CBC Success: You Made the
Difference!
October 1, 2006
Dear
HonestReporting
Canada subscriber:
This past summer was another low point in CBC's
long history of distorted Middle East coverage. The national broadcaster's
kid-glove treatment of Hezbollah, its under-reporting of the human catastrophe
in northern Israel, and its habit of contrasting Israeli soldiers with Lebanese
civilians, all combined to tell a familiar CBC narrative of Israeli aggression
against its Arab neighbours.
We asked you to contact CBC about its unfair
and inaccurate coverage, and you responded in large numbers. Here's how your
efforts made the difference.
The
Samir Qantar Affair
The CBC’s
largely one-sided portrayal of the Israel-Lebanon crisis reached it peak on
September 4, when CBC’s Beirut correspondent,
Nahlah Ayed, sympathetically profiled the family of cold-blooded
terrorist Samir Qantar.
In 1979, Qantar led a group of
terrorists
into Israel, shot
a father in front of his daughter, then smashed the 4-year-old girl's head in.
Recently Qantar's
name was mentioned as part of a possible prisoner swap for Israeli soldiers held
hostage by Hezbollah. Using the potential prisoner trade as a news hook,
CBC's Ayed profiled the terrorist's family, but inexplicably ignored his
victims' family.
In a
September 6 action alert, we brought this lopsided report to your
attention. You complained to the CBC in large numbers, and eight days later,
CBC broadcast an eleven-minute follow-up report. This new report, by
Israel-based correspondent Terry Mileswki, focused on Smadar Haran Kaiser, the
woman whose family Samir Qantar murdered. In contrast to Ayed, who focused on
the plight of a terrorist and his family, Milewski appropriately explored the
dilemma confronting Israelis whose family members were killed or taken hostage
by terrorists.
Click the images below to see
Nahlah Ayed's original, problematic report and and Terry Milewski's follow-up
report.
The CBC Web site
In an
August 10 action alert, we directed you to CBC's Web site, which for the
past 18 months had introduced its entire "IN
DEPTH: Middle East" section with a picture of a flag-waving Palestinian
lying in front of a massive Israeli bulldozer -- another example of CBC's
apparent fondness for the Israel-as-aggressor narrative. Despite updating the
page numerous times over the 18 months, CBC refused to replace the prejudicial
photo, and even falsely labeled it a "Feb. 1"
photo without mentioning that it was from Feb. 1, 2005.
You responded with emails and
phone-calls, and within three days, CBC updated the page with a new, unbiased
photo. Click the photos below to see the before-and-after versions.
| BEFORE |
AFTER |
 |
 |
In the same action alert, we
pointed out that CBC's "IN
DEPTH: Middle East in Crisis" section, created specially for the
Israel-Lebanon crisis, opened with a picture of a Beirut neighbourhood flattened
by Israeli bombs. Why, we asked, would CBC once again portray Middle East events
through the prism of Israel's victimization of Arabs, when many pictures were
available of Israeli neighbourhoods damaged by Hezbollah rockets?
Again, you complained. And on
August 14, CBC replaced the image with this photo (click to enlarge):
CBC also corrected other information on its Web site,
such as the false claim in its
timeline of the Lebanon crisis that an Israeli attack on the village of
Qana killed 56 people.
How You Can Make a
Difference
Continue monitoring and responding to Canadian
media coverage of Israel. Contact HonestReporting Canada at
action@honestreporting.ca if you find unfair or inaccurate coverage.
Keep the media honest by supporting
HonestReporting Canada. Working
together, we can continue to make a difference. Email us at
info@honestreporting.ca
to inquire about sponsorship opportunities, or choose from the options below:
