The reporter's stunning reply, "While I agree with you, if I say anything about US geopolitical interests with Israel, I might as well clean off my desk."
Smoking a cigarette, facial expression full of fatigue, despair and two-day stubble of beard, Amjad Shawa, a director of a human rights organization in Gaza City shared with me several horrid pictures of Palestinian teenagers mysteriously murdered by the Israeli military just days before.
Shawa implored me to "please write a press release and get the word out" - to the American media. My delegation of five Americans and one Canadian were the only westerners in Gaza. There was no one else.
As I wrote the press release I was almost to tears because I was just going through the motions. Three youths, apparently trying to sneak into Israel to work, had been shot at, beaten and then their organs crudely taken out of their bodies. Unceremoniously the bodies were returned four days later, no explanation. By any human standard, this is a massive story full of political intrigue.
Yet as I typed out the press release that would be faxed to dozens of American media, I knew no American newspaper or TV station back home would read this press release, care and actually do a story. And no one did.
Certainly there are many such heart-breaking stories that, according to American media standards, never qualify as "all the news fit to print." Why? According to reporters I've spoken with combined with experiences my group has had, the nation of Israel holds a special place with American media. There's also no denying the US corporate/military/government connection with Israel is rock-solid.
With some remarkable exceptions, the US media fails to accurately report from the Palestinian perspective, or even a balanced human-rights perspective.
I used to be skeptical about such allegations of censorship and self-censorship in the American media, but now I've seen it first-hand. Some examples:
Back in mid-February, 2001, the US launched a large bombing raid on Iraq, outside of the internationally disputed "no-fly-zones." It was Bush Jr's first massive bombing of Iraq since taking office. Knowing my group would protest this bombing one of the local TV stations called us for an interview. In the studio hours later, a spokesperson for our group, Rev. Bob Kinsey, was asked by one of the station's veteran reporters, what he thought were the main reasons for the troubles in the middle east. Rev. Kinsey spoke of the massive US military aid to Israel and the resulting instability it caused. The reporter's stunning reply, "While I agree with you, if I say anything about US geopolitical interests with Israel, I might as well clean off my desk." Of course this interview was never aired.
Months later I talked to this reporter and asked why he continued to work in this censored atmosphere. "For every five or ten stories I do on the Broncos or dog grooming," he said, "there's one meaningful story I get away with. In the independent or alternative media I can do stories on whatever I want but hardly anyone is listening beyond the choir." When he told me he would love to go to Palestine as a TV reporter but it wouldn't happen anytime soon, he explained, "The corporations that own the TV stations and their corporate attitudes don't care about doing investigative journalism or covering international news. Any why should they? They're quite profitable without doing it." At best, he told me, they may do some real journalism for the prestige and awards but not to provide the public with good reporting.
Last December, as I was preparing to go to Palestine to partake with internationals in nonviolent direct action to end Israel's illegal occupation, my group had arranged an interview with the local Fox news station. The reporter was excited because he saw, like we did, our story as a local connection to an international issue. Though the interview was scheduled days in advance and cleared by appropriate news directors, just an hour before my 15 seconds of air-time, the interview was abruptly canceled. "I'm a soldier, not a general," the reporter told us when we asked why.
Ten days later there were two horrific suicide bombings in Israel and suddenly the same station needed some local connection. This same reporter called me up and arranged the interview in less than hour. In a hurry for fear his story would get axed, we had a brief 15-minute interview. Afterwards he said the news director cautioned him to get "both sides" and reminded him, "I'm watching you." "I get both sides," the miffed reporter told me, "put them on the air and go home and pray."
A veteran reporter at another TV station, the CBS affiliate, who just two years ago did a decent story on my group's peace mission to Iraq (though the US has a law prohibiting Americans to go to Iraq), refused even exclusivity offers by saying "Your trip to Iraq was humanitarian, this trip is more political." No story.
To get a better gauge of what happens on the inside, consider the story of the local Warner Brothers TV station. Returning from our successful and traumatic trip to Palestine, one of this station's producer's was eager to have us on live to briefly tell our story and even show some of our video. Live interview arranged days in advance, cleared from the top. Then, less than 24 hours before the interview, the producer called me up, quite apologetic, angered and confused. For several hours she had a "major blow-out" with the top station directors about the interview.
"I don't quite understand what's going on," she despairingly told me. When she arrived that morning she was told, without explanation, to cancel the interview immediately. When she persisted to know why, one editor told her "we covered their story last night." The night prior my group protested the visit of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who publicly called for the ousting of Arafat and said "We could wipe out the entire Palestinian population. We don't use an ounce of our power."). Persisting more, the editor leveled her by saing, "We're not going to have their kind on TV period!" Clearly shaken the producer apologized again to me and I told her I felt sorry she had to work in that environment.
The print media provides more examples.
In April of 2001 one of our members, Brian Wood, was moving to Palestine to get more directly involved with the international resistance of Israel's occupation. Before going he made an agreement with the editor of an alternative daily newspaper to write an op-ed twice a month. $40 bucks a column was the deal. After just three columns the agreement was reneged upon. Was Brian a bad writer? No, the problem was the publisher came back from a vacation and when he saw the columns he, according to in-house writers, "turned beat-red and began fuming about how biased this column was." In an unprecedented move, the publisher took over making final editorial decisions, making the editor walk on egg-shells.
Then in a seeming moment of luck, one of Denver's main dailies, The Rocky Mountain News, printed an op-ed by Beth Daoud, one of five Coloradans just back from a harrowing experience in Palestine. Beyond belief, though, just days later the Editorial Editor, Vincent Carroll, called Beth. He began questioning the veracity of her article.
"I referred him to the CCMEP website for pictures," Beth recounted the conversation, "and said I would be glad to give him names and numbers of eyewitnesses. He declined. He then told me he didn't like the tone of my letter or what it had to say, and began debating with me about my point of view. He asked me if I had ever SEEN a Palestinian being killed. I said 'no' but knew of people who had. I told him about three members of my husbands family being killed simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. He laughed at me in a very nasty way and said , "Oh so you've never actually SEEN a Palestinian being killed, Palestinians make up stories." After harassing me a few minutes longer he said to me "Your cause is hopeless, you'll never change anyone's mind about the Palestinians!"
More repercussions of censorship. One of our members who went to Palestine lost her job at an "alternative" weekly newspaper. While we were in Palestine the weekly had printed an op-ed piece by another one of our group. Like a repeat of what happened to Brian, when the publisher came back from vacation and found about this article he blew his top. Prior to leaving our member had a verbal agreement to write two cover stories about her trip. Not only were the two stories canceled but because of these political tensions weeks later she was summarily fired with little probable cause.
When media do coverage, what can happen?
After viewing our group's protest of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Denver, the Denver Business Women's Forum Group cancelled a scheduled presentation by the three women of our five-person delegation to Palestine. Why? They didn't like what Val Phillips was quoted as saying on Channel 4 (CBS affiliate) and felt the talk would be "too political." Here's what Val said:
"Occupation is terrorism. It is the fundamental obstacle to peace in the Middle East. And it must end. The state of Israel and the state of Palestine can peacefully coexist. The Palestinian people have said they want that. But the Israeli army and Israeli settlers must leave the West Bank and Gaza in order to allow the Palestinian people to live in freedom."
