Friday, June 12, 2009

CBC Ombud Upholds Complaint Against Al-Jazeera English Reporter



CBC Ombud Upholds Complaint Against Al-Jazeera English Reporter June 12, 2009

By: Mike Fegelman, Executive Director

Click Here to View this Article Online and Discuss on Headlines and Deadlines

Dear HonestReporting Canada Subscriber,

It's been recently reported that Al-Jazeera English (AJE) may get regulatory approval from the CRTC to broadcast in Canada by as early as this fall. Its parent company, Al Jazeera Arabic, notorious for its anti-Israel and anti-Semitic content, has been described as "a form of terror TV, an unfettered soapbox for sociopaths," and that's putting it lightly.

Canadian Jewish and pro-Israel groups are concerned about AJE's entrance into Canada and they have every reason to be.

Bernie Farber, CEO of Canadian Jewish Congress, noted recently that "the only true record we have of Al-Jazeera is the parent Arabic station, which has broadcast anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial." Likewise, Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Canada-Israel Committee, said that Al-Jazeera has a record of advancing "a skewed narrative of the past and present without regard for objectivity or the journalistic standards we have established in Canada." Frank Dimant, Executive Vice-President of B'nai Brith Canada, said that "the introduction of an English-language Al-Jazeera into Canadian homes can only provide yet another outlet for vicious anti-Israel propaganda. Al-Jazeera may masquerade as an unbiased, neutral media outlet, but it is fooling nobody."

HonestReporting Canada echoes these views. We are apprehensive that AJE will be unabashedly anti-Israel, journalistically unfair, inaccurate and unbalanced, and may potentially carry content which exposes Jews to hatred and anti-Semitism. We have relayed our concerns to the CRTC and to the Canadian sponsor of AJE, Ethnic Channels Group Ltd.

These concerns are not just drawn from mere suspicions or whims, instead, they are based on AJE's already troubling track record of news coverage which we feel has not complied with the CRTC's own journalistic standards and practices, coupled with the network's troubling relationship with its parent company.

Case #1: AJE Reporter Misses the "Target"

Following the recent war between Israel and Hamas this past January, one of our members, Mr. Michael Bloomfield, flagged a January 6 AJE report which aired on CBC Newsworld for being unfair and inaccurate.

In the report, AJE Gaza correspondent Mr. Ayman Mohyeldin recounted complaints from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the UN that some of their workers were being wounded and killed, but Mr. Mohyeldin went a step further and stated by some unknown veracity that "they have obviously been targeted" by the Israelis. Such an allegation implied that Israeli forces were committing war crimes and were conducting activities that went against the Geneva Conventions.



After filing a complaint with the CBC asking the network to provide "irrefutable proof" to support these allegations, Mr. Bloomfield's concerns were answered by Mr. Vince Carlin, the CBC's Ombudsman, who concluded in his review on May 28 (see document by clicking here) that this AJE report "did not meet the standards of accuracy and fairness within the CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices."

According to Mr. Carlin's review:
  • "I screened the program segments in question as objectively as I could. One of the crucial questions is whether Mr. Mohyeldin was attributing his comment to the ICRC (or another international agency) or stating it on his own. If he were working as a surrogate CBC journalist, he would have had to fulfill the obligation to prove anything he stated as fact. Were he reporting the views of others, that obligation does not exist."
  • "My first conclusion was that the statement "they have obviously been targeted" was Mr. Mohyeldin's conclusion. He may have based it on statements from the ICRC or United Nations officials, but it seems clear that, in context, he offered it as a statement of fact."
  • "The next question is the meaning of "targeted." While the parsing of "targeted" in Newsworld's response is undoubtedly accurate as far as it goes, I have to fall back on what a reasonable person watching that broadcast would conclude: not that they had fallen victim of random fire, but that they had been deliberately fired upon despite their vests and other identification."
  • "What is clear is that the clip you referenced did not meet the standards of CBC journalism. Mr. Mohyeldin needed to offer proof that the claim was true, or the anchor needed to offer context to the statement."
This is a stunning acknowledgement by the CBC that the charges levelled by this AJE correspondent were not supported by fact. Ironically, this same reporter, Mr. Ayman Mohyeldin, was lauded as being a "war hero" in a published report in Haaretz. Columnist Gideon Levy described him as "the cherry on top of this journalistic cream," and Tony Burman, the ex-CBC editor-in-chief and now Managing Editor of AJE, also spoke the praises of Mr. Mohyeldin by reading this "war hero" elegy at an event at the University of Toronto this past February.

