“Cease Undressing Foreign and Arab Journalists at Official Events”

October 5, 2011 15:21 by

The Foreign Press Association‘s up in arms.

Security guards asked an Al-Jazeera cameraman to remove his pants before an invitation-only interview with President Shimon Peres. The Jerusalem Post has more details.

Asking someone for an ID and making him pass through a metal detector is a reasonable security precaution for a head state. But a reporter (or blogger, I might add) with government-issued press credentials and a government-issued invitation simply shouldn’t be made to undress unless there’s evidence of a specific threat.

Access is a two-way street. Just as journalists need access to government officials for information, government officials need access to the journalists to get their message out too.

This humiliating strip search is not an isolated incident, as we’ve already learned from Sara Hussein and Simri Diab. It won’t be long till reporters start boycotting government press activities.

Only in Israel, right?

Category: Backspin Tags:
2 Comments

2 Comments → ““Cease Undressing Foreign and Arab Journalists at Official Events””

  1. [...] HonestReporting Media BackSpin, 6. Oktober 2011 [...]

    Agree or Disagree: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

    Reply
  2. [...] wie Simri Diab von Al Jazeera, Sara Hussein von AFP, Kevin Flower von CNN, einem Kameramann von Al-Jazeera , bei der NY Times-Fotografin Lynsey Addario und erst kürzlich bei einem [...]

    Agree or Disagree: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

    Reply
Show poorly rated comments

Leave a Reply

 Characters Available
More in Backspin (553 of 6079 articles)


[caption id="attachment_27268" align="alignright" width="115" caption="Harriet Sherwood"][/caption] A chance encounter with a wrecked airplane in the West Bank exposes Harriet Sherwood's ...