I was a guest on Al Jazeera TV’s Listening Post program, which discussed the ongoing controversy over Ethan Bronner’s conflict of interest due to his son’s voluntary IDF service. My comments are in the first segment which goes roughly from the 1 minutes mark up to the 9 minute mark in the program. My remarks were considerably condensed from the overall video footage I provided them. But that’s what happens on TV. I was just happy to be there. Thanks to Bill Alford of ScanTV’s Moral Politics for production assistance.
I understand that Clark Hoyt will do another follow up on the Bronner story in his public editor column this coming Sunday including letters from readers responding pro and con. It’s good to keep this story alive.
Jonathan Cook has some terrific additional insight into the Bronner affair.
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Some comments:
You mean Al-Jazeera is NOT biased and they DON’T have an agenda? Come on!
A “yeshiva” is a TALMUDICAL academy, not one for “Biblical studies” as Al-Jazeera claims.
If an American reporter in Iraq or Afghanistan had a son in the US Army, would it be a “conflict of interest?”
Did Enie Pyle, the legendary World War II journalist have a “conflict of interest”?
Would it be unethical for Al-Jazeera to have a Palestinian reporter cover the Arab-Israel conflict?
What if he had a son in the Palestinian Authority police, or Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade or HAMAS?
One thing I notice about “progressives” who don’t live in Israel (also Phil Weiss, among others)
is that the media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict seems to have become almost an obsession.
Every day it seems we see postings either praising or denouncing media reports,
as if this really has an effect on what is going on here.
No doubt geographical separation leads to a certain frustration over the inability to truly influence things,
so the “progressives” convince themselves that if only media coverage were “proper” (i.e. pro-Arab)
then somehow the world would then be motivated to intervene in a way the “progressives” want and
impose the policies the “progressives” want. This is a fantasy. What happens on the ground here in
Israel is what really matters. Even right-wing Israelis overly worry about how the media covers events here.
I tell them it is not as important as they think.
First, I’d rather this segment to be judged on its own individual merits & I think it is quite good. Second, regarding Al Jazeera as a whole–has it any more of an agenda than Haaretz or any Israeli publication farther to the right? No. Third, diff. yeshivas study diff. topics. There are yeshivas that also provide Bible study though of course the major focus is Talmud study. But is that the worst error you’ve been able to find?
Yes, it would be a conflict if the reporter was covering his son’s military sector. Israel is such a small country that for all intents & purposes it is one military sector. And as I’ve already written here, the issue of his son isn’t the decisive one. It is the son on top of Bronner’s other obvious bias demonstrated in almost every report he writes.
Al Jazeera prob. HAS Palestinians covering the A-I conflict so that’s not a conflict. But if the reporter had a son in any of those forces, yes I think it would be a potential conflict esp. if the reporter had demonstrated bias.
This is another ludicrous statement. I know Israelis & I know they are obsessed by covearge of the conflict just as much as Phil Weiss or I. In case you didn’t know it, that’s they subject of this blog so naturally I focus intensively on the issue of media coverage.
That is becoming increasingly less important as it becomes more & more clear to Israelis themselves & esp. the rest of the world that Israel is incapable of resolving the conflict. So the objective of progressives becomes less & less trying to influence opinion & events inside Israel & more & more to influence opinions about Israel in the international arena. Of course, Israel cooperates by doing it’s absolute worst (or best depending on yr perspective) to present ammunition (literally) to progressives for their argument that the world must intervene in some capacity to end the conflict.