Wed. 30 Mar. 2011 @ 13.00 - London, 30 March 2011 - Following Just Journalism's expose of the public funding and virulent anti-Israel content of the London Review of Books (LRB), UK Arts Council has failed to renew its regular grant to the magazine for 2012. For the first time in 20 years, LRB has been excluded from the list of organisations set to receive public funding via the Council. Budget cuts forced down the number of organisations receiving public money from 849 in 2011 to 695 in 2012. In November 2010, Just Journalism published, 'London Review of Books: Ten years of anti-Israel prejudice', which exposed, through a Freedom of Information request, that since the inception in 1980 of the most widely-circulated European literary magazine, LRB has received £767,000 of public money. The same enquiry also revealed that in the period between 2000 and 2010, public money, to the tune of over £188,000, was drawn from to pay for 92 articles on Israel-Palestine, 91 of which put forward a staunchly pro-Palestinian narrative and many of which depicted Israel as, 'a bloodthirsty and genocidal regime out of all proportion to reality, while sympathetic portraits abounded of groups designated as terrorist organisations by the British government such as Hamas and Hezbollah'. The report was distributed by the Anti-Defamation League in the United States and received international media coverage, including at The Independent on Sunday and the Jerusalem Post. Israeli historian Benny Morris said in response to the report: 'Many contributions are no more than pro-Arab propaganda. On the face of things, it would appear that sending taxpayers' pounds their way is misguided if not downright hostile toward Israel - which is not British government policy.' Responding to the news that Arts Council has cut all funding to the LRB for the first time in the publication's history, Executive Director of Just Journalism Michael Weiss said: 'LRB has every right to publish whatever it wants about Israel, but one of the main questions we raised was whether or not its material should be aided by the public purse. We seem to have helped Arts Council decide the matter. Quite apart from fair and scrupulous criticism of Israeli policies, LRB has trafficked in a decade-long enmity to Israel as both a concept and a fact, going so far as to compare it to the Third Reich and glorify terrorists who are committed to its destruction. British taxpayers deserved to know how their money had been spent.' ENDS For further information, please contact: Just Journalism: +44 20 7837 5960
March 30, 2011 Press Release 
Arts Council cuts funding to London Review of Books
Thursday, 31 March 2011
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