AP journalists prevented from entering Bahrain to cover Grand Prix; Thomson Reuters sponsoring team

Two writers for the Associated Press (AP) are being prevented by the Bahraini government from entering the country to cover the Grand Prix scheduled for Sunday:

The two writers, based in Dubai, were expected to cover practice and qualifying along with Sunday's race. They have been granted accreditation to cover the race by the sport's governing body, the Paris-based International Automobile Federation. But they have been told by Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority that their visa applications to enter the kingdom are pending approval.

Other Gulf-based journalists working for international news organizations also had not received visas in time to cover Thursday's practice.

"We cover sports events throughout the world, under all kinds of circumstances, and we see no reason that journalists should be prevented from coverage in Bahrain," AP Managing Editor for Sports Lou Ferrara said. "The government should not dictate or prohibit sports coverage in any way."

The Bahrain GP was canceled last year because of anti-government protests, which have left nearly 50 dead since February 2011. But last week, Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone declared the Gulf kingdom safe and decided to go ahead with the race.

Ecclestone said all 12 teams told him they were happy to travel to the island nation despite almost daily violent clashes between security forces and protesters.

Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority, which governs press issues in Bahrain, claims that the visas are being held up by "logistics."

Bahrain last year tightened its visa rules, including requiring advance clearance for journalists. Previously, journalists and others from many Western countries could receive visas upon arrival.

The AP and other news organizations have come under pressure from Bahraini officials and public relations consultants for extensive coverage of the uprising and anti-government groups.

Reuters maintains offices at Bahrain's $1.5 billion Bahrain Financial Harbour, but in May of last year, the Bahraini government expelled the one Reuters correspondent assigned to cover the country.

Thomson Reuters is a sponsor of the Williams team which is entered for Sunday's race.

Bias? What bias?

We don't usually focus on Reuters bias in areas outside of the agency's Middle East reporting.  But we happened across the Reuters home webpage this evening and found the following lineup of stories under the Politics header (this is as it appears verbatim at 10:02 pm CDT):

Obama calls on Romney to release tax returns: Univision

Obama calls Romney's immigration stance "troublesome"

Obama: Romney claim about women job loss is "bogus"

Perhaps it was actually the DNC website we stumbled upon.

The Reuters virus

Reuters tightly coordinates and sustains its anti-Israel bias and propaganda campaign across its news bureaus by encouraging correspondents to employ identical boilerplate rhetoric when reporting on the Middle East conflict.  For example, at last count, there are over 1,700 instances of the propaganda mantra "occupied West Bank" appearing in Reuters stories over just the last couple of years.

Similarly, like a malignant virus spreading from tissue to tissue, the same pernicious fabrications infecting stories produced in Reuters Jerusalem Bureau are replicated by other bureaus and ultimately transmitted to the public via hundreds of media outlets like the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. 

In a story for example, about the French government warning pro-Palestinian protesters not to travel to Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") due to potential friction with Israeli authorities, Reuters Paris correspondents Pauline Mevel and Alexandria Sage write:

Palestinians, who want to create their own state together with the Gaza Strip, object to illegal Jewish settlements, trade restrictions and scant water supply, and their limited autonomy.

Note the reference to "illegal Jewish settlements", an unsupported and flagrantly false assertion that nevertheless, gets repeated in story after story after story.

The canard of a "scant water supply" for Palestinians is similarly false and yet reproduced in a host of Reuters stories which clearly seek to demonize the Jews of Israel.

Those in editorial positions at Reuters spearheading and enabling the agency's long-standing propaganda campaign targeting Israel might wish to review their employer's corporate governance charter, as the ethical violations of those "Trust Principles" pile up and for which they will ultimately be held accountable.

Reuters issues appeal to pity for Islamic Jihad member; dehumanizes group's victims

Reuters correspondents frequently write sympathetic human interest stories about Palestinian Arabs -- and almost never do the same about Israeli Jews.

In an often savage Arab war of attrition over the past century which has sought to kill and displace as many Jewish families in the region as possible, the public rarely hears from Reuters about Israeli suffering.  Other than quotes from government officials, maliciously adulterated by Reuters correspondents, Israeli Jews typically remain voiceless, nameless, faceless.  This alone, graphically demonstrates Reuters relentless reporting bias.

This bias can be particularly vile.

