|
In this mailing:
AP's Weak Push Back Against Former Reporter's Criticism
by IPT News • Dec 3, 2014 at 2:17
pm
|
|
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the
first of your friends to like this.
The Associated Press is firing back at a former reporter who claims the
global news agency helps set a narrative for "the Israel story"
that underplays or ignores Palestinian incitement and violence while
trumpeting criticism of Israel.
In a statement, AP rejected the allegations Matti Friedman
made in a Nov. 30 article published by The Atlantic. "There's
no 'narrative' that says it is Israel that doesn't want peace; the story of
this century-long conflict is more complicated than that," wrote media
relations director Paul Colford.
The rapid response indicates that Friedman landed some punches. But
Colford's statement doesn't hold up under scrutiny, Lori Lowenthal Marcus writes in The Jewish Press. For starters, it
pits the claims of a reporter who was there against an AP flack who was
not.
Marcus details Colford's aggressive push to get The Jewish Press
to run the full AP statement. She then shows how one point Colford
unequivocally challenged actually has more proof behind it than Friedman
provided. In his Atlantic piece, Friedman described the AP's
blacklisting of Bar Ilan University Professor Gerald Steinberg, president
of NGO Monitor, a fact-checking organization which seeks to "publicize distortions of human rights
issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict and provide information and
context" for the public.
The AP Jerusalem bureau gave "explicit orders to reporters ... to
never quote" Steinberg or his organization, Friedman wrote. That never
happened, Colford's statement said. AP cited them "in at least a
half-dozen stories since the 2009 Gaza war."
But Marcus found that comment wasn't really responsive to what Friedman
wrote. Friedman's reference covered Operation Cast Lead, a 2008-09 round of
fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Two of the articles Colford
cites preceded that conflict. The others dealt with unrelated issues.
Meanwhile, a former colleague of Friedman's told Marcus about an
incident in which that AP's bureau chief in 2009 cut a quote from Steinberg
from his story. The editor told reporter Mark Lavie that "AP reporters
'can't interview Steinberg as an expert because he is identified with the
right wing,'" Marcus writes.
Some sources might merit blacklisting by a news organization. But that
action should be reserved for extraordinary circumstances, such as a source
who provided false information in the past or who might incite violence.
Deliberately withholding an opposing point of view from readers, especially
in an issue as hotly debated as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, seems to
fly in the face of responsible reporting.
And that goes to what we think is Friedman's core point. He's not saying
journalists should be passive observers. They just shouldn't appoint
themselves to be referees.
Friedman posted his own rebuttal on Facebook, saying he doesn't
want the Steinberg blacklisting to "obscure the broader argument"
about how Israel is covered by foreign media. AP's statement, he added,
harkens back to "the Philip Morris Handbook for Amoral Corporate
Damage Control – charge 'distortions and half-truths' to obscure the fact
that you actually have to acknowledge serious errors, throw out some vague
numbers to make it all sound scientific, and smear the critic as a
publicity hound."
Read Marcus' account here and Friedman's Atlantic article here.
Feds: Stolen Passport Helps Minnesota Woman Join Syrian
Jihadists
by Abha Shankar • Dec 3, 2014 at
2:13 pm
|
|
|
|
|
Share:
|
Be the
first of your friends to like this.
Another Minnesota resident of Somali descent has been charged with a
crime related to an attempt to join Syrian jihadists.
Yusra Ismail, a 20-year-old St. Paul woman, is charged with stealing and misusing a passport to travel
to Syria. Ismail, who is not a U.S. citizen, left the United States Aug.
21, apparently using the passport she stole from an acquaintance.
Although there are no records currently available to show Ismail traveled
beyond Norway, an affidavit in support of the complaint said that Ismail
"departed the United States using a stolen passport and likely
traveled to Syria."
On Aug. 24, Ismail wrote to her family saying she was now in
"Sham," described in the affidavit as "the area within Syria and Iraq where
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ('ISIS') is attempting to establish a
caliphate."
Although Ismail was scheduled to return to the U.S. on Sept. 1, there is
no evidence she came back.
Thus far seven people, including Ismail, have been charged this year
with traveling to Syria in support of ISIS. Last week, two other
Minneapolis-area Somalis were charged with conspiring to provide material support to
ISIS, also known as the Islamic State. Abdullahi Yusuf and Abdi Nur
allegedly obtained expedited passports and booked flights to Turkey using
cash from unknown sources. Nur, who left the country and May and has not
returned, told an undercover federal agent he went "to the
brothers." He added that we "will see each other in afterlife
inshallah" (God willing).
|
Print
Send
Comment
RSS
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment