Yesterday's national protest against National Public Radio's unbalanced coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict was reported on NPR itself in predictable fashion. I happened to overhear it during the course of the day, and although I can't find a verbatim account, I recall that the substance of it went something like this.
There was a brief rambling explanation of the protest by one of the ZOA's less articulate leaders, followed by a slick, scripted denial by an NPR spokeswoman, the gist of which was that all of NPR's reporting is balanced, unbiased and fair, despite ongoing pressure to favor certain interest groups. In other words, that's their story and they're sticking to it, and international Zionist pressure isn't going to change their minds.
NPR has gotten so aggressive and, frankly, brazen in their denials of their own bias that, due to "intense interest," they are actually posting free transcripts of all of their Middle East coverage on their website. I strongly recommend, if you have any doubt about the "balance" of NPR's reporting, that you browse through some of the stories posted there.
Here, for instance, is a classic example of NPR coverage: a story entitled "Mideast Violence Continues Despite Release of Peace Plan," in which reporter Peter Kenyon interviews people across a broad spectrum concerning the "Road map." His interviewees: Mofeat Sahd, "who lost a cousin in the [Israeli] incursion" into the Gaza Strip following the latest suicide bombing in Tel Aviv; "Ismael," another "victim" of the IDF action, Ahmed Ayad, whose two-year-old son was killed during the raid, and Mahmoud Al-Shia, another angry Gazan. Yeah, that's it. End of spectrum.
Kenyon's closing:
KENYON: These are the images that accompanied the release of the road map last week: Israeli families sobbing at the funerals of the Tel Aviv bombing victims and Ahmed Ayad carrying his dying baby boy down a Gaza street. These are the images Secretary of State Powell will be asking people to look beyond as he struggles to get another peace effort off the ground.
Except that there were no "soundbites" of sobbing Israelis or suicide bombers detonating during this report, only the rumbling of Israeli tanks and the street noise of a "raucous" palestinian funeral procession. And, as usual, there were no interviews with relatives of the victims in Tel Aviv, nor with anyone who might contradict the indictments of the Gaza residents.
Fair. Balanced. NPR style.
