Vote for the Dishonest Reporter of 2012
November 4, 2012 15:35 by Pesach Benson
In addition to that that other election, now’s the time to vote for the Dishonest Reporter of 2012. It’s our annual recognition of the year’s most skewed and biased coverage of Israel and the Mideast conflict.
Make your voice heard and please choose one of the five nominees below, along with a brief explanation of your choice. (You may also nominate someone else not on the list). We’ll announce the ignoble winners in a few weeks.
There are three ways to vote:
- Post a comment below.
- Post a comment on HonestReporting’s Facebook page.
- Send an email to action@honestreporting.com
The five nominees (in no particular order)
- Gideon Levy: Haaretz journalist, for a survey dishonestly concluding that Israelis support racist, apartheid policies.
- Vincent Browne: Veteran Irish journalist, who called Israel a “cancer” on TV.
- 60 Minutes: For the CBS News show’s imbalanced look at the status of Christians in the Holy Land.
- The Guardian: For flying in the face of reality and insisting that Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital.
- Khulood Badawi: UN staffer whose false photo tweet demonizing Israel went viral.
Due to the volume of mail, we can’t acknowledge nominations. For old times sake, see who HonestReporting readers gave the 2011 awards to.
CC BY-NC-SA HonestReporting.com, flickr/Kristen Ortwerth-Jewell, and flickr/Julie Rybarczyk.
Wobbletwig
6:03 pm
Nov 05, 2012
The 5 nominees should all be awarded 1st place. they are all equally rotten. Also that great defender of truth and righteousness, Robert Fisk, should be added to the list.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
9 
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TooLongInThe Sun
6:07 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Gideon Levy due to his proximity
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
7 
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Stan Brin
6:12 pm
Nov 05, 2012
CBS News for years of 60 minutes abuse, and not just the “Christians” travesty — for the Silwan outrage and the “no siege in 1948″ story. not to mention the “Coverup” forgery allegedly about the USS Liberty affair — stations should have lost their licenses for that one.
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Goldenberg
6:24 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Please do not forget Charles Enderlin.
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yitz katz
6:27 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Gideon levy – by far the worst. He is Jewish, lives in Israel and hadit publicised in Haaretz (with whom he should share the ‘award’
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
8 
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Jonathan Danilowitz
6:29 pm
Nov 05, 2012
My vote for the most sickening dishonest reporter is Gideon Levy. “Haaretz” was once a watchdog over the government of Israel (any government – the paper was fair); a beacon of liberal democracy, a breath of fresh air. But the newspaper is dying, and in its death throes it lashes out to kill its best supporter – Israeli democracy and freedom of speech. Like the fable of the scorpion trying to cross the river, stinging its carrier-frog in the middle and so drowning itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
The result is the yellow trash the newspaper publishes by Levy (and others, by the way).
I live in Israel. I see through the half-truths and smokescreens easily.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Joel Block
6:35 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Definitely Gideon Levy. Israel’s worst enemy is always the self-hating Jew.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
4 
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Nevet Basker
6:42 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Levy, absolutely. He knowingly lied, reported on manipulated and fraudulent data as though it were fact, and used the incendiary term “apartheid” (which was not even in the survey, but inserted by Levy himself). That he was so widely quoted makes him the hands-down “winner” of this dubious distinction. I agree also with Yitz Katz: the fact that this lie was “reported” by an Israeli made it so much more credible and likely to be picked up by other outlets, providing “Jew-washing” cover for anti-Israel slander.
CBS’s 60 Minutes should get a DIShonorable mention due to its broad coverage. The Guardian’s denial of basic geographic facts just exposes their farcical bigotry.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Mi Grandin
6:46 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Very good nominees but I choose Gideon Levy – naturally!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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elizabeth hakan
6:47 pm
Nov 05, 2012
The Guardian
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AE
6:48 pm
Nov 05, 2012
For me it’s a toss-up between #4 and #5 because they don’t simply give a skewed, perverted perception of Israel, but come out with blatant, shameless, outright lies. It’s one thing to put your own sick spin on a story, but to knowingly, smilingly insist that a story of your own fabrication is incontrovertible FACT… It just goes to show how good Israel is that they have to invent things of which to accuse us.
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Teddy Bear
7:07 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Very surprised the BBC are not contenders this year, for so many reasons which show their continued anti-Israel bias.
But given the list of those nominated, it has to be the one that does the most damage long term. Any Israeli journalist willing to sacrifice truth to make a name for himself among the rest of the left-wing media, all too willing to hang Israel out to dry, is the worst kind of traitor.
Gideon Levy should be ashamed of himself. The only way he highlights the true humanity of Israel
is that it still allows him to live and work in the country. If he’d done the same to those regimes he supports he’d be executed.
Agree or Disagree:
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Amy
7:13 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Gideon Levy, hands down, and all of my reasons have already been eloquently articulated in previous comments.
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thomas
7:17 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Gideon Levy, not only for the instance of dishonesty mentioned in this poll, but his long chain of mendacities, for years.
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Nana
7:18 pm
Nov 05, 2012
All of the above! If I have to make a choice Gideon Levy would be my choice.
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Barbara Stone
7:31 pm
Nov 05, 2012
With such an illustrious, non-prestigious award’s destiny at stake, I’m forced to overlook a potato-head like Vincent Browne, the serially anti-Semitic Guardian (where else would the pernicious BBC get its ideas from?), the crass ignorance of CBS and Badawi (a ‘UN staffer’ says it all).
So my nomination must go to Gideon Levy, who is to journalism what A. Hitler, J. Stalin and P. Pot were to democracy, transparent goverance and the well-being of their peoples. Levy is a lying, conniving, Machiavellian disgrace and the sooner he moves house to Tehran the better.
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MarkY
7:40 pm
Nov 05, 2012
My nomination goes for Peter Kenyon of NPR, whose story on the struggle of ordinary Palestinians aired on All Things Considered on October 26, 2012 was sickeningly skewed towards squeezing compassion for the Palestinians and mentioning only in passing that the rockets are launched at Israel from where these Palestinians live. His report can be heard or read on
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/26/163729669/airstrikes-dampen-mood-in-gaza-on-eid-al-adha
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Shimon
8:04 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Levy, negatively best
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Dave Alpern
8:06 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Really tough call this year!! I have to go with #4, The Guardian, closely followed by #1, Gideon Levy. All the nominees deserve this “award.”
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NissanB
8:13 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Judging by whose negative impact will last longest, the winner is Gideon Levy. He’ll be quoted by Israel’s enemies for years to come as “proof” of Israelis support of Apartheid.
Close second is not 60 Minutes, but Bob Simon who has never tired of defaming Israel throughout his career.
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