CNN’s Journalism Goes to the Dogs

The official Palestianian news agency is reporting that Israeli settlers have chopped down and seized about 800 Palestinian-owned olive trees near the town of Shuyukh, east of Hebron.

 

The report, by WAFA, the Palestine News & Information Agency, cited “a local source,” whom it did not identify. Israel has yet to comment on the report.

 

The source, described by WAFA as “a local activist,” told the agency that residents of the Israeli settlements of Bani Kadim and Asfar broke into an olive orchard near the town and chopped down the trees, which belonged to people who lived in the area.

It’s one thing when a mainstream media outlet quotes anonymous sources and unverifiable “eyewitnesses” as we see all to often in reporting from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s even worse when a news organization such as CNN relies on unverified reports from a Palestinian news agency such as WAFA.

As Elder of Ziyon rightly points out:

OK, how can we tell that this is garbage? By looking at the wording in Wafa. It says “Israeli settlers Sunday chopped down and seized about 800 olive trees belonging to Palestinians near the town of Shuyukh, east of Hebron, according to a local source.”

 

What does “chopped down and seized” mean? 400 chopped down and 400 seized? Or did they chop down 800 olive trees and then put them onto a convoy of trucks to cart them away?

 

It takes a long time to chop down a mature olive tree. New saplings, which are often planted by Palestinians in order to steal public land, are relatively easy to uproot, but this says “chopped down and seized.”

 

No photos. No videos. No named sources. No corroboration. WAFA reports a story that matches none of the normal standards of journalism- and CNN parrots it under the guise of only reporting what anti-Israel Arab media is saying.

As if this wasn’t enough, the CNN report continues:

Incident at Aqsa Mosque also reported

Also Sunday, more than 175 right-wing Jewish extremists entered the Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, escorted by Israel police and security personnel, according to sources inside the mosque. The sources cannot be named for security reasons.

So where’s the “incident” that CNN refers to? On the basis that Jews as well as tourists are allowed to visit the Temple Mount compound at set hours, is this really an “incident?” And who are these unnamed “sources inside the mosque?”

175 people is a far larger group than would normally be allowed on to the Temple Mount and there are no other media reports in the foreign or Israeli press to suggest anything unusual took place on the Temple Mount on Sunday. Has it occurred to CNN’s reporter that the Palestinians consider any Jew who visits the Temple Mount to be an “extremist?” Was it a group of 175 people or was that merely the total number of visitors to enter the compound on Sunday?

This we do not know. Much like the sum of CNN’s abysmal excuse for a piece of journalism. Unfortunately, the damage isn’t contained to CNN and has spread to other news sites that have reproduced the content based on a clearly misguided level of trust in CNN.