Take for example, this Reuters story about a member of the Palestinian terror group, Islamic Jihad, currently held in detention in Israel and on a hunger strike:

Khader Adnan, 33, a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group, has been refusing to eat since mid-December, shortly after his arrest in the occupied West Bank, and has only drunk liquids since then." He is not in good shape. People on a hunger strike for more than 50 days are in real danger. [...]

Randa told Reuters she had visited her husband on Tuesday and that he was shackled to his hospital bed and had lost 35 kg (77 lb). She said his skin was discolored, his hair had fallen out and he had sores around his mouth. "He couldn't pick up our daughter. He has no strength in his arms," she said, adding that he had started to vomit blood.

Reuters of course, barely mentions the bloody history of Islamic Jihad, referring only to the fact that "the group is committed to Israel's destruction and has been involved in numerous attacks on Israeli targets".

Since Reuters refuses to identify or humanize those Israeli "targets", even as the agency identifies and seeks audience sympathy for Adnan and his family, we will provide this information.  Here's a partial list of Israelis (and other nationals) murdered by Islamic Jihad over the years.  (Our apologies to the families of the hundreds of other victims, killed or maimed, not included in the list below):

Shlomo Atzmon, 60, of Lod

Kinneret Cohen, 14, of Jerusalem

Shimon Dahan, 27, of Herzliya

Emil Gorbman, 54, of Jerusalem

Dr. Shelley Volokov Halpenny, 32, of Vancouver, Canada

Rita Susan Levin, 39, of Philadelphia, United States

Tova Maimon, 19, of Or Yehuda

Nahum Mizrahi, 63, of Tel Aviv

Isaac Na'im, 47, of Holon

Esther Na'im, 45, of Holon

Matityahu Gershon Resnik, 25, of Givat Haim

Mordechai Rosenberg, 50, of Sha'arei Tikva

Fern Rykiss, 17, of Winnipeg, Canada

Ya'akov Shapira, 73, of Jerusalem

Shaul Chai Tzur, 21, of Netanya

Miriam Tzerafi, 41, of Jerusalem

Vered Mordechai, 13, of Afula

Asher Attia, 48, of Afula

Maya Elharar, 17, of Afula

Ilana Schreiber, 45, from Kibbutz Nir David

Meirav Ben-Moshe, 16, of Afula

Ayala Vahaba, 40, from Afula

Fadiya Shalabi, 25, of Iksal

Ahuva Cohen Onalla, 37, of Afula

Yehazkel Sapir, 36, of Kfar Sava

Yotam Rahat, 31, of Tel-Aviv

Elad Dror, 24, of Kibbutz Nahshon

David Ben-Zino, 20, of Ashdod

Adi Rosen, 20, of moshav Bitzaron

Yuval Tuvya, 22, of Jerusalem

Anan Kadur, 24, of Daliyat al-Karmel

Damian Rosovski, 20, of Kadima

Yehiel Sharvit, 21, of Haifa

Yaron Blum, 20, of Jerusalem

Maya Kopstein, 19, of Jerusalem

Daniel Tzikuashvili, 19, of Jerusalem

Avi Salto, 19, of Rishon Lezion

Rafael Mizrahi, 19, of Ramat Gan

Eran Gueta, 20, of Ashkelon

Soli Mizrahi, 18, of Ramat Gan

David Hasson, 18, of Ashkelon

Amir Hirschenson, 18, of Jerusalem

Gilad Gal-On, 18, of Herzliya

Ilie Dagan, 18, of Kochav Yair

Eitan Peretz, 18, of Nahariya

Eyal Levy, 20, of Ashdod

Yaniv Weiser, 18, of Givatay

Shabtai Mahpud, 34, of moshav Tnuvot

Giora Balash, 60, from São Paulo, Brazil

Zvika Golombek, 26, from Karmiel

Shoshana Yehudit (Judy) Greenbaum, 31, from Passaic, New Jersey, USA

Tehila Maoz, 18, from Jerusalem

Frieda Mendelsohn, 62, from Jerusalem

Michal Raziel, 16, from Jerusalem

Malka Chana (Malki) Roth, 15, from Jerusalem

Mordechai Schijveschuurder, 43, from Neria

Tzira Schijveschuurder, 41, from Neria

Ra'aya Schijveschuurder, 14, from Neria

Avraham Yitzhak Schijveschuurder, 4, from Neria

Hemda Schijveschuurder, 2, from Neria

Lily Shimashvili, 33, from Jerusalem

Tamara Shimashvili, 8, from Jerusalem

