Guardian admits Israel ‘straightforward target’

Just Journalism
The Wire
Thurs. 10 Mar. 2011 @ 10.55 –

http://justjournalism.com/the-wire/guardian-admits-israel-%E2%80%98straightforward-target%E2%80%99/

Assistant editor Michael White admits that Guardian journalists actively avoid reporting some subjects, such as immigration, in favour of easier ‘targets’ like Israel.


In an incredibly candid blog entry on media self-censorship by veteran Guardian journalist and staunch Israel critic Michael White, he confesses to:

‘middle class ill-ease in going after stories about immigration, legal or otherwise, about welfare fraud or the less attractive tribal habits of the working class, which is more easily ignored altogether.’

By contrast, in, ‘Media self-censorship: not just a problem for Turkey,’ Israel is put forward as one of the archetypal ‘targets’ of The Guardian:

‘Toffs, including royal ones, Christians, especially popes, governments of Israel, and US Republicans are more straightforward targets.’

White, who has been at the publication for 30 years, also alleges that positive stories about Tony Blair are rarities despite other ‘tyrants’ being granted positive coverage:

‘Nor has it been easy to smuggle anything creditable about Tony Blair into the paper for several years now, though tyrants with more convincing leftwing credentials sometimes get the benefit of the doubt.’

In his final comments he implies that The Guardian – in common with other publications – has an overwhelming tendency to simply tell its readers what they want to hear, rather than produce journalism which might challenge their ingrained prejudices and preconceptions:

‘And remember, dear reader, that we are also striving much of the time to tell you what you’d rather know rather than challenge your prejudices and make you cross.


‘As the old saying goes, we are all guilty.’

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Not the White Response

The Guardian Associate Editor's weak excuses and justifications for outrageous comments against Israel.



Honest Reporting
Media Critiques
25 March '10

Frosty US-Israeli relations and a very public and direct rebuke by Britain for alleged cloning of UK passports by Israel's Mossad have created a storm of negative headlines in recent days.

Some (but not all) British media took particular glee in reporting the expulsion of a diplomat from Israel's embassy in London. The Guardian even liveblogged the event as it unfolded while an editorial referred to Israel as "an arrogant nation that has overreached itself", thus smearing more than just Israel's government but also its entire population.

Some took advantage of Israel being hauled over the coals to justify their own failings. In December 2009, The Guardian's Associate Editor Michael White made the following comment during a discussion on BBC Radio London's Breakfast Show concerning the physical vulnerability of political leaders:

In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don't like their political style and what they've got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.

The BBC responded by arguing that White's comments were his own while The Guardian declined to comment at all, judging that White had made these remarks on the BBC and not in his newspaper. From White himself we heard nothing. Until now.

(Read full article)
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