The HonestReporting organization, a 55,000-member group that tracks anti-Israel bias in the international media, has announced the winner of its "Dishonest Reporting 'Award' for the Year 2002". The collective awardee is the British media, mainly for its hook, line and sinker acceptance of the Palestinian version of a "massacre" in Jenin this past April. Despite the fact that the United Nations and Human Rights Watch found that the IDF had carried out nothing near a massacre when fighting the terrorists in Jenin, British reporters made the following statements, among others:
- Israel's actions in Jenin were "every bit as repellent" as Osama Bin Laden's attack on New York on September 11. -- The Guardian
- "We are talking here of massacre, and a cover-up, of genocide..." --
London Evening Standard
- "Rarely, in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya,
Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life." -- The Times of London
- "Hundreds of victims 'were buried by bulldozer in mass grave'." -- Daily
Telegraph
HonestReporting, noting that the media often relied on "specious and inaccurate claims made by Palestinian spokesmen," opines that "with so many Palestinian spokesmen issuing false accusations about Jenin, this calls into question the general advisability of the media relying on Palestinian claims."
Examples include the PA's Nabil Sha'ath telling CNN in April that 30 Palestinian women died in labor at Israeli checkpoints - a claim that was never substantiated. Other PA spokespersons claimed that documents confiscated from Arafat's compound in Ramallah, detailing Arafat's senior advisors' involvement in terrorism, were fraudulent forgeries. "If Palestinian spokespeople repeatedly use the media as a platform to promote outright lies, doesn't the media have a responsibility to ban that spokesperson, and to generally be wary of unquestionably swallowing Palestinian claims?" asks HonestReporting.com.
Examples of other media unfairness noted by the organization included these:
* In January 2002, two separate incidents occurred on the same day: 1) A Palestinian terrorist sprayed machine-gun fire on shoppers in downtown Jerusalem, and 2) Israel uncovered a bomb factory in the West Bank, subsequently killing the 4 Hamas terrorists who operated it. In a vile case of "moral equivalency," the Associated Press ran the following headline: ISRAEL KILLS 4, PALESTINIAN WOUNDS 8.
* A few days later, a Palestinian rampaged through central Israel in stolen cars for 3 hours, driving over police, soldiers and pedestrians, before finally being shot. The misleading headline on an Associated Press story in the Times of London: PALESTINIAN SHOT DEAD IN TEL AVIV.
* BBC was caught altering a quote by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, substituting the word "terror" with the word "violence" in reference to Palestinians.
* An April report in The New York Times by Joel Greenberg was headlined, "2 Girls, Divided by War, Joined in Carnage." Many readers were shocked at the parallel between Rachel Levy, murdered while shopping for the Sabbath, and Ayat al-Akhras, her murderer, who blew herself up, killing Levy and a security guard.
- Israel's actions in Jenin were "every bit as repellent" as Osama Bin Laden's attack on New York on September 11. -- The Guardian
- "We are talking here of massacre, and a cover-up, of genocide..." --
London Evening Standard
- "Rarely, in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya,
Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life." -- The Times of London
- "Hundreds of victims 'were buried by bulldozer in mass grave'." -- Daily
Telegraph
HonestReporting, noting that the media often relied on "specious and inaccurate claims made by Palestinian spokesmen," opines that "with so many Palestinian spokesmen issuing false accusations about Jenin, this calls into question the general advisability of the media relying on Palestinian claims."
Examples include the PA's Nabil Sha'ath telling CNN in April that 30 Palestinian women died in labor at Israeli checkpoints - a claim that was never substantiated. Other PA spokespersons claimed that documents confiscated from Arafat's compound in Ramallah, detailing Arafat's senior advisors' involvement in terrorism, were fraudulent forgeries. "If Palestinian spokespeople repeatedly use the media as a platform to promote outright lies, doesn't the media have a responsibility to ban that spokesperson, and to generally be wary of unquestionably swallowing Palestinian claims?" asks HonestReporting.com.
Examples of other media unfairness noted by the organization included these:
* In January 2002, two separate incidents occurred on the same day: 1) A Palestinian terrorist sprayed machine-gun fire on shoppers in downtown Jerusalem, and 2) Israel uncovered a bomb factory in the West Bank, subsequently killing the 4 Hamas terrorists who operated it. In a vile case of "moral equivalency," the Associated Press ran the following headline: ISRAEL KILLS 4, PALESTINIAN WOUNDS 8.
* A few days later, a Palestinian rampaged through central Israel in stolen cars for 3 hours, driving over police, soldiers and pedestrians, before finally being shot. The misleading headline on an Associated Press story in the Times of London: PALESTINIAN SHOT DEAD IN TEL AVIV.
* BBC was caught altering a quote by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, substituting the word "terror" with the word "violence" in reference to Palestinians.
* An April report in The New York Times by Joel Greenberg was headlined, "2 Girls, Divided by War, Joined in Carnage." Many readers were shocked at the parallel between Rachel Levy, murdered while shopping for the Sabbath, and Ayat al-Akhras, her murderer, who blew herself up, killing Levy and a security guard.