Dear HonestReporting Member,
Your activism is paying off.
HonestReporting is seeing more and more reporters who are willing to break from the pack, take a risk, and report what is truly happening in the Middle East.
We wish to commend three journalists:
- Martin Fletcher of NBC dared to show clips of Palestinian television incitement on May 8, including TV commercials directed at Palestinian children. The commercials praised martyrdom and called on children to “put down their toys and pick up stones.”In response, the Palestine Media Center issued a broadside, charging Fletcher with “forgery and manipulation.”But they could not deny the commercial’s existence.
This week, Fletcher broadcast a sensitive and moving interview with Daniel Mandell, the younger brother of Kobi Mandell, the 14-year-old from Tekoa who was bludgeoned and brutally murdered in a cave last month.
To comment on Martin Fletcher’s coverage, write to:
[email protected]* * *
- Jack Kelley of USA Todayreceived HonestReporting’s Award six months ago for two ground-breaking stories. The first described how rock-throwing Palestinian children were integrated into the battle strategy of Palestinian gunmen. The second was an expose of incitement on Palestinian radio.
Kelley returned to the region this week to write a chilling account of how Palestinian society honors suicide bombers. The article details the training of Palestinian children to hate, to kill, and to be killed. Here’s an excerpt:
“In Hamas-run kindergartens, signs on the walls read: ‘The children of the kindergarten are the shaheeds (holy martyrs) of tomorrow.’ The classroom signs at Al-Najah University in the West Bank and at Gaza’s Islamic University say, ‘Israel has nuclear bombs, we have human bombs.’ …”I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys,” {11-year-old] Ahmed says.
Read Kelley’s piece, “Devotion, desire drive youths to ‘martyrdom’ — Palestinians in pursuit of paradise turn their own bodies into weapons”
If you wish to comment on Kelley’s article, write to:
[email protected]UPDATE: In March, 2004, USA Today dismissed Jack Kelley for embellishing and fabricating stories, including reports from Israel.
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- New York Daily News columnist Richard Z. Chesnoffhas been a consistent critic of Yasser Arafat. Already last November, Chesnoff called for revoking Arafat’s Peace Prize. More than half of Chesnoff’s columns listed in The News’ online archives deal with the Middle East or related foreign policy issues.
To all our HonestReporting members, keep up the good work!
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MEMBERS MAILBOX:
> From: Rachel O. – [email protected]
I want to thank you for a great website that is really informative and organized. I teach English to 9th and 10th graders, and for their last assignment this year, I had the students each find one article in a widely read daily newspaper that showed media bias against Israel, and then write a “letter to the editor” explaining how it was biased.
I suggested to them to use websites such as yours, which they did, and they came away with a new understanding of what media bias really means and how dangerous it is. I plan on assigning a similar assignment next year — though I hope there won’t be a need for it!