Mr. Burman has never been shy about his desire to have Al Jazeera available in Canada. Now the only question remains is whether he will temper his praises of Mr. Mohyeldin given his former CBC colleague's review chastising his Gaza correspondent.

Case #2: AJE Whitewashes Palestinian Prisoners

On October 24, 2007, CBC Around the World broadcasted a one-sided report by AJE correspondent Jacky Rowland which covered the aftermath of a Palestinian riot in Israel's Ketziot Prison.

This AJE report featured a broader discussion about Palestinian prisoners where she whitewashed the inmates by describing them as "widely respected fighters against the occupation." In an HonestReporting Canada alert, we noted that absent from Ms. Rowland's report was the fact that many of these prisoners have "blood on their hands," Israel's term for people involved in attacks against Israelis.



No reference was made that many of these prisoners were jailed for conducting terror attacks against Israelis, and therefore many of them, in the parlance of the Israeli-Arab conflict, have "blood on their hands." As a result of this AJE report presenting only the Palestinian perspective, CBC viewers were left with the impression that most Palestinian prisoners are political prisoners, not gunmen, bombers, etc., who have been unjustly detained by Israeli prison authorities.

Ms. Rowland's report also failed to put any Israeli officials on camera to provide an alternative perspective on the nefarious backgrounds of some of the Palestinian prisoners. Overall, the report failed to provide necessary context about the terror resumes and rap sheets of Palestinian prisoners and instead presented them as "widely respected fighters against the occupation."

How We Can Make a Difference:

In the past, the CRTC heeded complaints about possible incitement with Al Jazeera, the parent company of AJE, and stipulated that interested cable providers must ensure that AJ broadcasts did not violate Canadian hate laws and that they must keep round the clock recordings of all of its broadcasts. In answering the CRTC's call for comments on whether to give Al-Jazeera English its license to broadcast in Canada, we asked the CRTC to impose the aforementioned strict provisions along with other new quality control protocols to ensure that the network adheres to its responsibilities.

Should AJE come to Canada, HonestReporting Canada will be vigilant in ensuring that AJE complies with the CRTC's standards. We look forward to working with our 23,000 members and other community organizations in a united front to oppose this threat.







Toronto Office: P.O. Box 6, Station Q Toronto, Ontario M4T 2L7
Montreal Office: P.O. Box 42508, Succursale Snowdon Montreal, Quebec H3W 3H7
Office: (416) 915-9157 E-mail: info@honestreporting.ca Web: www.honestreporting.ca



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VIDEO:Canada Human Rights

VIDEO of CTV PowerPlay Canada Human? Rights Commission?

Iranian S-Elections?

Evolution / Intelligent Design

Legitimate Questions Should Be Discussed

I am reminded of how established "science" has been wrong many times before such as in the case of Piltdown man. So could it be wrong now? Or has it been perfected? Should not reasonable arguments be considered?

We have become a nation of beggars

Terence Corcoran reports in the National Post on Friday, January 16, 2009 that the STIMULUS everyone is yelling for may only work over a short period and may actually MAKE THE ECONOMY WORSE over longer periods.

[Read the article below for the researchers who studied this phenomenon.]

POINTS

- "What if, as a wide and growing school of economists now suspect, the government spending and stimulus theory is a crock that is shovel-ready to be heaved out into the barnyard of economic waste?"

- Even disciples of Keynes, such as Harvard's Greg Mankiw, recently highlighted economic studies that show government spending binges -- shocks, they are sometimes called -- don't seem to help the economy grow. They might even make it worse.

-One of the studies cited by Mr. Mankiw was by two European economists (Andrew Mountford and Harald Uhlig), titled "What are the Effects of Fiscal Shocks?" It looked at big deficit-financed spending increases and found that they stimulate the economy for the first year, but "only weakly" compared with a deficit financed tax cut. The overriding problem is that the deficits crowd out private investment and, over the long run, may make the economy worse. "The resulting higher debt burdens may have long-term consequences which are far worse than the short-term increase in GDP."

-A paper by two economists, including the current chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, Olivier Blanchard, concluded that increased taxes and "increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on private investment spending."

-Roberto Perotti, an Italian economist with links to Columbia University, in "Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries," found nothing but bad news for Keynesians. Economic growth is little changed after big increases in government spending, but there are signs of weakening private investment.

- What we all might logically intuit to be true -- spend government money, especially borrowed money, and you stimulate growth -- has long been thought to be a fallacy by some economists. That thought is now spreading. British economist William Buiter said the massive Obama fiscal stimulus proposals "are afflicted by the Keynesian fallacy on steroids."

