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Sunday, January 04, 2009

The Death of Journalistic Standards


I wanted to put in Chagall's The White Crucifixion, as it represents the needless crucifixion and demonization of World Jewry . . . but lest the foolish be mistaken for other meanings . . . I'm using this image - a Photo of IDF Soldiers training - taken by members of the Golani Brigade


An Open Letter to the people at CNN (and in that general direction to the AP and Reuters as well),

Some journalistic integrity . . . please.
I'm a bit Journalist - I write part time for the news branch of a religious organization - but even I know (And G-d knows how my editors have drilled it into my naturally subjective head) that fluff must go. Facts must be strong and clear, information should be coherent and above all . . . blind to bias, personal opinion and what.

You write here,
"Palestinian medical sources say Israeli forces have killed 37 Palestinians -- both civilians and militants -- since moving into the territory Saturday night.

With those deaths, at least 507 Palestinians, including about 100 women and children, have been killed in the week-long military operation, and 2,600 Palestinians have been injured, most of them civilians, sources said."

Let's see - of the 507 killed, could you please tell us how many were Terrorists ("Militants" in your terminology)? You claim 100 were women and children (an obvious ploy for compassion), so shall we assume that the other 407 men were indeed rocket carrying members of Hamas? Using the number you give us, that means that 80% of those killed were members of a terrorist organization actively involved in a war against a sovereign nation. But wait . . . how many Israelis were killed by rocket attacks? No mention what so ever. I believe the number is 4 (those who know more up to date information can gladly let me know in the comments) plus one soldier killed in battle - thus 4 out of 5 - again 80% - of deaths perpetrated by Hamas have been against civilians. No mention of that however. What about the antecedents to this invasion - the 4,000 plus rockets and 4,000 plus mortars fired over the past eight years! The mental duress that people must live through, the damage to property . . . to body!
Not a peep.
There are plenty of pictures posted on your site of damage and injury to Innocent Palestinians (and a good deal of them are innocent to one degree or an other - they're abused and used by Hamas a human shield - held as pawns in a war) . . . but what of damage to Israel and Israels . . . not a snap shot.

For shame!

More seen at meryl Yourish

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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The best example of biased reporters at CNN is Christiane Amanpour, CNN Chief International Correspondent.
In every report, safely inside Israel she talks of the Palestinian civilian casualties, highlighting the number of women and children killed.

She has always been a America and Israel hater.

Farbrengen said...

BS"D
Did you email this to CNN etc?

Mottel said...

-Autone: In truth I almost question why I even bother going to CNN . . . It's as if I'm looking to be upset.
-Farbrengen: I did now ;-) Though I know it helps, it annoys me the lack of response I get . . . Though BBC did once reply to me.

Unknown said...
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Mottel said...

Avrumy9999 such needless self promotion is not acceptable . . .

Anonymous said...

Why should we assume that the all the men killed were militants/terrorists/whatever-you-want-to-call-them?

Many of those men could be "innocent civilians"

you don't have to convince me about "main stream media" bias, but if you are going to get all riled up - and send it to CNN - make sure you are correct.

IMHO, CNN has drastically improved, for the most part they ask tough questions of their Palestinian apologists, and give equal time to Israeli spokesmen (who also get tough questions)

True, they have a bit of a way to go, but they ain't the BBC.

Mottel said...

Yehuda: Perhaps I wasn't clear about the 400 men - in so much as they fail to define who they are, we can (albeit some what facetiously) just as much assume that they are terrorists - by not saying who they are,CNN istrying to obfuscate the facts. More so, however, we can in fact safely assume that most of them were indeed Hamas'niks - when the death-toll was around 360 only 60 of those killed were civilians . . .

CNN has been somewhat better as of late, but they still have a long way to go.

tracy said...

i hadn't even thought of the fact that Hamas could be/is using the civilians as "sheilds"-just horrible...thank you, Mottel, for helping me to understand a bit better. i can be such a fool. :(
A very well written piece.

Blessings,
tracy

Chaviva Gordon-Bennett said...

The situation is frustrating for me, as I try very hard to defend journalism, its integrity, the reasons and hows as to why news agencies do what they do ... but after visiting Israel and coming back and watching the news, I find it nearly impossible. People say I've been brainwashed, but I haven't. I just now know WHY news agencies report Israel/Jewish news the way they do, and before I'd never been willing to admit it.

The worst thing for a company or news agency or anything similar is to be too PRO-ISRAEL or too PRO-JEWISH. Even if all of their staff are Jewish, it's important to not be TOO much of anything. So the answer? Swing the other way, right?

It bums me out. It'd be like if Fox started reporting about how bad Republicans are or how they're so NOT republican/right wing. Know what I mean?

Anyway, the news business frustrates me. As someone with a bachelor's of journalism and time at major newspapers under her belt, this whole thing has made life very difficult.

Mottel said...

It's sad . . . What can you do though? There's no hope when talking to liberals :-)

Seriously, though, the best thing to do is to tune off. Look for news on pro-israel sites, and only look at the MSM when you want to scream and break something.