[R-G] FAIR challenges CBC Ombud's Report

[Anthony Fenton]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Isabel Macdonald
Communications Director
FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting)
212 633 6700 x 310
imacdonald at fair.org

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3714

FAIR challenges CBC Ombud's Report

FEBRUARY 4, NYC--The U.S. media watch group FAIR is challenging the  
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for making false and biased claims  
after a campaign by groups that advocate for uncritical coverage of  
Israel.

The campaign was launched in response to CBC’s October 23, 2008 airing  
of the 2003 educational documentary Peace, Propaganda and the Promised  
Land. The film cited a FAIR report on U.S. media coverage of the  
Israel/Palestine conflict, prompting the CBC's French-language radio  
ombud Julie Miville-Dechêne to question the independence ofFAIR’s  
research, referring to the organization as a “pro-Palestinian” and  
“militant group.”

FAIR is an independent nonprofit group whose research is widely cited  
by respected media scholars in both the U.S.and Canada. Its  
spokespersons have appeared on several occasions on the CBC to discuss  
issues ranging from media coverage of the Kosovo War to radio host  
Rush Limbaugh.

Faulting the film for "failure to account for the withdrawal from the  
Gaza Strip," Miville-Dechêne also cited a 2001 FAIR study that found  
only 4 percent of U.S. network news reports "concerning Gaza or the  
West Bank mention that these are occupied territories" as an example  
of an "anachronism" in the documentary, because Israel had  
subsequently withdrawn military forces and settlements from Gaza.

Under international law, however, Gaza remains an occupied territory,  
because Israel continues to control its borders.FAIR's finding of a  
chronic failure by leading American media organizations to mention the  
occupation is actually even more true today: a search of the Lexis  
Nexis database during the most recent war (12/2/08-1/18/09) reveals  
that the percentage of network news programs about Gaza or the West  
Bank that mentioned the occupation has fallen from 4 to only 2 percent.

While the ombud said FAIR’s 2001 finding that only 4 percent of U.S.  
news reports mentioned the occupation was “shocking,” the coverage on  
CBC’s own evening newscast, The National, from the same period was  
roughly equivalent, with only 5 percent of reports concerning Gaza or  
the West Bank referring to occupation.

FAIR contributing writer Seth Ackerman, who authored the report, today  
issued a response to the president of the CBC, which is available  
online at: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3712.

(It is also pasted in full below.)

***

Dear Mr. Lacroix,

I was surprised and a bit puzzled to read the remarks concerning  
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (where I am now a contributing  
writer) in a recent report from the CBC Radio-Canada Ombudsman. The  
ombudsman's report, which deals with the Middle East documentary  
Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, had this to say about FAIR  
and the use of our research by the film:

This proximity between militant groups and documentary filmmakers is  
disconcerting. For example, one shocking item of information featured  
in the documentary is that only four percent of televised news reports  
mention that the West Bank and Gaza are “occupied.” A small note at  
the bottom of the screen attributes this statistic from 2001 to the  
group “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, FAIR.” This is a pro- 
Palestinian media watch group, the counterpart of pro-Israeli groups  
likes CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in the Middle East Reporting in  
America) and HonestReporting, which is involved in the bulk of  
complaints to my office against this documentary. It is not a case of  
independent research.”

I will address the "shocking" factual issue raised in this passage,  
but first I can't help but express my puzzlement at the  
characterization of FAIR as a "militant group," a "pro-Palestinian"  
pressure organization whose analyses don't constitute "independent  
research." I distinctly recall that in 2000, as a FAIR media analyst,  
I was invited by CBC Radio, along with former Canadian ambassador  
James Bissett and others, to analyze news coverage of the Kosovo war  
in a post-broadcast panel discussion of Sandra Bartlett and Michael  
McAuliffe's prize-winning Kosovo documentary The Road to Racak. Other  
FAIR spokespeople have appeared on CBC to discuss everything from Rush  
Limbaugh to media coverage of the Afghanistan war. Evidently the CBC  
ought to be more careful about screening out the extremist groups it  
invites on the air to discuss international affairs.

It is also hard to understand why, after trying to cast a cloud of  
doubt over FAIR as the source of the cited statistic about TV news  
coverage of the West Bank and Gaza, the ombudsman apparently never  
attempted to discover whether the statistic was actually accurate or  
not. Had the ombudsman's office done so, it might have learned that  
this fact is easily verifiable.

As the report notes, the statistic came from a November 3, 2000 online  
FAIR analysis (which I wrote). The analysis stated:
The three major networks' evening news broadcasts-- ABC's World News  
Tonight, NBC Nightly News and the CBS Evening News--aired 99 stories  
mentioning the West Bank or the Gaza Strip from the outbreak of  
fighting on September 28 through November 2 [2000]. But only four of  
these stories informed viewers that Israeloccupies those lands.

It would have been a simple matter to confirm that all of this is  
true. If you go to the Nexis news database, you can ascertain the  
number of stories containing the words "West Bank" or "Gaza" that  
aired on the three above-named newscasts within the specified dates,  
by entering the following search string:
show (World News Tonight or NBC Nightly News or CBS Evening News) and  
date (is aft 9/27/2000 and bef11/3/2000) and West Bank or Gaza

When you do so, 99 stories come up. You can then find how many of  
these stories mentioned that the territories are occupied simply by  
adding the term "and occup!" to the search string. This brings up all  
of the stories within these 99 that contain any variation of the word  
"occupied" (“occupation,” “occupy,” “occupying,” etc.) There are six  
such stories, two of which are false positives. (One refers to the  
occupation of Lebanon while the other refers narrowly to contested  
control of a specific holy site in Nablus.)

Thus, it is a fact that during the first month or so of the Second  
Intifada, only four out of the 99 stories mentioning the West Bank or  
Gaza on the three main U.S. evening newscasts reported that the  
territories are occupied – approximately 4%. I find it amusing that  
even the ombudsman's office thinks this omission on the part of the  
U.S. networks is "shocking." If the ombudsman’s office believes this  
to be an issue worth pursuing further, it might consider airing a  
documentary on CBC investigating pro-Israel bias in the news media.