Ben Knight, from our favourite national broadcaster, has run a story linked of the ABC’s homepage, stating that Israeli media is a joke. Titled “Is it news? How Israel’s feisty media sometimes trips”, Mr Knight goes on to state that Israel’s media too often quotes unnamed sources and partial information, which he believes indicates a deeper manipulation of the media by the government.
His whole article is based on this snippet from Ha Aretz newspaper:
“Israel Radio on Monday quoted a senior Palestinian source as saying that Israel and Hamas will soon launch marathon talks in order to reach a deal on the release of Israel Defense (sic) Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, abducted from his army base in 2006 and held in Gaza ever since.
According to the radio, the source told the A-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper that delegations from both sides will stay in different parts of the same Cairo hotel, and an Egyptian negotiator will shuttle between them.”
Stating that “If you pitched this story to an editor in Australia, you’d be laughed out of the newsroom, if you were lucky”. You see, Mr Knight believes the quotation of unnamed sources to be “naughty naughty”, likewise quoting other news sources. He then goes on to say:
“For example, who is the ‘senior Palestinian source’? Are they loyal to Fatah or Hamas? Is this the same Palestinian source who told us Abu Mazen was preparing to abandon peace talks with Israel?”
(Note he refers to “Abu Mazen”, rather than “Mahmoud Abbas”. Abu Mazen is the Palestinian name for Mr Abbas, which clearly demonstrates where Mr Knight sits on “the situation“, as he refers to the Palestinian / Israeli conflict).
Mr Knight says that such poor quotation and referencing is indicative of hidden manipulation from “those in power”, who are trying to push an Agenda. Mr Knight goes on to say that repeatedly using other news sources, who have a poor reputation on the issue your reporting on, is a terrible standard. He says that “The story above will be news when someone puts their name to it, and says, ‘This is going to happen, this is when, and this is who will be there.'”.
Really…
So – by the ABC’s own standards, repeatedly using “unnamed sources” and ‘half-informations’, which fail to paint the full story, is indicative of trying to push an agenda.
Let’s analyse the current list of the ABC’s own articles on Israel, to see how they stack up, against this newly publicised internal policy, shall we?
httpss://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/01/2290381.htm:
Fails to say who the quotation is from. Fails to identify if it’s ‘Hamas or Fatah’ they’re talking about. It’s a Reuters report, with no listed journalist.
httpss://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/30/2289233.htm
From none other than Mr Clown Knight Himself. Fails to substantiate a single source. Fails to indicate a time frame or ‘where when or who’ of it.
httpss://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/29/2289054.htm
Fails to substantiate a source. Quotes irrelevant and biased ‘facts’ from the past.
httpss://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/28/2288831.htm
Fails to substantiate a source. Quotes Reuters but doesn’t quote who the Journalist was. Fails to identify if it’s ‘Hamas or Fatah’ they’re talking about.
The list goes on, and on, and on ad nauseum.
Ben Knight – you’re a complete clown.