<div dir="ltr">
<div id="gmail-toolbar" class="gmail-toolbar-container">
</div><div class="gmail-container" dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<font size="1"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/05/27/israel-palestine-australia-journalists/">https://theintercept.com/2021/05/27/israel-palestine-australia-journalists/</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Journalists in Australia Censured for Demanding Better Coverage of Israel and Palestine</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Akela Lacy - May 27, 2021</div></div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><div><p><u>Journalists in Australia</u> are facing backlash after asking their newsrooms to improve coverage of Israel and Palestine.</p>
<p>Five journalists in Australia published an open <a href="https://dobetteronpalestine.com/">letter</a>
on May 14 calling on news outlets to “do better” coverage of Israel and
Palestine by actively including Palestinian perspectives in coverage
and refraining from “both-siderism that equates the victims of a
military occupation with its instigators.” More than 720 journalists and
media staffers have since signed the letter criticizing coverage of the
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-truce-between-israel-hamas-begins-mediated-by-egypt-2021-05-20/">fighting</a>
between Israel and Hamas. Israel has killed over 240 Palestinians, 66
of them children, and has left parts of Gaza completely destroyed,
including a tower that housed offices for the Associated Press and Al
Jazeera, among other media and nongovernmental organizations. Hamas,
meanwhile, has killed 12 Israelis, including two children.</p>
<p>Already some of those journalists have faced consequences. At least a
dozen staffers at two of Australia’s largest public broadcasting
corporations, Special Broadcasting Service and Australian Broadcasting
Corporation, were asked by management to remove their signatures from
the letter, according to letter organizers and the Media, Entertainment
& Arts Alliance, an Australian media union. Several staffers at both
SBS and ABC said they were also told that their contracts might not be
renewed.</p></div><div><p>“The people who are being
particularly pressured are younger journalists, and often people of
color, and people who are from an Arab background,” said Antony
Loewenstein, a journalist based in Sydney, Australia, and previously in
East Jerusalem who helped organize the letter. “There’s not a suspicion
of Jewish journalists doing their job, whereas there is for Arab
journalists,” added Loewenstein, who is Australian and Jewish.</p>
</div><blockquote><span></span><p>“There’s not a suspicion of Jewish journalists doing their job, whereas there is for Arab journalists.”</p></blockquote><div><p>“We
recognise a growing dissatisfaction, both in this country and
elsewhere, with the media’s treatment of Palestine,” the authors of the
Australian letter wrote. “Many of us are seeking change but lack
sufficient power in our organisations to push back against the status
quo. We believe that the coverage of Palestine must be improved, that it
should no longer prioritise the same discredited spokespeople and tired
narratives, and that new voices are urgently needed.”</p>
<p>The authors asked that newsrooms “consciously and deliberately make
space for Palestinian perspectives” and avoid “frameworks that rely on
passive formulation and weasel words (clashes, etc) to obscure the
reality of a violence disproportionately endured by Palestinians.”
Authors also asked that employers respect the rights of journalists and
other staff “to publicly and openly express personal solidarity with the
Palestinian cause without penalty in their professional lives.”</p>
<p>The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance contacted SBS on Friday
after hearing reports from journalists who were pressured to remove
their names from the letter. “It is a principle of freedom of speech
that journalists have a right to express views about their profession
and the industry. Signing an open letter of this type is simply choosing
to take part in a legitimate discussion about journalism and the
media,” MEAA said in a <a href="https://www.meaa.org/mediaroom/statement-on-freedom-of-expression/">statement</a>
Friday. The union said it had advised SBS “that any disciplinary action
resulting from this expression of journalistic freedom will be strongly
resisted by MEAA, and are seeking an urgent clarification of the
broadcaster’s position.”</p>
<p>Reached for comment, MEAA said it was aware of isolated incidents of
ABC management contacting staffers who had signed the letter. “There has
been no formal disciplinary action taken against any staff warranting
further official intervention by the union at this stage,” MEAA
communications director Mark Phillips said. “However, our position would
be the same should management of any media outlet, commercial or
government owned, threaten journalists with disciplinary action for
signing the letter.” The union was not aware of incidents where people
at SBS or ABC had been told their contracts might not be renewed but
acknowledged that different people might interpret a stern call from
management in different ways.</p>
<p>Staffers at the Guardian Australia represented by MEAA also issued a <a href="https://twitter.com/gingerandhoney/status/1395622023372541952?s=20">statement</a>
Friday standing in support with colleagues at SBS who had faced
backlash for signing the letter. “Guardian Australia MEAA members were
appalled to hear reports this week that staff members at SBS have been
pressured to remove their signatures from an open letter urging balanced
coverage of Palestinian perspectives in the current Middle East
conflict,” they wrote. “Journalists are routinely subjected to pressure
and intimidation regarding support for Palestine. This intimidation
directly conflicts with the media code of ethics, as it prevents
journalists from exercising their right to express a political identity
that is distinct from their employer without penalty in their working
lives. As union members, we oppose attempts to intimidate or discipline
any journalists for engaging in public discourse.”</p>
<p>Letter organizers sought to position the “culture of silence” in
media around coverage of Israel and Palestine as both a class and
workplace issue, said one person who helped to organize it and requested
anonymity for fear of retaliation. Many journalists don’t think their
outlets cover the region in a factual or balanced way, they said, adding
that “media companies have consistently, over decades, bowed to massive
external pressure to skew their reporting in this way.”</p>
</div><blockquote><span></span><p>“There’s a ton of fear in the industry and that is a workplace issue as much as anything.”</p></blockquote><div><p>The
nature of the issue, they explained, “makes it a matter on which there
can be class solidarity and, we hope, collective workplace action.” It’s
not a secret within the industry “that if you push back on the way you
are directed to cover this issue, or you speak in public in a way that
shows you see Palestinians as victims of a colonial occupation, you can
and will likely be disciplined by your employer, subjected to a barrage
of targeted complaints by external parties, and possibly sacked. There’s
a ton of fear in the industry and that is a workplace issue as much as
anything. Strength in numbers seems to me to be the only possible way
through that.”</p>
<p>SBS confirmed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/21/youre-a-mate-afrs-phil-coorey-steamed-up-over-gas-power">The Guardian</a>
on Friday that it had spoken to employees who signed the statement but
denied that anyone was asked to remove their name. A spokesperson for
the company said no disciplinary action had been “taken or proposed”
with respect to the letter. “SBS is a publicly funded national
broadcaster which must be, and be seen to be, objective and impartial,”
the spokesperson said. “SBS had informal conversations with employees to
remind them of their obligations to be balanced and impartial in all
their editorial output, and to consider public perceptions of their
impartiality.”</p>
<p>MEAA later posted an update saying that after the union reached out
to SBS, the company “has since confirmed that no disciplinary action
will be taken against SBS staff who signed the open letter.”</p>
<p>Reached for comment, SBS Head of Corporate Communications Paul de
Leon sent the same statement to The Intercept. “No individuals were
directed to remove their names from the open letter, nor has there been
any disciplinary action taken or proposed in relation to this matter.”