Yocheved Shoshan, 10, from Jerusalem

Samuel Miloshevsky, 45, of Herzliya

Yehiav Elshad, 28, of Tel Aviv

Inbal Weiss, 22, of Zichron Ya'akov

Mogus Mahento, 65, of Holon

Bella Schneider, 53, of Hadera

Alon Goldenberg, 28, of Tel Aviv

Aharon Revivo, 19, of Afula

Shimon Edri, 20, of Pardes Hanna-Karkur

Mikhael Altfiro, 19, of Pardes Hanna-Karkur

Meir Fahima, 40, of Hadera

Keren Franco, 18, of Kiryat Yam

Noa Shlomo, 18, of Nahariya

Shlomi Ben-Haim, 26, of Kiryat Yam

Nir Danieli, 24, of Kiryat Ata

Ze'ev Henik, 24, of Karmiel

Michael Weissman, 21, of Kiryat Yam

Shimon Stelkol, 34, of Kiryat Yam

Avinoam Alafia, 26, of Kiryat Ata

Liron Avitan, 19, of Hadera

Avraham Barzilai, 19, of Netanya

Dennis Blumin, 20, of Hadera

Eliran Buskila, 21, of Hadera

Zvi Gelberd, 20 of Hadera

Violetta Hizgayev, 20, of Hadera

Ganadi Issakov, 21, of Hadera

Sariel Katz, 21, of Netanya

Vladimir Morari, 19, of Hadera

Yigal Nedipur, 22, of Netanya

Dotan Reisel, 22, of Hadera

David Stanislavksy, 23, of Netanya

Sivan Wiener, 19, of Holon

Zion Agmon, 50, of Hadera

Adi Dahan, 17, of Afula

Shimon Timsit, 35, of Tel-Aviv

Eliyahu Timsit, 32, of Sderot

Sharon Tubol, 19, of Arad

Aiman Sharuf, 20, of Isfiya

Nir Nahum, 20, of Carmiel

Eliezer Moskovitch, 40, of Petah Tikva

Ilona Hanukayev, 20, of Hadera

Liat Ben-Ami, 20, of Haifa

Esther Pesachov, 19, of Givat Olga

Ofra Burger, 56, of Hod Hasharon

Iris Lavi, 68, of Netanya

Suad Jaber, 23, of Taibe

Indelou Ashati, 54, of Hadera

Anat Shimshon, 33, of Ra'anana

Osnat Abramov, 16, of Holon

Sergei Shavchuk, 35, of Afula

Mazal Orkobi, 20, of Azor

Mordechai Evioni, 52, of Holon

Moshe (Maurice) Aharfi, 60, of Tel-Aviv

Igor Zobokov, 32, of Bat Yam

Lilya Zibstein, 33, of Haifa

Amiram Zmora, 55, of Holon

Meir Haim, 74, of Azor

Hannah Haimov, 53, of Tel Aviv

Boris Tepalshvili, 51, of Yehud

Sapira Shoshana Yulzari-Yaffe, 46, of Bat Yam

Ramin Nasibov, 25, of Tel-Aviv

Ilanit Peled, 32, of Azor

Andrei Friedman, 30, of Tel-Aviv

Avi Kotzer, 43, of Bat Yam

Viktor Shebayev, 62, of Holon

Ion (Nelu) Nicolae, 34, of Romania

Mihai Sabau, 38, of Romania

Li Peizhong, 41, of China

Steven Arthur Cromwell, 43, of Ghana

Krassimir Mitkov Angelov, 32, of Bulgaria

Ivan Gaptoniak, 46, of Ukraine

Guo Aiping, 47, of China

Zhang Minmin, 50, of China

Nir Regev, 25, of Nahariya

Zvi Bahat, 35, of Haifa

Mark Biano, 29, of Haifa

Naomi Biano, 25, of Haifa

Hana Francis, 39, of Fassuta

Sharbal Matar, 23, of Fassuta

Mutanus Karkabi, 31, of Haifa

Osama Najar, 28, of Haifa

Irena Sofrin, 38, of Kiryat Bialik

Lydia Zilberstein, 56, of Haifa

George Matar, 58, of Haifa

Ze'ev Almog, 71, of Haifa

Ruth Almog, 70, of Haifa

Moshe Almog, 43, of Haifa

Tomer Almog, 9, of Haifa

Assaf Staier, 11, of Haifa

Brurua Zer-Aviv, 59, of Kibbutz Yagur

Bezalel Zer-Aviv, 30, of Kibbutz Yagur

Keren Zer-Aviv, 29, of Kibbutz Yagur

Liran Zer-Aviv, 4, of Kibbutz Yagur

Noya Zer-Aviv, 1, of Kibbutz Yagur

Rachel Ben Abu, 16, of Tel Aviv

Nofar Horowitz, 16, of Tel Aviv

Julia Voloshin, 31, of Netanya

Anya Lifshitz, 50, of Netanya

Moshe Maor Jan, 21, of Tel Aviv

Michael Koifman, 68, of Hadera

Perahiya Makhlouf, 53, of Hadera

Sabiha Nissim, 66, of moshav Ahituv

Jamil Mohammed Ka'adan, 48, of Baqa al-Gharbiyye

Ya'akov Rahmani, 68, of Hadera

Genia Poleis, 66, of Hadera

Larissa Grishchenko, 39, of Hadera

Daniel Golani, 45, of Nahariya

Alexandra Garmitzky, 65, of Netanya

Haim Amram, 26, of Netanya

Keinan Tsuami, 20, of Petah Tikva

Elia Rosen, 38, of Bat Hefer

Philip Balhasan, 45, of Ashdod

Rozalia Beseneyi, 48, of Romania

Piroşca Boda 50, of Romania

