-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.dailystar.com.lb/features/03_05_02_a1.htm
}}}>Begin
Canadian press launch own Intifada
Journalists enraged at ‘censorship’ by pro-Israel owners
Lina Badih
Special to The Daily Star
Toronto: As reports of censorship and pro-Israeli media bias in Canada rage,
journalists are fighting back, waging what they call their own intifada.
“We’ve seen the ugly face of censorship at the Gazette and … (it) looks a lot like Izzy
Asper’s,” wrote journalists at the Montreal Gazette, the only English-language
newspaper in Canada’s second largest city, in an article protesting interference in
press freedom.
The article, which used the byline “Gazette Intifada,” was published in Media
Magazine last month. Its authors are among the dozens of prominent Canadian
journalists, authors, politicians, activists and academics who want the government to
begin an inquiry into the effects of concentrated media ownership in Canada.
According to the Gazette Intifada, the Aspers, owners of CanWest Global
Communications, have “clamped down on news, criticism, or commentary that is
anything but 100 percent pro-Israeli.”
Canada’s largest media corporation, CanWest Global Communications, is headed by
pro-Israeli ideologue Israel “Izzy” Asper. After purchasing the Southam newspaper
chain in 2000, CanWest’s Canadian portfolio has come to include 126 community
newspapers, one of three national television networks and a major internet portal as
well as 14 major metropolitan daily newspapers including the nationally distributed
National Post. In most Canadian large cities, CanWest runs the only daily
newspaper.
Asper has made no attempt to keep his support for Israel a secret. In a speech last
year, he remarked that “Israel is a lonely outpost of Western civilization and its
values in a sea of terrorism, corruption, dictatorship and human enslavement.” He
has also criticized the Canadian government for its “shameful … policy on Israel, as
represented by its pro-Palestinian votes at the United Nations.”
Journalists fear Asper’s private opinions may be impacting what the public reads.
CanWest has muzzled reporters and editors from coast- to-coast and meddled with
the editorial stance of its newspapers, particularly in their coverage of the Middle
East. Charges of censorship have not been limited to editorials and commentaries
but also include news stories. According to local journalists, any negative coverage
of Israel has been forbidden.
Concerns about CanWest’s ownership of 60 percent of Canadian media proved
legitimate when Asper dictated in December that corporate editorials, written at the
company’s headquarters in Winnipeg, must run weekly in the 14 metropolitan dailies
across Canada. The “national editorials” would run in the space where papers had
run local editorials. The policy has since led to employee dissent and company
punitive discipline at three newspapers, according to a report by the Canadian
Journalists for Free Expression.
“I have not had columns (before CanWest took over) where you’ve been talking
about the Israeli issue and that’s verboten if you don’t take the right side,” said
Stephen Kimber, a former CanWest employee, on national television. Kimber quit his
job with the Halifax Daily News when the newspaper refused to run a commentary he
had written criticizing their repeated censorship of his columns.
A column at another newspaper was spiked because the columnist compared the
plight of Palestinians to that of aborigines in Canada.
By attempting to impose censorship and clamp down on freedom of the press,
CanWest has created a strong backlash among journalists. Gazette reporters have
signed a petition protesting the abuses, and vent their frustration in a website they
set up on their own time.
According to Alexander Norris, Gazette reporters “have been threatened with
dismissal for anything that smacks of what CanWest takes to be a violation of an
obligation of primary fidelity to our employer.” Norris is one of 77 Gazette reporters
who have signed an online petition in protest.
Journalists are not alone in their dissent. Pro-Palestinian students also say the media
covers their events with bias.
“When we organize activities, they’re either not covered at all or covered from a
negative perspective,” said Sami Nazzal, head of the Solidarity for Palestinian
Human Rights (SPHR) at Concordia University. “Regardless of the activity, the media
won’t cover it unless there is something negative, unless there’s something to make
a pro- Palestinian activist look bad.
Nazzal gave the example of a recent SPHR-organized rally, during which one
demonstrator started to burn an Israeli flag. “It took a few seconds before we
stopped him,” said Nazzal. “But the camera caught it, and that’s all they showed on
TV. They didn’t cover the thousands of people demonstrating. They didn’t say why
we were there or what our message was. All they said was that we burned an Israeli
flag.”
According to local journalists, letters to the editor continue to pour in. And
journalists
have written collectively that despite what they perceive as censorship, they will
continue to report the facts as they see them. “None of this has reduced our
determination one iota,” the Gazette reporters wrote.
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