Both the St. Petersburg Times and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel recently ran articles on Palestinian children hurt or killed in the conflict. Both articles in the Florida papers lacked appropriate balance.
HonestReporting contacted the author of the Sun-Sentinel article, Tim Collie, regarding two main issues: 1) lack of statement from IDF spokesperson, 2) lack of recognition of the cultural glorification of ‘martyrdom’ in Palestinian society, which certainly contributes to the deaths of these children (and therefore certainly belongs in such an article). Collie responded in a prompt and respectible manner, saying that he was in the region for almost a month, and tried again and again to speak with the IDF on the topic, but never had his calls returned. On the second issue, Collie acknowledged the culture of incitement was missing from the report, but said ‘every story has to stop somewhere.’
It should be noted that Collie has written a number of articles in the past few months profiling the Israeli perspective, including Israeli victims of terror — a rare act among his colleagues. Says Collie:
I always ask readers who have problems to look at the totality of our coverage; that we seek to provide some context or background in every story, but often a story may focus on a particular individual, incident, or point of view that they do not necessarily share. I’m not going to cover the entire history of this conflict in a single story, or delve into every nuance.
See these letters critiquing Collie’s piece, published in the Sun-Sentinel.
Unlike Collie’s piece, the St. Petersburg Times article does include statements from an IDF spokesman, but the lack of acknowledgement of the cultural glorification of ‘child martyrdom’ is even more glaring here, since author Susan Martin acknowledges the issue when asking from the outset:
Does the Jewish state use excessive force against Palestinians, especially children? Or are Palestinians asking for it, as some Israelis claim, by raising their sons and daughters in a “culture of death” that stokes one of the world’s hottest conflicts?
Yet Martin never really expands upon the Israeli position — acknowledging only the ‘martyr posters’ of ‘slain children’ later in the article. The problem is actually much deeper than that — eminating from TV, radio, schools, and from the religious pulpit. (See PMW and MEMRI)
Also omitted — the problem of Palestinian children being used by terrorists as human
shields, and the active participation of Palestinian children in combat and
terrorist actions (see, for example: http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief2-8.htm and the recent Hussam Abdu affair: http://www.4law.co.il/te1.htm ). Neither of these important matters were raised by Martin.
While the death of Palestinian children is certainly tragic, Martin did not provide the full context on the story. The result — excessive blame directed at the IDF.
Comments to: [email protected]
(Hat tip: Bruce Epstein of PRIMER)
UPDATE:
Susan Martin responds to HR’s correspondene:
Like my friend and fellow journalist Tim Collie, I would ask you look at the totality of my work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the past few years, I have written many front-page stories about Israeli victims of terror: “”Two More Lost in Land Too Used to Terror,’ about Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter, killed in the Cafe Hillel bombing (story ran Sept. 11, 2003); “”Damage Lingers Long After Terror Attacks,” profiling injured survivors of suicide bomb ings (Nov. 2, 2003); “”A family torn apart,” about a young couple killed in a bombing;” (April 16, 2002); and “”Diverse Paths Cross with Tragic Effect,” about an Israeli girl shot by a sniper as she rode the bus home from school (Nov. 18, 2001). In fact, I have written far more about Israeli victims of the conflict than I have about Palestinians. (all thse stories are on our archives at sptimes.com)
To readers who claim “”Children in the Crossfire” was “”one-sided,” I’d point out that the above-men tioned stories were equally “”one-sided” – that is they focused on a single topic. In “”Children in the Cross fire,” I was focusing on the impact of the intifada on Palestinian children, just as in “”””Diverse Paths Crossed” I focused on the impact on a young Israeli girl. News stories would be mighty long and boring, not to mention ill-focused, if every one recapped the entire history of the Israeli-Palestinian affair, as some readers seem to be suggesting. Not that I put myself in his class, but would John Hershey’s “”Hiroshima” have been nearly as moving and effective had he talked about all the American victims of Japanese attacks, or gone into a complete history of World War II?
Judging from overall reader reaction – not just from pro-Palestinian readers but “”non-aligned read ers,” if I may used the term, “”Children in the Crossfire” was well-balanced. The story clearly point ed out that Israeli children have also been killed, injured and traumatized; several paragraphs were devoted to IDF response, and contrary to your claim that I did not develop the “”culture of martyrdom” theme, the story very clearly pointed out that an increasing number of Palestinians are troubled by the message conveyed by martyr posters and think more must be done to reduce the violent environ ment.
Interestingly, very few of the stories about Israeli victims drew any email from pro-Israel readers com mending the Times for writing about Israelis; it’s only when we run a story construed as the least bit sympathetic to Palestinians that we are deluged with email.
It is also frustrating to hear from readers who fire off emails without having read the paper. One reader criticized me for not writing about Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip when just two weekends ago that very story was the lead in our Sunday paper!
I always enjoy hearing from readers – I just wish some of the emails from people on BOTH sides of this issue weren’t so predictable in their comments.
