? NEO-NAZIS ON GOOGLENEWS
[UPDATE 3/24: GoogleNews has removed National Vanguard from its service: article, search.]
Last year, HonestReporting noted that the increasingly popular GoogleNews portal chose to include among its legitimate news sources Jihad Unspun ? a propagandist website that glorifies Islamist terror, publishes highly anti-Semitic material, and regularly demonizes the State of Israel. Despite hundreds of complaints from HR subscribers over the past year, Jihad Unspun remains syndicated on GoogleNews, and its articles often appear prominently on searches for Israel-related topics. Now, GoogleNews has chosen to include the neo-Nazi site National Vanguard on its list of news outlets. National Vanguard is a fringe ‘white pride’ organization whose lead sentence from its current top article carefully distinguishes between Jewish people and ‘White people’:
Today the Las Vegas National Alliance’s ‘STOP IMMIGRATION’ billboard returned to the Las Vegas skyline for the third time ? after Jewish pressure, threats, and a court battle which White people won this time.
HonestReporting does not question these organizations’ rights under the U.S. Constitution to air their views. We do however question Google’s judgment in including these sites in its influential list of legitimate news outlets. HonestReporting joins blogger Jeff Jarvis‘ call for transparency at Google:
We’re demanding transparency of mainstream news. Well, it’s high time we get transparency from GoogleNews… Google: Release a complete list of your news sources now. And institute a means for questioning those choices and for suggesting other choices now.
Comments to GoogleNews: [email protected](Hat tip: Charles Johnson)
? UPDATE: C-SPAN’S BOOK-TV Last week’s HonestReporting communique noted that the cable network C-SPAN, for its BookTV program, insisted upon airing Holocaust denier David Irving alongside Holocaust scholar Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, to provide what C-SPAN termed ‘balance’ on the topic. When Prof. Lipstadt refused to be cast side-by-side with Irving, C-SPAN cancelled the scheduled program.
Two days after the HR critique, The New York Times ran an article on this story, noting that more than 200 prominent historians from colleges across the U.S. have signed a petition protesting C-SPAN’s decision. The petition was organized by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and may be viewed here.
? FATAH STUDENTS IN HEBRON
Recent media reports from Palestinian areas have emphasized some long-awaited positive developments such as democratization and financial reform within the Palestinian leadership.
These hopeful signs have been accompanied, however, by some disturbing scenes that are receiving almost no media attention. On Monday (Mar. 21), the Palestinian Authority’s largest party, Fatah, held a rally for student leaders at Hebron University. At the rally, up-and-coming Fatah leaders collectively struck the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute that’s universally associated with Nazi Germany (photo at left).
This salute also seems to have been recently adopted by the PA police force, as indicated by this February 10 AFP photo (below):
With momentum gaining to resume peace talks, the PA’s identification with Nazi German practice ? even in a symbolic manner ? is cause for concern.
HonestReporting encourages subscribers to check your local media for coverage of these developments.
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