Foreign editor, Michael Matza,
foreign correspondent, and Lillian Swanson, Ombudsman. From
Palestine Media Watch were Ahmed Bouzid, Susan Abulhawa, and
Mark Miller.
Our meeting took place at 5:00 pm, and lasted one hour. The
focus of the meeting was the report we had written on the Inquirer's
coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis between January 1,
2001 and March 31, 2001. A copy of the report can be found at:
http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/reports/042401report.html
The presentation focused on three main issues: the headlines,
some aspects of the content, and the total lack of any maps
depicting the Palestinian state proposed by Ehud Barak and Bill
Clinton.
We examined headlines: front page headlines and regular headlines.
We pointed out that although the number of Palestinians killed
is approximately one order of magnitude that of Israelis, as
many headlines were issued during this period pertaining to
Israeli deaths as to Palestinian deaths. We also pointed out
that although 100 Palestinian children have been killed, not
once has a Palestinian child been headlined. The one Israeli
child killed up to that point was headlined in the front page.
We said that we do appreciate the novelty driven nature of headlines
and news, but that some kind of a semblance to reality needs
to be reflected in the headlines.
We noted that the following were never front page headlined:
- UN reports/resolutions
- Human rights reports/findings
- Israeli assassination of Palestinian officials
- Killing of Palestinian children
- House demolitions
- Palestinian economic hardships
- Palestinian calls for peace
- Hanan Ashrawi - no. 1 Palestinian spokesperson - injured in
demonstration
We received no challenge on the headlines issue from the Inquirer's
side.
A brief but heated discussion took place over the characterization
of Hebron as a "divided city". We complained that the characterization
is misleading Hebron is an occupied city under siege, we argued.
Paul insisted that the characterization "divided" is accurate
enough and that given that all the relevant data about numbers
of settlers vs. number Palestinians is given in the article,
the characterization "divided" is not misleading. We insisted
that, in our opinion, the characterization is misleading, since
it gives the impression of equal validity of claim to the land
by both sides.
Another heated discussion concerned the use of words such
as "terrorist". Paul and others on his side said that they do
not find the word useful and that they try as much as they can
to avoid using it. However, they drew a distinction between,
on the one hand, calling people "terrorists" and describing
actions as being "terrorist", and argued that they are very
reluctant to assign the first label to either side of the conflict,
but think it is justifiable to call certain acts "terrorist".
We said that we may go along with that, but wondered why they
did not label acts committed by the IDF as acts of terrorism,
since they did have the effect of terrorizing populations. They
did not seem to have an answer to that. Instead, they argued
back that characterizing Israeli action is not hard since all
the terms are clear cut and ready: there is an army, with soldiers
as the actors, and armies conduct military operations, etc.,
whereas in the case of Palestinians, the assignations are less
specific. We pointed out to them that the conflict between the
two is never cast in terms of a people resisting an occupation,
so that the "freedom fighter" framweork or a variation thereof
would begin to frame the conceptual context and the shape what
vocabulary to use. Paul replied with: "hell will have to freeze
over first before we start calling anyone involved in this conflict
a 'freedom fighter'."
Lillian Swanson asked how Robert Fisk manages to write about
the conflict. We referred her to the couple of pieces we appended
to the report and promised to send her more. We explained that
it is not because he uses one or two words differently, but
rather because of the whole framework from which he is working
- one that starts from the observation that an occupation is
in place and a people are fighting it - shapes his stories to
highlight certain aspects vs others, set priorities, etc.
We also spent quite a bit of time on the issue of response"
and "retaliation". We argued that stories headlined with "response"
or "retaliation" right off the bat completely frame what is
to come by casting the Israelis as acting in self defense. This,
we said, enables the Israeli side to justify all actions as
defensive acts. Paul and co. seemed to grasp our point and nodded
several times. We pointed out that they could just as easily
headline Palestinian actions as being retaliations to Israeli
actions of home demolitions, retaliations to assassinations,
etc. Paul and co. nodded again.
We also spent a considerable amount of time on the issue of
maps. We expressed our great astonishment that the Inquirer
has shown NOT ONCE, since the start of this Intifadha, a map
depicting the Palestinian state proposed by the Israelis, instead
repeating many times the figure 95%. We argued that the figure
by itself is completely misleading, since it not only gives
no idea whatsoever why the Palestinians refuse to accept the
offer, but gives the reader the impression that the Palestinians
are simply unreasonable and are in fact not interested in a
settlements if they are jeopardizing the whole region for an
additional 5%.
In our report, we reproduced a map in color showing the proposed
Palestinian state.
Michael Matza pointed out that during the Camp David accords,
no maps were released, and that as far as he remembers, no official
maps have been released yet. We pointed out that as journalists,
it is their jobs to investigate and provide information, even
when nothing official is released. We pointed out that many
maps do exist that give a very close approximation of the offers
out there.
In addition, Michael Matza argued that we should not expect
people to change their minds simply by showing them a map. We
pointed out that the important issue here is that of coverage
over a period of time, not swift conversions. Showing one single
map may not turn things around, but showing it whenever the
figure 95% is stated, for instance, will have the cumulative
effect that eventually will lead people to understand that Palestinian
resistance is not so irrational and self-destructive as it is
made out to be now. In any case, we argued, as journalists,
they are obligated to offer as accurate and complete a picture
as possible, rather than worry about whether their coverage
will or will not cause a paradigm shift.
Paul argued that it may be hard to depict such a complicated
map, but did not seem to be saying that it was out of the question.
The impression we have been left with -- although no hard promise
was given -- is that they will consider publishing such a map
in the future. We promised to provide them with other maps,
from various sources.
We ended the meeting by going over a checklist that we think
they should keep in mind when writing/editing pieces on the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Here is the list:
