The ONLY active voice for American Arab Journalists.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Tribute to Nidal Zayed, Arab American Newspaper Publisher

Nidal Zayed, In memoriam
5/30/2005


Nidal Zayed a beloved friend and colleague passed away in Houston this past Saturday on May 28.

The sudden passing of Nidal Zayed, editor and publisher of Arab newspaper Sharq/Gharb, was an unexpected loss and a shock to all of us who knew him.


He was an honorable young man, writer and a journalist, whose work penned in defense of the wretched and the defenseless.

He was the consummate community activist who believed in the rightness of the Palestinian cause, a cause he devoted for a considerable time and effort despite his ailing and tired body.

Nidal was the quintessential Palestinian, he passed away alone in a strange bed, in a strange hospital and in a strange land. His story is the story of every Palestinian,exiled from home, away from his town and village; exiled in death as he was in life. Nidal was no different, his tragic death embodied the tragic fate of an entire people.

For his unwavering stance, he was felled by bludgeoning attacks; he neither winced nor cried aloud, his head was bloodied but never bowed.

It matters not the passing of years, the falling of tree leaves, we shall always remember his suffering tears, and until the day breaks, may his soul rest in eternal peace.

END

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Arab Media Watch back online after hacker attack

Arab Media Watch is pleased to announce the launch of its new website, several months after a vicious hacking.

It provides our usual services such as media reviews, action alerts, analyses, news, press releases, an events calendar, TV and radio listings, media contacts, quote of the day, tips for media lobbying, forums, polls, a shop etc.

However it is bigger, better and more secure than the previous website, including more country backgrounds, a Palestine Body Count, and lists of AMW's media interactions and events, among other things.

It is also a work in progress, so expect more improvements and additions in the future. AMW owes its success to the efforts and interest of its members. To register, go to:

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/
MemberServices/MyAccount/tabid/54/Default.aspx


Members on our old site will have to re-register. It is free, easy, fast and confidential, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. To find out more about AMW, go to:


http://www.arabmediawatch.com/
amw/AboutUs/tabid/52/Default.aspx


We continued our activities during the hacking period, including regular media interviews, letter-writing and articles. Our highlights included hosting Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, and conducting a major study into the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at the invitation of the BBC as part of its impartiality review.

Our findings and recommendations closely mirrored those of an independent panel, the Communications Research Centre at Loughborough University, and Israeli international lawyer Noam Lubell - all officially commissioned by the BBC - as well as previous research by Professor Greg Philo of the Glasgow University Media Group. Comparative highlights of each report are at:

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/Articles/BBCWatch
/tabid/133/newsid476/2580/Comparative-BBC-analysis-
AMW-independent-panel-Loughborough--
Lubell-reports/Default.aspx

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Media Bias does exist: response to American Jewish Congress on media bias

An open letter to American news media editors
By Ray Hanania

Recently, in a letter to the editor of Editor & Publisher, one of America’s leading publications on professional journalism, I expressed the view that the American news media is biased when it comes to offering balance on the issue of the Palestine-Israel conflict.

Later, the letter was picked up by a popular journalism discussion web site hosted by Jim Romenesko and that posting later led to a letter criticizing me from Emily D. Soloff, Executive Director of the Chicago American Jewish Committee.

Soloff wrote: “Ray Hanania’s argument that Palestinian voices are shut out of the US media is a hollow one. (For starters, he neglects to mention his column for the suburban Chicago Daily Herald, the third largest paper in Illinois.) The Chicago Tribune’s opinion pages, like those of major metropolitan dailies everywhere, are a cacophony of divergent voices regarding the Middle East. To claim otherwise ignores reality -- and the efforts of opinion page editors to provide diversity. There may not be many Arab columnists in the pages of American newspapers, but that has more to do with immigration patterns, education paths and vocational interests than anti-Arab bias.”

In response to Ms. Soloff and to American Editors who need to take this issue more seriously than they do, I wrote that she was being disingenuous.

For example, while I do write a column for the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, a suburb of Chicago. The Daily Herald is the ONLY newspaper in America that features a regularly published column authored by a Palestinian American professional journalist. I might even proffer that it is the only column authored by an Arab American professional journalist.

What Ms. Soloff neglected to mention in her unprovoked and honestly perplexing assault is that the American Jewish Committee ALSO have a member of their staff who writes a column that appears across from my column in every issue that my column appears.

My column began publishing weekly, with the mandatory “Israeli” response that accompanies most Arab or Palestinian columns. It went to twice monthly and now only on the first Monday of each month.

Wow, what an example of how America’s more than 4,500 American newspapers are providing balance to the Arab and Palestinian Americans who also live in this country along with supporters of Israel, a foreign country.

She also did not note the admission of a former editor at the Chicago Tribune who admitted, upon retiring from the newspaper, that the Chicago Tribune had failed to present both sides and that the Palestinian voice was knowingly absent from its pages, and from the pages of other major American newspapers. Of course, putting those views there was his job.

I don't object to the fact that my column in the Daily Herald is ALWAYS accompanied by a column offering the Israeli perspective. God forbid that an American newspaper might publish the Arab or Palestinian view by itself. That would be biased and discriminatory, I guess. I am so confident of the truth of my views that I want them to be placed next to the Israeli viewpoints to show how weak the pro-Israeli viewpoints often are.

As has been repeatedly demonstrated in numerous professionally conducted reports by Palestine Media Watch, the pro-Israel viewpoint dominates American news pages and almost always without ever being paired with a pro-Arab or pro-Palestinian voice. Pro-Israeli viewpoint often appears alone, as if the pro-Arab or pro-Palestinian voice doesn’t exist in America at all.

In contrast, the pro-Arab or pro-Palestinian viewpoint is rarely published.

I wrote a column for Creators Syndicate, the only professional syndicated and distributed Op-Ed piece in America by a Palestinian American. Although I have won two Society of Professional Journalism/Chicago Chapter Column Writing awards (and received seven runner-up distinctions), Creators could not find two newspapers that would even consider running the column on a regular basis, not even once each month.

The Orlando Sentinel was one of the only newspapers in the United States that carried my column occasionally – usually along side the pro-Israel viewpoint. They deserve praise for their courage to be professional journalists, rather than one-sided bigots like most of Americans other newspapers.

My column also occasionally would be published in Newsday in New York, and a few other papers a few times each year. And, the column was picked up regularly by some newspapers in the Arab World, also.

The point is when it comes to coverage of the Middle East conflict, and especially the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the mainstream American News Media is bigoted, biased and discriminatory.

This bias does not so much exist in the news reporting by individual news reporters, although sometimes news coverage leans towards the Israeli or Jewish American perspective. The main problem exists on the pages associated with a newspaper Editorial Pages, called the “Op-Ed” pages, or “Opposite the Editorial” pages.

It is on those pages where Americans seek to find analysis and understanding of the issues in the daily news reports. It is there where most Americans are pushed to make up their minds to support or oppose issues.

While Op-Ed pages are usually balanced on most other issues, when it comes to the Palestinian or Arab view, the imbalance is dramatic.

Ms. Soloff’s assertion that this is the result of immigration patterns is ridiculous. Examine newspapers in any major city where Arab Americans are present and the problem continues to exist, including at notoriously anti-Arab newspapers like the Chicago Sun-Times and the Detroit News.

Look in cities where there the presence of Jewish Americans is small, and the pro-Israel columns still out-number the pro-Arab or pro-Palestinian views. Her argument is facetious at best.

Ms. Soloff is a paid advocate and activist for Israel. I expect her to lie. What concerns me more are the actions of individuals who claim to be objective and professional journalists.

Why are they afraid to publish the views of Palestinians and Arabs like myself? That is a question the mainstream American news media doesn't want to answer.

When it comes to the Middle East and the Palestine-Israel conflict, mainstream American journalists are biased, one-sided, and find comfort in allowing one side to be heard far more often than the other.

