Itamar Massacre: Canada’s Callous Coverage

Our colleagues at HonestReporting Canada find that the Itamar massacre remains a CBC no-fly zone. CBC Radio has has completely…

By Pesach Benson March 20, 2011

Our colleagues at HonestReporting Canada find that the Itamar massacre remains a CBC no-fly zone.

CBC Radio has has completely ignored the incident while CBC television featured a misleading 30-second news flash. The network’s flagship TV programs one week after the fact haven’t touched the story.

Yes, many journos normally in Israel are now spread thin covering the unrest in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Egypt; and the Japanese catastrophe, of course dwarfs everything.

But why does the Ceeb think a mere 30 seconds of coverage does justice to the Fogel family tragedy?

I’m giving Michael Coren the last word:

The coverage of the horror has been limited, partly because of the catastrophe in Japan, but also — let’s be honest — because compassion fatigue set in a long time ago when Israelis suffer. The Israeli government has made an official complaint about CNN’s jaundiced coverage of the event, but there is not much it can do about media indifference. Imagine for a moment if an Israeli had done this to Palestinians. There would have been full front pages within a day and documentaries, dramas and books already planned.

© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025

Pesach Benson

Pesach Benson

A Baltimore native, Pesach was with HonestReporting from 2011 to 2020. He edited the Israel Daily News Stream and authored the e-book, Red Lines: HonestReporting’s 8 Categories of Media Bias. Before moving to Israel in 1995, he worked as a reporter for the Baltimore Jewish Times. Pesach has a B.A. in political science from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, where he was executive editor of the campus newspaper.

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