Alison Weir, author and journalist, and founder of the site, If Americans Knew, has been ranting about censorship and bias in the American press on matters concerning Israel for years. To say the least, this censorship, bias, and even pro-Israel spin has helped Israel cover up its occupation and colonialism of Palestine as well as the slow ethnic cleansing of its people. Other sources (no links) have unabashedly called the New York Times (and the Washington Post) part of “the Zionist press” in America.
The Electronic Intifada (EI) just broke this important story about the New York Times, and Alison Weir has written the following commentary on it, posted on her blog.
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This is obviously a serious conflict of interest.
As EI points out, “The New York Times’ own ‘Company policy on Ethics in Journalism’ acknowledges that the activities of a journalist’s family member may constitute a conflict of interest. It includes as an example, “A brother or a daughter in a high-profile job on Wall Street might produce the appearance of conflict for a business reporter or editor.” Such conflicts may on occasion require the staff member “to withdraw from certain coverage.”
Many of us have long noted the Times’ Israel bias in its coverage and have been troubled by Bronner’s Israeli-centric reporting.
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Conversation with Bronner
During this period (2005) I spoke by phone with Ethan Bronner, at that time deputy foreign editor for the Times. Bronner, like Okrent, said it would be impossible to find Arab-American or Muslim-American journalists to balance out the Jewish-American journalists working at the Times on this issue.
Again, I was astonished. I said, “Ethan, how many people are we talking about? Three reporters?” He corrected me: “two.” (I believe these were the numbers, though it’s possible that I suggested four reporters and he corrected me to three; I’d have to look back through notes buried in a file somewhere to ascertain the specific figures.)
I have since occasionally written articles noting the Times’ failure to adequately cover this issue. For example, in “Anatomy of a Cover-up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound,” I describe a criminal tragedy that went largely uncovered by the US media. I noted that the New York Times reported it in the last two paragraphs of a 24-paragraph story.
Similarly, in another article, “Just Another Mother Murdered,” I again found the US media ignoring a Palestinian tragedy. The New York Times had given it one sentence.
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There is a significant problem here. Bronner is part of it. It’s time for the New York Times to begin to report on Israel-Palestine fully, accurately, and without Israeli spin. In the meantime, I suggest that people turn elsewhere for news.
In the next section of Weir’s long article, she covers Other Sources for News, which takes us to more reliable sources of information about the Middle East, not covered, ignored by the Times. On her own site,”Israel-Palestine: The Missing Headlines” tries to serve as an aggregator of important stories from a number of reliable Middle East sources.
As Weir contends: “Fortunately, Americans don’t need to rely on the New York Times anymore.”
(Many useful links are also provided in the full article, which is highly recommended reading.)