ABC did not respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p>“We know that it’s unequivocally false that that’s not what
happened,” said Jennine Khalik, a content creator based in Sydney who
helped to organize the letter. Khalik’s parents are Palestinian
refugees. She was a journalist for eight years and previously worked at
ABC. “They are trying to protect their name.”</p>
<p>It’s common practice for journalists in Australia to take free trips
to Israel paid for by Israel lobby groups. SBS Managing Director James
Taylor, for example, took a free trip to Israel paid for by the New
South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, a powerful lobbying group, in
2019.</p>
<p>SBS board member Nyunggai Warren Mundine <a href="https://twitter.com/nyunggai/status/1393066020848345089?s=20">tweeted</a> numerous <a href="https://twitter.com/nyunggai/status/1392785910698106884?s=20">times</a>
during the 11 days of attacks by Israel on Gaza, writing
“#IStandWithIsrael against the Hamas terrorist.” Mundine also retweeted
pro-Israel posts from the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.</p>
<p>Asked if Taylor’s trip or Mundine’s tweets conflicted with SBS
“obligations to be balanced and impartial,” or whether SBS contacted
either person as it had staffers who signed the Gaza letter, SBS’s de
Leon said the Israel study mission was attended by media professionals
from many Australian outlets and “enabled representatives to gain a
deeper understanding of the region, hear a range of diverse perspectives
first-hand, and engage with peers in the media.” The company “takes
great care to ensure that our editorial output is impartial and
balanced, reporting on all perspectives in line with the SBS Codes of
Practice. Whether or not these Code provisions have been breached is
assessed against the relevant content,” de Leon said.</p>
<p>“There’s clearly a culture that’s sympathetic to Israel,” said
Khalik. “Being pulled aside for [signing a letter] when the culture is
so sympathetic to Israel, it’s threatening. You can go on junkets, and
you can tweet whatever you want about standing with Israel, and you can
skew stories without consequences. It was clear that those conversations
[with management] would impact their time there.”</p></div><div><p>Reporters
in other countries are facing similar backlash. Canadian journalists
circulated a similar open letter on the same day. Several signatories
were reprimanded by management or completely taken off coverage of the
region, The Intercept <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/05/20/israel-palestine-canadian-journalists-letter/">reported</a>.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sent an email to staff Friday
addressing the letter as a “conflict of interest” and advising that
journalists on staff who signed it would be taken off coverage of the
region.</p>
<p>CBC staff also received an email last week reminding them of CBC
guidelines not to use the word “Palestine” in coverage. “Hey gang, Just a
reminder – if you’re doing any reporting on the conflict in the Middle
East, please be sure to read our Middle East glossary in the language
guide. In particular, I’m seeing Palestine in some of our communication
and rough draft,” CBC News Toronto Executive Producer Laura Green wrote.
“We do not use Palestine to refer to the West Bank or Gaza. It’s ok to
use clips from protesters saying it but we should not, as there is no
modern country of Palestine.” Green added that it is good practice to
“avoid using Palestine colloquially in our own exchanges,” as to reduce
the risk that someone might “accidentally write or say it in something
that is published or broadcast.” The email also included CBC guidelines
that advised writing “Palestinian militants in Gaza” instead of “Hamas,”
unless referring to an action claimed by the group.</p>
<p>CBC said that journalists who signed the letter “have taken a public
stand on this story which created the perception of a conflict of
interest among some members of our audience” and that the company was
“ensuring editorial distance between signatories and our daily coverage
for the near future.” But “no one is being disciplined for signing the
letter,” and no stories are being dropped,” CBC Head of Public Affairs
Chuck Thompson said. “Our style guide reflects the fact that, although
there is an establishment movement as part of a two-state peace
agreement with Israel, there is at present no modern country of
Palestine and our recommendation is to use Palestinian territories. That
said, we quote people who talk about Palestine and do interviews about
books with Palestine in the title.”</p>
<p>In the U.S., the Associated Press fired news associate Emily Wilder for what the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/05/25/emily-wilder-firing-ap-right-wing/">global press giant</a> said were “violations of AP’s social media policy.” Wilder had been the target of a conservative <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/05/24/ap-associated-press-emily-wilder/">smear campaign</a> over her activism in college in support of Palestinian rights. As Washington Post media columnist Erik Wemple <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/25/how-ap-wronged-emily-wilder/">wrote</a> Tuesday, the AP had previously asked Wilder to remove the phrase “Black Lives Matter” from her bio on Twitter.</p></div></div></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>