Marcel Cohen, 73, of Nice, France

Ariel Darhi, 31, of Bat Yam

Victor Erez, 60, of Givatayim

Binyamin Haputa, 47, of Lod

David Shaulov, 29, of Holon

Lily Yunes, 43, of Oranit

Lior Anidzar, 26, of Tel Aviv

Daniel Wultz, 16, of Weston, Florida, USA

Our understanding is that the above individuals will be, as is apparently the case with Islamic Jihad member Khader Adnan, unable to pick up their daughters.

The disappearing line between fantasy and reality

Reuters correspondent and propagandist Douglas Hamilton lives in a fantasy world.

In this world, a reporter can write absolutely anything, no matter how mendacious or utterly absurd, and the public will buy it, unreservedly.  Moreover, there will never be any consequences for the reporter arising from his or her assiduous use of propaganda because the reporter's employer assumes the roles of accomplice and alibi in the string of lies and distortions perpetrated by the reporter.

Regrettably, we erred in our first sentence.

Reuters correspondent and propagandist Douglas Hamilton lives in the real world.

But there are major obstacles to overcome, chiefly that Hamas is still formally pledged to the destruction of Israel whereas the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority - all headed by Abbas - recognise the Jewish state and have interim "roadmap" accords with it.

None of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Fatah or the Palestinian Authority recognize the Jewish state.  Indeed, notwithstanding the fact that these groups demand a Palestinian Muslim state, ethnically cleansed of Jews, they adamantly refuse to ever accept a Jewish sovereign in their midst.

This is the lie of the "two-state solution".  This is the lie of peace and reconciliation with a deeply racist and totalitarian Arab regime.

And this is the lie that Reuters is an independent news agency with its reporters committed to holding accuracy sacrosanct, guarding against putting their opinion in a news story, and striving for balance and freedom from bias.

A fantasy world that has become all-too real.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem....

Even as Reuters refuses to report on Iran's call and religious justification for the annihilation of Israel and genocide of the Jews as disseminated on the regime's website, the agency's correspondents are busy condemning the Jews for graffiti spray painted in Jerusalem:

(Reuters) - A Jerusalem monastery, built on the site where tradition says the tree used in the making of Jesus's cross once stood, was defaced with "Death to Christians" graffiti on Tuesday.
The words "Price Tag" daubed on a vandalised car parked outside the 11th-century Monastery of the Cross suggested that militant Jewish settlers were responsible and police said they were investigating that possibility as well as other angles.

Keep in mind that Reuters was similarly quick to accuse Jewish settlers of vandalism in the Arab village of Tuba Zangaria last October but has failed to follow up with reported evidence that it was local Arab villagers, not Jewish settlers, who likely committed the crime.

So, all a Muslim has to do to convince Reuters that Jews have vandalized property, and to persuade the agency to commit line space and three correspondents to report on this, is to spray paint "price tag" somewhere -- anywhere.

Whereas, if an Islamic government, heavily engaged in developing nuclear weapons, calls for the genocide of six million people on religious grounds and provides targeting maps pinpointing the greatest population density of that people for maximum kill ratios, Reuters correspondents are out to lunch.  

