Thursday May 3 is World Press Freedom Day. This comes at a time when to many people drug dealers, serial killers, and arsonists are held in higher esteem than journalists. And for good reason; at least these criminals are upfront about the evil they do. The ethics of journalism once had something to do with objective reporting of facts. But for a large swath of journalists today truth is irrelevant at best and in the case of the members of Britain’s National Union of Journalists truth is something to avoid at all costs if it conflicts with the politics of the organization.
The NUJ is the largest union for journalists in the world with over 40,000 members. Its offical policy calls for discrimination against Israel. Dr. Goebbels would be so proud. The NUJ has degraded the profession to mere propagandizing and truth value be damned. The anti-Israel bias has gone so far as having some NUJ editors spike stories that showed Yaser Arafat in a less than flattering light, for example any mention of the billions he stole from his own people that support his wife in Paris or how he rejected the peace offers made by the Israelis in 1995 that would have achieved about 95% of Palestinian goals and avoid their last dozen years of hardship they have suffered. But no. NUJ is committed to telling only half the story.
Alan Johnston is a very pro-Palestinian NUJ “reporter” whose “reporting” never varied in its one-sided depiction of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But anti-Israeli bias notwithstanding, Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza on 12 March 2007 and is still being held despite appeals from just about everyone in the Palestinian Authority and a bunch of British-bases imams. So far the appeals have fallen on deaf ears. By the way, when Johnston was kidnapped by Palestinians guess who the NUJ blamed? Yes, you’re right…They blamed Israel!
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1 user commented in " Biting the hand that feeds: the Alan Johnston story "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackIn the interests of good reporting, I think it would be helpful if Sidereal gave examples of Alan Johnston’s “one-sided”, “pro-Palestinian” depiction of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, rather than throw out random insults at his journalism. There is a place for criticising the coverage of conflicts, and individual reporters, but in this case you seem to be confusing bias with telling a story in a humane way and explaining the conditions people live in. This is what Alan Johnston does in his reporting. He’s not apportioning blame. He just describes the results – mostly on a domestic level – of many years of conflict. The trouble with war is that ordinary people suffer – whatever side they are on. Alan Johnston reported on those ordinary people. He is a decent, honest man and what everyone should be doing rather than flinging insults – is campaigning for the release of a man just trying to tell a story with integrity. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with what he says or how he says it. What matters is that a man has been kidnapped for being a journalist. Anyone interested in reporting and free speech should be taking action against that injustice not whining about who said what.
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