That is unprofessional journalism and the American media should address it. Worse, and even more unprofessional, is the refusal of the mainstream American media to even address this subject in-depth.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian American journalist based in Chicago. He can be reached at www.hanania.com)

END

Letter responding to AJC assertions on media balance

This letter was sent to Jim Romenesko (http://www.poynter.org) on May 6, 2006 responding to the ridiculous assertions of the executive director of the American Jewish Committee (Chicago Chapter):
========= ==========

Dear Jim:

I recently read the following letter from the Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee's Emily D. Soloff and felt obliged to respond because this topic is too important to ignore:

From EMILY D. SOLOFF, executive director, American Jewish Committee (Chicago
chapter): Ray Hanania’s argument that Palestinian voices are shut out of the US media is a hollow one. (For starters, he neglects to mention his column for the suburban Chicago Daily Herald, the third largest paper in Illinois.) The Chicago Tribune’s opinion pages, like those of major metropolitan dailies everywhere, are a cacophony of divergent voices regarding the Middle East. To claim otherwise ignores reality -- and the efforts of opinion page editors to provide diversity.There may not be many Arab columnists in the pages of American newspapers, but that has more to do with immigration patterns, education paths and vocational interests than
anti-Arab bias.

MY Response:

Ms. Soloff must be living on another planet. The Arlington Heights Daily Herald is ONE OF THE ONLY newspapers that features a column authored regularly (was weekly, then twice a month and now once each month) by a Palestinian or an Arab. And, right across the same page is a column written by a staff member at the AJC. It is a FACT that whenever a Palestinian or an Arab writes a column critical of Israel or that may criticize Israeli policy, it is usually accompanied by a column offering the Israeli or Jewish perspective to insure "balance" and "fairness." I don't object to that. What I do object to and what Ms. Soloff won't address is the other FACT that when columns by people supporting Israel are published, only occasionally do the newspaper Op-Ed editors feel compelled to include a column from the "other side" to offer balance and objectivity.

When it comes to coverage of the Middle East conflict and especially the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the mainstream American News Media is bigoted, biased and discriminatory, not so much in the news pages where imbalance by omission occurs, but on the Op-Ed pages where the supposed healthy debate on issues of importance facing American readers is supposed to occur.

Several detailed studies have been completed by, among others, Palestine Media Watch, which shows the imbalance on the Op-Ed pages of American newspapers.

I used to write a syndicated column for Creators Syndicate. Partly because of the heavy and oftentimes vicious attacks against me emailed to newspaper editors, my column was barely picked up even though I was the ONLY American Palestinian journalist who writes a regular column analyzing Middle East issues. My column was dropped because they couldn't find two newspapers in the United States willing to run my column on a regular basis even once each month -- I did two columns each week for Creators. (I have received two SPJ Lisagor Awards for column writing, including one for the Creators columns, and have been a runner up 7 times).

The columns did run occasionally in the Orlando Sentinel. And I did push the columns in Newsday. But that was it.

Now, Ms. Soloff wants to tell us that there is a balanced discussion going on in the Op-Ed pages of Americans 4,500 newspapers about a topic that is Priority #1 for Americans -- the Middle East conflict and the threat of terrorism. I do standup comedy occasionally (when a mainstream comedy club overcomes its fears that somehow I am going to be shot from the audience while on stage) but Ms. Soloff's comments are a joke.

This discussion needs to be expanded.

Why are mainstream American newspapers AFRAID to publish the views of Palestinians and Arabs like myself? I think that is a question the mainstream American news media doesn't want to answer. Not because of some "conspiracy" as extremists in my community contend, but because when it comes to the Middle East and the Palestine-Israel conflict, mainstream American journalists are biased, one-sided, and find comfort in allowing one side to be heard far more often than the other.

That is unprofessional journalism and the American media should address it.

Thanks
Ray Hanania
www.hanania.com

AND A PS: Soloff neglected to mention that the AJC ALSO has a column published right across from my column EVERY TIME MY COLUMN APPEARS.

END

POST SCRIPT:

Here is the column that Ms. Soloff disingenuously responds to. She never mentions the FACTS in the column, that a retiring editor at the Chicago Tribune ADMITS that the media has not included Palestinian voices. Instead, Ms. Soloff does what many bigots often do who brow beat down the views htey dislike: she creates a straw dog argument and makes the case that the media is not bias leaving out my context..

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