Monday, November 29, 2004

HONESTREPORTING UNDERMINES ITSELF. AGAIN

The premise of HonestReporting is that the "media" hates Israel, or in their own words: " HonestReporting was established to scrutinize the media for anti-Israel bias, then mobilize subscribers to respond directly to relevant news agencies."

But every so often they run a communique (the pompous name is theirs) which undermines their own reason for existence.

It happened again on November 18. Let's review the facts:

A New York public facilit, the Westchester County Center, recently hosted a fundraiser for an art exhibit "that vilifies Israelis and extols suicide bombers." Two newspapers (the Journal News and Newsday) ran stories, cited in the communique (sorry, I can't type the word without giggling) which criticized the exhibit and reported on the efforts of several politicians to close the exhibit. Who is the villain in this story? The Westchester County Center! And who is the hero? The media! (and the politicians)

So why is this story included in an HonestReporting communique? Aren't the communiques meant to "mobilize subscribers to respond directly" to offending news agencies? No news agency committted an offense here. To the contrary, if there was a bias here, it was in Israel's favor. Also, how can HonestReporting continue to insist that media bias is a problem, if it is going to run stories such as this?

Incidently, the dictionary tells us that a "communique" is an official report or announcment, usually sent in haste. Perhaps this time, Honest Reporting was a bit too hasty...

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