To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subcribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@comcast.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #661, 9/1/13
WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: The CityPaper Thursday ran an article quoting Inq newsroom sources that the Inq’s going to shrink its opinion pages from two to one. The rationale given, “readers think the paper is biased,” may not apply to the matter at hand, but readers ought to perceive even the news columns of papers as purveying partisan perspectives, and the need for more than one paper in a city the size of Philadelphia.
This morning (Monday) the Inq ran an AP piece on Bibi trying to calm Israelis’ fears that “Syria might retaliate” for an American strike by targeting Israel. The article should have cited the Syrian, Iranian and Lebanese threats, not just to show the rational basis for Israelis’ concerns, but to show Western newspaper readers the intensity of the regional animosity in the face of which Israel is being pressured to negotiate peace on the basis of the perilous 1949 ceasefire lines with agreed swaps.
I got an email last night from a man who just read my book Israel 3000 Years. I share it with you – ok, in part because he thought the book’s pretty good – but also in part because making the case that Jews are an indigenous people of Israel and the Mideast is the bottom line answer to “occupation of 1967-seized war-won lands with Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem” and all the rest of the delegitimizing loaded lexicon that laces newspaper pages not marked as “opinion.”
Inq Shrink: Coming Soon to a 1-Newspaper City Near You???
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The CityPaper, which bills itself as “Philadelphia’s Independent Weekly Newspaper,” headlined this week (Thu, 8/29/13):
“Inquirer Staff: [Co-owner] Norcross To Cut Opinion Section in Half.”
Citing “multiple newsroom sources,” the CityPaper article reported that the space loss from reduction of the Inq’s opinion section from two pages to one will be shared among editorials, readers’ letters and op-eds. The Inq’s relatively new local owners “did not respond to a request for comment” on the article, which stated: “It would be hard to overstate Inquirer reporters’ current anger and sadness over the new ownership group.”
The most astonishing aspect of the CityPaper’s article is its citation of “the rationale that management is offering,” which is that “a recent survey found that readers think the Inquirer is ‘biased’” and that “cutting down on opinion is the supposed remedy.” If this “rationale” strikes you as unlikely, you’re not alone. CityPaper’s next sentence: “’In terms of those ostensible explanations, I don’t think anybody believes it,’ says a source. ‘I don’t know if anyone is even asking anyone to believe it.’”
Finances are likely the cause of this Inquirer change, but unlike two past financially-driven Inq downsizings that did significantly lower the decibels of its Israel obsession – the demise of Knight-Ridder and closing of the Inq’s only-such-place-in-the-world Jerusalem Bureau – I don’t think shrinking the opinion section will have that effect.
But I can’t let that “recent survey” that “found that readers think the Inquirer is ‘biased’” pass uncommented upon in an Inq-focused pro-Israel media watch. An Inq’s “opinion” section [Trudy Rubin and all] is the least dangerous part of an Inq. What passes for “news,” in pointed contrast to “opinion” labeled as such, is purveyed with perspective. E.g.:
*** When an AP or LA Times writes in an Inq that Israel “seized” lands in a 1967 war (AP in Inq, 7/31/13, A3; LA Times in Inq, 7/20/13, A2; 8/23/13, A6) without telling readers that that war was prefaced with Israel’s enemies’ declaration that they intended to open a general assault against Israel, that their basic aim was the destruction of Israel, that news article is purveying a partisan and inaccurate Israel-as-aggressor perspective.
*** When the mainstream Western media insistently labels Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria and the heart of Jerusalem “Jewish settlements” on “Israeli-occupied 1967-war-won East Jerusalem and West Bank land,” ignoring three millennia homeland Jewish presence, the media is purveying partisan positions and perspectives as news.
*** When in March 2008 Israel went into Gaza for a few days to stop escalated Hamas rocketing of Ashkelon with Katyushas instead of just Sderot with smaller rockets, with Israel citing “an upgraded capability which places about a quarter of a million Israeli civilians in constant danger of Hamas attack,” and Israeli newspapers headlining “Ashkelon Residents Realize: We’re Just Like Sderot,” and the Inq headlined for three days Abbas postponing peace talks “over Israel’s incursion into Gaza,” without those Inq headlines mentioning “Hamas,” “escalation” or “Ashkelon” once, that was a newspaper purveying through headlines its partisan violence-perpetration perspective as news.
