|
|
 |
| |
|
Delta
Stormy Weather
offline
Registered: Apr 2003
Local time: 08:15 PM
Location: New Orleans, La.
Posts: 8278
|
?Reporting? from the Palestinian Authority
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commentary by Steve Yuhas
January 21, 2005
The CBS document scandal and talk of Armstrong Williams accepting payment from the Department of Education to tout a program he already believed in has all but run its course in American news, but there is another journalism scandal that seems to be missing from the public discourse.
These scandals are directly related to the United States and Europe and how we perceive the events unfolding in the Israeli ? Palestinian conflict, but compared to the CBS debacle and the Armstrong Williams affair it is really much worse.
The Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP), two of the most widely utilized and reprinted news gathering organizations in the world had on their payroll two supposedly objective reporters who were also on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority (PA). CNN and the BBC used photographs, video and reporters directly influenced by minders and the PA to report hard news from the region.
Majida al-Batsh (who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority and a reporter for the mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority in the ?official? newspaper Al-Ayyam) and Adel Zanoun (the chief reporter for the Voice of Palestine ? the official mouthpiece of the Fatah Party) are both on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority as well as the payroll of the AFP.
Muhammad Daraghmeh works for Al-Ayyam and is on the payroll of the Associated Press, surprisingly even when presented with evidence that Daraghmeh?s byline is still printed in Al-Ayyam, the bureau chief of AP in Jerusalem denied the connection.
All three of them are supposedly providing unbiased reporting to the world about the Palestinian people through the international reach of the AP and AFP.
In fact, most of the cameramen, photographers and ?journalism? created and fed to the rest of the world doesn?t come from unbiased reporters at all ? it comes from and is censored by Palestinian "fixers" who are little more than official censors provided by the PA to allow only pictures and articles critical of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to leave the areas ?governed? (if you call lynching people in the public square for supposed cooperation with Israel being governed) by Palestinians.
One PA ?fixer? told the Jerusalem Post, ?I will never work on a story that defames my people or leadership, [and] it is my duty to protect my people against Israeli propaganda."
Connection to American and European media doesn?t stop in the print business. For many years CNN had Ziad Abu Zayyad (a Fatah politician) and Ghassan Khatib (a Palestinian Communist Party politician) on their payroll as ?experts? on the Palestinian conflict. They did not use Israeli politicians to report on Israel though as that would have been a breach of journalistic ethics. CNN refuses to talk about PA connections to their presentation of news to the world.
The epitome of unbiased journalism comes from the BBC?s Barbara Plett (best known for her weeping commentary as Arafat was airlifted from his terrorist lair for medical treatment in the AFP?s home country of France). Her reporting on the Palestinian elections conveniently left out the fact that gunmen from the Fatah terrorist group demanded election stations remain open so Abu Mazen (Arafat?s right hand man and fellow terrorist) would win the election and that two members of the Palestinian election committee resigned in protest over the voting irregularities that John Kerry and Jimmy Carter declared free and fair (although talk to them about Ohio and you?ll get a different answer).
Plett (who probably weeps at Arafat?s grave weekly) wrote about the hardships Palestinians had registering to vote (despite the agreement that no Palestinian politics would take place in Israel) and whenever she is stopped at a check point she immediately connects with the BBC to talk about it on air ? as if she is the only one stopped at a check point ? I was in Israel two weeks ago and was stopped and didn?t consider writing about it or calling my newsroom.
Journalism in the United States has some problems, no doubt, and CBS is paying a heavy price for the journalistic transgressions of a few folks who thought they had the scoop of their lifetime. Compared to Palestinian reporters and the AP, AFP, CNN and the BBC though, the problems in America are peanuts.
Imagine waking up to find out that Fox News has a Republican National Committee member writing hard news stories for the network about the Democratic members of Congress or if the Democratic Party was hired by Fox News to report on the White House and the policy changes being proposed.
There would be outrage at Fox News and even people identifying with the respective parties would find the practice questionable, but that is exactly what is happening in the PA where nothing gets out without a minder and where the ?news? is being reported by people who have an interest in the success of the terrorist entity.
The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, the BBC and CNN have been caught in a scandal that reaks of anti-Israeli sentiment and in a prior column where I said something like no wonder the British believe Israel is the worst nation on earth (a poll of the British public came to that conclusion) and I blamed the royal family (after Prince Harry Hitler wore his SS uniform with Swastika to a party), I am forced to revise my remarks.
Prince Harry was a symptom of the problem, but the illness in coverage of Israel on the world stage comes from hiring of Palestinian Authority officials to provide ?news? that paints Israel and the IDF as evil and the Palestinians as victims of the oppressive Zionists.
What a world we live in when CBS showing fake documents and Armstrong Williams accepting money to tout something he already believed makes the news and outrage of the people, but coverage of one of the most important stories in the world: the Middle East conflict is wrought with partisan politics, pay-offs and journalists who are on the payroll of a corrupt regime and news organizations that offer their hard news stories to the world.
Next time you read something from the AP, AFP or watch CNN or BBC ? remember that their sources are mouthpieces for a terror organization and that their unbiased reporting is little more than anti-Israeli ranting bought and paid for like a full page ad by Martha Stewart in her own magazine.
.So whatcha think? It disgusts me that we can't even trust ANYTHING out of the Networks. They seem to be working in cAhoots with the teriosts. What a nice picture
Its always MONEY like the saying MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL. BELIEVE IT.
d
|
01-21-2005 10:17 PM
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
<
>
Copyright ?2000 - 2018, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited
Page generated in 0.04952002 seconds (83.84% PHP - 16.16% MySQL) with 44 queries.
|
|
|
|
