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British Journalist Critical of U.S. Media Coverage
By Craig Pinley
CHICAGO, IL (April 30, 2002) - British journalist Robert Fisk is critical of U.S.
media and news coverage of the ongoing violence between Israel and
Palestine, charging that some journalists are "lying" about what is
happening in the Middle East.
Fisk, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the London Independent,
recently lectured on the campus of North Park University in an event
sponsored by the university's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
During his 90-minute discussion of the Middle East, he chastised American
journalists for what he perceives as bias in news reporting, stating,
"Nowhere else is media bias so one-sided. Our reporting has become, in many
cases, incomprehensible."
A Middle East correspondent for 26 years, Fisk has had a bird's eye view
events. The London Independent's Middle East correspondent traveled
from the West Bank region to his home in Beirut, Lebanon, and on to
Chicago, arriving at North Park less than two hours before his lecture was
scheduled to begin. He also lectured in Iowa, Los Angeles and at
Northwestern University, addressing the issue "September 11: Ask Who Did It
. . . But Don't Ask Why."
As part of his presentation, Fisk showed a 10-minute portion of a 1993
documentary he helped develop for the Discovery Channel that showed how
Israel has unnecessarily mistreated Palestinians. He completed his
presentation by entertaining questions about the Middle East for nearly 30
minutes. His appearance at NPU attracted representatives from a number of
local Christian, Jewish and Arab religious and peace organizations.
Last fall, Fisk was originally invited to speak in the U.S. because of his
conversations with Osama bin Laden, who the U.S. government considers the
mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon. Fisk has interviewed bin Laden three times, the last
interview occurring in 1997.
However, the more recent series of suicide bombings by Palestinians in
Israel and retaliations by the Israelis have received the attention of both
the local and international communities. The actions of Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon in particular have sparked a number of protests
denouncing the treatment of Palestinians.
Fisk questions why United States media organizations often ignore or
shortchange the plight of Palestinians, focusing more attention on the
suicide bombings by Palestinians than the brutal retaliation by Israeli
soldiers. He believes the attacks are consistent with the past military
behavior of Sharon, a former Israeli general.
"The Israeli Prime Minister is, after all, the man who sent his army into
Lebanon in 1982 to 'root out Palestinian terror' . . . and whose 'elite'
Israeli forces killed up to 17,500 people, almost all civilians," wrote
Fisk in a recent Monday column for the Independent. "Mr. Sharon is
the man who then sent Israel's vicious Phalanges allies into the Beirut
refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila, after which they massacred 1,700
Palestinian civilians. For this he was held 'personally responsible' by
Israel's own commission of inquiry . . . "
Fisk cited numerous ways in which he believes the media have presented
Palestinians as barbaric and unaffected by the violence. He noted a
February 2001 Newsweek cover story entitled "Terror Goes Global"
that featured a fully covered Palestinian with a threatening looking weapon
staring at the camera. Fisk learned that the Palestinian was actually
standing quietly during the funeral of another Palestinian.
He cited another series of events last year in which an Israeli boy was
killed "by a mob of Palestinians" while days later in a fairly similar
situation Palestinians had been killed in "crossfire." Fisk charged that
the terminology used in stories is designed to soft-pedal Israeli violence.
"Regularly we hear that Palestinians are killed in 'clashes' as opposed to
being killed by Israeli soldiers," said Fisk, who wondered out loud, "Why
is it (the word 'terrorist') used now to describe the World Trade Center
bombing, but never used in some of the most brutal killings of innocent
people in the Middle East in 1982 and 1994? Palestinians are terrorists,
Arabs are terrorists, Israelis are not . . . "
Despite Fisk's notable reputation, few of the Chicago media seemed
interested in the British journalist's appearance at North Park. Only one
television station - ABC's local affiliate - covered Fisk's lecture,
running it as the lead story on the 10 p.m. Sunday night news. Two other
Chicago television outlets focused attention on pro-Israel rallies in
Boston, Massachusetts, and Northbrook, Illinois, a Chicago suburb.
The two largest Chicago newspapers - the Chicago Tribune and the
Chicago Sun-Times - included coverage of the Northbrook pro-Israel
rally the following day. Neither newspaper included coverage of the Fisk
lecture in the following day's news reports.
"You are the victims more than we are," Fisk told the audience in decrying
what he sees as bias in media reporting. "You don't know what's really
going on."
Editor's note: to learn more of Fisk's observations, the following
related stories may be of interest:
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