The whole article by Terrance Corcoran follows:

Are you "shovel-ready," poised to hit the ground running, or merely desperate for cheap cash to get through the recession? If so, here's your last chance to apply to Ottawa for a piece of the massive government spending-bailout-infrastructure-stimulus operation now being prepared for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's Jan. 27 budget extravaganza.

To get you going, the National Post has created an all-purpose Stimulus Canada application document. Simply make sure your company/institution fills out the form here to get in on the action.

We're just kidding, of course, or at least we were until our satirical Stimulus Canada General Application Form was mugged by reality, which is rapidly turning out to be funnier than the fanciful idea of a government department called Stimulus Canada. To all intents and purposes, Stimulus Canada already exists.

Government money to flow, the taps are opening, deficits are no problem. The spending, as Stephen Harper said after a meeting with the premiers on Friday, will be "very significant" and there will be "very significant deficits." That could mean new spending of $20-billion and deficits of $40-billion.

Industry groups, corporate opportunists, charities, municipal politicians, arts groups, provincial premiers, tech firms, mining companies, forestry operators, banks, money lenders -- in fact, just about everybody has come forward to get in on Canada's portion of what is turning out to be a mad global government stimulus pandemic.

Each claims to have a plan or an idea that they say would produce jobs, spending, investment and activity that would get Canada through the recession and stimulate the economy.

At some point, though, the clamour of claims and calls becomes absurd, and that point looks to have been crossed the other day in the United States when porn merchant Larry Flint said the U.S. sex industry was falling on hard times, business was down 25%, and it needed a $5-billion slice of the $1.2-billion U.S. stimulus program.

And why not?

Mr. Flint has a point. It is not totally illogical for anyone to think that way. If you spend a dollar somewhere -- whether building a bridge or operating a forest company or buying a car -- it generates activity. And, after all, it's a grand old economic theory, created by John Maynard Keynes, that spending, especially government spending, rolls through the economy on a giant multiplier, piling jobs on jobs, growth on growth.

Except for one problem: What if it's not true? What if, as a wide and growing school of economists now suspect, the government spending and stimulus theory is a crock that is shovel-ready to be heaved out into the barnyard of economic waste?

The Prime Minister, in his comments on Friday, seemed to be riding right into the barnyard. He said the government would be simply "borrowing money that is not being used" and "that business is afraid to invest." By borrowing that money, and turning it over to all the groups and interests looking for part of the stimulus spending, he would be jump-starting activity while the private sector got its legs back.

Even disciples of Keynes, such as Harvard's Greg Mankiw, recently highlighted economic studies that show government spending binges -- shocks, they are sometimes called -- don't seem to help the economy grow. They might even make it worse.

One of the studies cited by Mr. Mankiw was by two European economists (Andrew Mountford and Harald Uhlig), titled "What are the Effects of Fiscal Shocks?" It looked at big deficit-financed spending increases and found that they stimulate the economy for the first year, but "only weakly" compared with a deficit financed tax cut. The overriding problem is that the deficits crowd out private investment and, over the long run, may make the economy worse. "The resulting higher debt burdens may have long-term consequences which are far worse than the short-term increase in GDP."

Two other studies point in the same direction. A paper by two economists, including the current chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, Olivier Blanchard, concluded that increased taxes and "increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on private investment spending."

Roberto Perotti, an Italian economist with links to Columbia University, in "Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries," found nothing but bad news for Keynesians. Economic growth is little changed after big increases in government spending, but there are signs of weakening private investment.

What we all might logically intuit to be true -- spend government money, especially borrowed money, and you stimulate growth -- has long been thought to be a fallacy by some economists. That thought is now spreading. British economist William Buiter said the massive Obama fiscal stimulus proposals "are afflicted by the Keynesian fallacy on steroids."

Over at Stimulus Canada, Mr. Harper's plan looks somewhat more modest and Canada is not in the same fiscal fix as the United States. But Ottawa and the provinces are clearly ready to borrow big wads of money from the future to stimulate the economy today. It's money that is supposedly sitting out there in the timid hands of investors who will be repaid with tax dollars later.

But if that stimulus spending does not generate much fresh economic growth, and the borrowing chews up money that private investors could invest in the future, the shovel-ready brigades who get the cash today will produce only short term gains at the expense of the long term health of the economy.

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We do not necessarily agree with all links posted here but we include them to bring balance to an unbalanced media.