Coverage of McCartney's concert in Israel focuses on Palestinian objections
THIS WEEK: How TV reporting of Paul McCartney's Israel visit focused on Palestinian objections.
ALSO: Brief JJ look at last week's Guardian front page Israel splash.
DON'T FORGET: Visit www.justjournalism.com to catch up on the most recent journalistic breaches in stories about Israel in the UK media.
NEGATIVE TV TAKE ON McCARTNEY ISRAEL VISIT
Sir Paul McCartney's visit to Israel to perform last Thursday received extensive coverage in the UK media. All the broadsheets and tabloids, except the Financial Times , covered the story, as well as BBC and ITV news programmes, BBC Radio 4 and the BBC News website .
• Whilst the overwhelmingly positive reception he received was reported, much of the coverage was devoted to objections by Palestinians and Palestinian sympathisers to McCartney's visit and to the fact that he would not be performing in the Palestinian territories.
• These themes were most prominent in the television broadcasts, with both ITV and the BBC focusing on the Palestinian perspective. ITV broadcast two items by Julian Manyon about the McCartney visit, on 24 September and the following day. The first report covered the singer's visit to Bethlehem and focused entirely on Palestinian opposition, quoting Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti calling Israel ‘the oppressor'. In both the studio introduction to the report and in a question the journalist put to Paul McCartney, the focus was the accusation by Palestinians that the artist was acting as ‘an accomplice to the occupation'. The second report centred on the concert itself, and the Beatles' previous ban from Israel.
• BBC Six O'clock News broadcast a report by Wyre Davies on the day of the concert, which also spent more time focusing on Palestinian objections than on Israel's view. Near the beginning of the report, the journalist interviewed Palestinian Beatles tribute band ‘The Silver Hairs', who said that Paul McCartney was singing in a place where ‘people are not giving peace a chance'. The journalist did not interview an Israeli in his report.
• The newspapers were more varied in their approaches. The broadsheets reported Palestinian calls for McCartney to boycott Israel, while the tabloids concentrated on the huge security requirements in light of death threats from Islamic hardliners - a Daily Mirror front page proclaimed, ‘All you need is 5,000 Bodyguards'.
• All publications except The Daily Telegraph mentioned that it was Paul McCartney's first visit since the Beatles had been banned from Israel in 1965, with a leading article in The Times commenting that the concert would give Israelis a chance to reflect on how much their country has changed in the decades that have passed.
• The Times also reported rumours that Israeli right-wingers might also protest against the concert. Their leading article stated that these protests, which were not mentioned in any other paper, and never materialised, showed that ‘ Israel is not yet free of its own extremist rump', while a full page article on the story went even further, proclaiming: ‘McCartney's Israel anniversary concert faces extremist threats from both sides.'
• While The Guardian led with ‘McCartney Israel gig sparks controversy', over half the article actually focused on a totally separate story - the release of a report by several aid agencies, which criticised the Quartet for not doing enough to alleviate Palestinian suffering.
• The debate about McCartney's decision to visit Israel spilled over onto the letters page of The Independent. One letter-writer claimed that John Lennon would never have performed in Israel, another refuted this, and a third argued that Paul McCartney's concert was irrelevant to the peace process. The Sun also featured a letter, which bypassed the whole debate by simply asking whether or not it was the influence of his new girlfriend, rather than the peace process, which inspired Paul McCartney's Israel visit.
GUARDIAN SPLASH OMITS IRAN THREATS
On 26 September, The Guardian ran a front page story entitled, Revealed: Israel asked US for green light to bomb Iran, which alleged that Israel had been intending to attack Iran earlier in 2008 but that President Bush had vetoed the plan during his May visit to Israel. Journalist Jonathan Steele cited ‘senior European diplomatic sources' as behind the alleged revelation.
• The story was accompanied by a leading article, A target too far, which expressed emphatic support for Bush's alleged veto of an Israeli attack on Iran. The last paragraph stated, “Israel has been telling anyone who would listen for the past two years that Iran's nuclear programme posed an existential threat,” but it failed to include any information about the fact that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has talked openly about the destruction of Israel.
• The story was reported in the following Sunday Times in a weekly news round-up, and on the BBC News website, in an article devoted to the story, titled, US ‘rejected' Israeli Iran strike.
BREACHES OF JOURNALISTIC PRINCIPLES
• Quartet's gap between words and deeds, BBC News website, By Jeremy Bowen, September 26, 2008 – LACK OF CONTEXT BY EXCLUSION OF RELEVANT INFORMATION AND FACTS
• Q & A: Iran and the nuclear issue, BBC News website, September 30, 2008 – LACK OF CONTEXT BY EXCLUSION OF RELEVANT INFORMATION AND FACTS
STORIES OF INTEREST
Israeli doctor to make rehab redundant?
The Independent ‘Life' supplement from 2 October featured a cover story on Dr Andre Waismann, who operates a ground-breaking medical clinic for opiate addicts in Ashkelon. While focusing on his struggle to have his pioneering efforts recognised by the global medical community, the article also mentions that his work has been overshadowed by the constant threat from Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.
Telegraph uncovers Gaza tunnels
The Daily Telegraph published a lengthy investigation into the tunnel systems between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, concentrating on the financial incentives that maintain the smuggling industry, and also highlighting the role of Hamas in controlling the tunnels.
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