Americans, and not just Jewish ones, need to start viewing newspapers’ presentation of “the news” in the light that courts view litigating parties’ lawyers’ briefs, as presentations from a partisan point of view. And that is why it is so unwholesome for an American city the size of Philadelphia and environs to be blessed with one single daily newspaper’s point of view. What’s needed in Philly is a second paper – AP, LA Times et ilk-free – that likewise goes thump in your driveway before you head down for breakfast. Am I wrong about this?
In This Morning’s Inq: “Bibi Tries To Calm Fears” Without Mentioning Basis
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In one sense, it’s a small thing, given the scope of things of which the AP is capable (like “millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants”), but this morning’s (Inq, Mon, 9/2/13, A2, AP) Inq AP article, “Netanyahu Tries To Calm Israelis’ Fears in Standoff,” might have mentioned the reason why “many Israelis fear that Syria might retaliate [for an American strike for using chemical weapons] by attacking across the border at Israel.”
It’s not simply a question of readers being told that there’s a rational basis for Israelis fearing that “Syria might retaliate” against them, but of Inq and AP readers appreciating the intensity of the regional animosity in which Israel is being pressured to negotiate peace on a basis of the nine-miles-wide-at-key-points 1949 Israel-Jordan military ceasefire lines with agreed swaps, with historical and present-day Jewish equity in Judea, Samaria and the heart of Jerusalem counting for naught.
E.g., this past Tuesday’s Conf. of Presidents’ Daily Alert quoted YNet:
*** “Syria: Israel ‘Will Come Under Fire’ If Syria Is Attacked”
and Algemeiner:
*** “Iran: Israel Will Be The First Victim of U.S. Strike In Syria”
Thursday’s Daily Alert had the Lebanon Daily Star quoting “a senior source close to Hizbullah” that “a limited operation” might not provoke a response, but directly quoted that source that
*** “’a large-scale Western strike on Syria will plunge Lebanon virtually and immediately into the inferno of a war with Israel’”
and quoted a Jerusalem Post editorial directly quoting “a Syrian higher-up” that
*** “’If Damascus is attacked, Tel Aviv will burn.”
Friday’s Daily Alert quoted Al Arabiya:
*** “Senior Iranian military generals and members of parliament issued clear threats and warnings to the U.S. and its allies on Tuesday that any military strike on the Syrian government would not only lead to a retaliatory attack on Tel Aviv [as though that’s a gimme], but would also engulf the entire region.”
A Reader’s Review of “Israel 3000 Years”
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A few of you BSMW readers regularly forward this weekly media watch to your email lists, which of course I deeply appreciate. Last night, one such recipient sent me the email below about my book Israel 3000 Years.” The “Dry Bones” cartoon that Susan sent me last week, which I quoted in last week’s #660, made the point that while “anti-Zionists want the world to forget thousands of years of our history in the land of Israel,” we have the harder job of “trying to make the world remember.” This second-hand recipient of the media watch took a first-hand look at Israel 3000 Years and decided it helps make the case. If you’re interested: www.pavilionpress.com, and Amazon.
QUOTE
After I read your column, I bought one of your books Israel 3000 Years which I just completed reading today. It’s really a tour de force. You have brought together so much material in a limited space, it is really remarkable. You write in your Preface that you are “using words that one layman non-historian uses to another.” Truthfully, I think the book is more for an advanced layman because a high level of facts, the details that make history really come alive, are there. I, like many people, did not properly appreciate the continuous presence of our Jewish people in Palestine for all those years, and your chart about Jewish presence in Jerusalem from 1830 to 1990 is an amazing compilation that will help anyone and everyone see beyond mere propaganda into…reality.
I could go on with many specifics in the book that benefited me. I hung on almost every word. The quotations from various scholars are all pithy and communicate the essence of the point(s) you are making in each and every surrounding text, and you take the reader step by step through the chronology without the reader feeling patronized or that he is getting an over-simplified treatment which sometimes is the case with chronological surveys covering vast periods of time.
As a reader I am left with a yearning to know more about certain periods and events and people (for instance, the mention of Yehuda Halevi has aroused an interest in me to read some of his writings). The writing style throughout, but especially in your Chapter 9, is manly, passionate, and without sentimentality. You bring out the heroic nature of Jewish survival in Palestine and commitment to ancient values and survival in the midst of all kinds of economic difficulties and persecutions; yet you do not default to maudlin themes of victimization. Again, what comes across is an heroic and tenacious grasp and holding onto of the land and to the values associated with that land, an historical dream and a destiny that must be realized.
Thank you for this wonderful book.
UNQUOTE
Regards,
Jerry