There’s a new book on the history of The Guardian’s coverage of Israel, entitled “Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel” by Daphna Baram. It happens to be published by The Guardian.
Here’s a favorable book review from the pages of The Guardian:
‘Baram’s detailed interviews with most of the key Guardian players in relation to Israel since the 1970s are what make the book fascinating and worthwhile. There are many colourful stories: Arthur Koestler’s coverage of the internal military conflict in Israel just after the formation of the state; Martha Gellhorn’s extended reports after her famous stint in Vietnam; Eric Silver and David Hirst coming to blows in the American Colony Hotel in east Jerusalem.’
That ‘blows’ story sounds interesting…The latest column from the Guardian’s readers’ rep, Ian Mayes, is also devoted to the book:
I wish I could place a copy of her book in the hands of everyone engaged or provoked by the Guardian’s coverage (it would have a large circulation).
Yes, The Guardian is very excited about their new book exonerating themselves of anti-Israel bias. Independent journalism at its finest. And by the way, Baram wrote the book while serving as a Reuters Fellow.
Here’s a review published in The Economist, praising ‘Disenchantment’ while criticizing the method of the recent report from Greg Philo’s Glasgow Study Group:
The method of [the Glasgow] book is to label as “pro-Israeli” any piece of reportage that does not conform to the particular anti-Israeli narrative of the researchers from Glasgow. It begins promisingly, with a potted history of the conflict acknowledging that everything about the story is hotly contested. And yet in much of what follows it is taken for granted that the present intifada is a war of liberation against a brutal and illegal occupation, and that any journalist who fails to hit the audience over the head with this point of view at every opportunity is falling down on the job. It is pro-Israeli bias, for example, to use the word “terrorism” to describe the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians at bus stops. Read something else.
Yet Tom Fenton of CBS News completely bought into the Philo book. (Hat tip: David Gerstman)
We have both Baram’s and Philo’s books on order. Look for our review in an upcoming HR communique — sign up above to receive it.
