ISRAEL LOBBY GROUPS CONDEMN US PAPERS FOR HAMAS VIEWPOINT
July 14th 2007 00:26
FREAK OUT OVER HAMAS VIEWS AIRED IN US PAPERS
First published in MediaBlab news service, written by Peter Olszewski
An HonestReporting Communique claimed that The New York Times, Washington Post and the LA Times have, by publishing Hamas op-eds, aided and abetted a terror organisation and should be prosecuted in US courts.
HonestReporting says that it is focused on ensuring fairness and accuracy in reporting for Israel.
The Communique said, “If charity organisations can be prosecuted in American courts, why not media organisations? The propaganda value of an editorial in a widely-read US newspaper may not be measurable in the same way as illegally channeled donations. But it can be just as damaging and an even more potentially useful tool in the hands of terrorists adept at manipulating a naive audience.”
Whether the readers of the three authoritative newspapers mentioned in the communique regard themselves as “naďve” is open to conjecture, and perhaps the HonestReporting reporters could be viewed as presumptuous and patronising in their attempts to ‘protect’ such readers from their alleged collective naivety.
The background to HonestReporting’s outrage was covered by Reuters on June 22 when it reported that, “The New York Times and The Washington Post gave space to Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas figure, on Wednesday [June 20] to argue that the US should not interfere in Gaza, where Hamas took control after six days of bloody fighting against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah fighters.
“Yousef is senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, who became Palestinian prime minister after elections last year. He is now contesting his dismissal by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who formed a new government in the West Bank after Hamas took over Gaza.
“Hamas leaders rarely have access to major US media to express their views unfiltered, and getting an opinion piece into the Times and the Post on the same day appeared unprecedented.
“Both Fred Hiatt, the Post’s editorial page editor and David Shipley, the Times’ deputy editorial page editor, said they would not have carried the articles had they known of the other paper's publishing plans.”
The New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt responded to criticism for the paper’s running of the piece by stating:
“The point of the op-ed page is advocacy. And, Rosenthal [editorial page editor] said, ‘we do not feel the obligation to provide the kind of balance you find in news coverage, because it is opinion.’
“Op-ed pages should be open especially to controversial ideas, because that’s the way a free society decides what’s right and what’s wrong for itself. Good ideas prosper in the sunshine of healthy debate, and the bad ones wither. Left hidden out of sight and unchallenged, the bad ones can grow like poisonous mushrooms.”
After the dust had settled on that issue, the LA Times then reignited it about a fortnight later by running an op ed from another Hamas luminary.
HonestReporting reported, “The publication of Hamas op-eds in both the New York Times and Washington Post provoked an outcry Not wishing to be outdone by its illustrious rivals, the LA Times gives free propaganda to Hamas in a July 10 op-ed by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk.
“We do not intend to reprint his false charges or to give Marzouk’s piece
any more credibility. However, some of the most noxious parts of his diatribe deserve a response, if only to demonstrate that such content should not be appearing in supposedly respectable media outlets.”
It always strikes MediaBlab as bemusing and curious that earnest advocacy groups who scream blue murder and vile censorship if views they regard as correct or indeed even sacrosanct are not published or broadcast, yet are the first to call for prosecution when views they disagree with are aired in the public domain.
Disclosure: Peter Olszewski is me and MediaBlab is my daily media news service which is published on Factiva.
Factiva is owned by Dow Jones.
First published in MediaBlab news service, written by Peter Olszewski
An HonestReporting Communique claimed that The New York Times, Washington Post and the LA Times have, by publishing Hamas op-eds, aided and abetted a terror organisation and should be prosecuted in US courts.
HonestReporting says that it is focused on ensuring fairness and accuracy in reporting for Israel.
The Communique said, “If charity organisations can be prosecuted in American courts, why not media organisations? The propaganda value of an editorial in a widely-read US newspaper may not be measurable in the same way as illegally channeled donations. But it can be just as damaging and an even more potentially useful tool in the hands of terrorists adept at manipulating a naive audience.”
The background to HonestReporting’s outrage was covered by Reuters on June 22 when it reported that, “The New York Times and The Washington Post gave space to Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas figure, on Wednesday [June 20] to argue that the US should not interfere in Gaza, where Hamas took control after six days of bloody fighting against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah fighters.
“Yousef is senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, who became Palestinian prime minister after elections last year. He is now contesting his dismissal by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who formed a new government in the West Bank after Hamas took over Gaza.
“Both Fred Hiatt, the Post’s editorial page editor and David Shipley, the Times’ deputy editorial page editor, said they would not have carried the articles had they known of the other paper's publishing plans.”
The New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt responded to criticism for the paper’s running of the piece by stating:
“The point of the op-ed page is advocacy. And, Rosenthal [editorial page editor] said, ‘we do not feel the obligation to provide the kind of balance you find in news coverage, because it is opinion.’
“Op-ed pages should be open especially to controversial ideas, because that’s the way a free society decides what’s right and what’s wrong for itself. Good ideas prosper in the sunshine of healthy debate, and the bad ones wither. Left hidden out of sight and unchallenged, the bad ones can grow like poisonous mushrooms.”
After the dust had settled on that issue, the LA Times then reignited it about a fortnight later by running an op ed from another Hamas luminary.
HonestReporting reported, “The publication of Hamas op-eds in both the New York Times and Washington Post provoked an outcry Not wishing to be outdone by its illustrious rivals, the LA Times gives free propaganda to Hamas in a July 10 op-ed by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk.
“We do not intend to reprint his false charges or to give Marzouk’s piece
any more credibility. However, some of the most noxious parts of his diatribe deserve a response, if only to demonstrate that such content should not be appearing in supposedly respectable media outlets.”
It always strikes MediaBlab as bemusing and curious that earnest advocacy groups who scream blue murder and vile censorship if views they regard as correct or indeed even sacrosanct are not published or broadcast, yet are the first to call for prosecution when views they disagree with are aired in the public domain.
Disclosure: Peter Olszewski is me and MediaBlab is my daily media news service which is published on Factiva.
Factiva is owned by Dow Jones.
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