This is one sick media company.

Reuters: Israeli leaders making 'provocative' comments about Iran

Formerly with Newsweek magazine and Dateline NBC, correspondent Mark Hosenball was hired by Reuters in September of 2011.  Hosenball, who is described in bios as an "investigative reporter" is covering international politics for Reuters and has already penned several tendentious stories about Iran where he has sought to shift attention away from that country's clandestine and illegal nuclear weapons program, and onto the country being targeted by it.

In a conflict which has seen the International Atomic Energy Agency report that Iran has engaged in all aspects of developing and delivering a nuclear bomb, the United Nations impose sanctions against Iran for defiantly refusing to cease uranium enrichment and open its nuclear sites to inspection, and explicit American and European threats to pursue military action against Iran if it continues on its path to nuclear weapons, Hosenball attempts to portray Israel as a loose cannon and spoiler:

(Reuters) - The Obama administration is increasingly anxious about Israeli leaders' provocative public comments on Iran's nuclear program but does not have hard proof that it will strike Iran in the next few months, U.S. and European officials said.

Right.  It is Israeli leaders who have been making "provocative" public comments about Iran.

Apparently, Hosenball was busy checking out the employee cafeteria yesterday when Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated:

The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor and it will be removed.

Hosenball looks to fit right in with the Reuters Trust Principles.

Reporter who called for ethnic cleansing of Jews, still working for Reuters

Reuters correspondent Maayan Lubell, whose name appears on a petition calling for Jews to be ethnically cleansed from the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), is still working for Reuters and still reporting from the agency's Jerusalem Bureau.

In a story about Israel and the Palestinians meeting again on Saturday in an effort to move ahead on peace talks, Lubell, in violation of Reuters Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism, cites only the Palestinian perspective:

The exploratory discussions began on January 3 and followed a long break in negotiations after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended talks 15 months ago over Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Abbas on Thursday played down prospects of any breakthrough, telling members of his Fatah party that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not put forward any new proposals.
"The words that we heard in Netanyahu's residence (in 2010) are the same words he is repeating now, nothing new," Abbas said, adding that he had told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the apparent lack of progress.

Shabbat shalom, Maayan.

Racists@Reuters

Following and notwithstanding the victory of the Union in the American Civil War and abolition of slavery, predominantly White cities in the United States sought to expel their African-American residents through the use of terror, i.e., physical threats and attacks, and legal and economic coercion, i.e., preventing Blacks from renting or buying homes in the area.  The result was what was known as Sundown Towns, cities that were ethnically cleansed of their African-American communities.  (The term refers to the openly expressed edict that no black people were allowed after dark).

For similar overtly racist reasons, Jews were expelled from the eastern part of Jerusalem by the Arabs following the invasion and occupation of the city by the Jordanian-led Arab Legion in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.  Thousands of Jewish families were driven out, their property confiscated, their homes and synagogues looted and torched.

A holy city, originally founded and built by the Jews and where a Jewish community had survived for centuries despite successive waves of conquest and colonization, Jerusalem had been ethnically cleansed of its Jewish population and culture within weeks.

It was at that point, that the Old City of Jerusalem and its surrounds first became known, cynically, as Arab East Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was liberated and reunified by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the 19 years of racial and religious exclusion at the hands of the Arabs came to an end.  Jews, and those of all religio-ethnic backgrounds, were able to once again live, work, and pray in any part of the city.  Today, Jews compose over 40 percent of the population of the eastern portion of Jerusalem.

For Reuters however, that cynical, ahistorical, and racist reference to Arab East Jerusalem persists:

(Reuters) - Israel's government broke all its settlement-building records in 2011, diminishing prospects for establishing a viable Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Israel's anti-settlement activist group "Peace Now" said Tuesday.
The group's annual report on building in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank - land the Palestinians want for a future state along with the Gaza Strip - showed that despite international calls to halt construction, thousands of new homes were being built.

The repeated use of the misnomer "Arab East Jerusalem" by Reuters correspondents is of course, quite deliberate, intended to dismiss over three-thousand years of Jewish life, history, religious connection and sovereignty over the city, and with the stroke of a pen (or the click of a keyboard), assign ownership of Jerusalem to the Arabs who have sworn to once again ethnically cleanse of Jews, any land they obtain through violence or negotiations.

This is not merely advocacy journalism, in and of itself a serious violation of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism.  It is reprehensible and racist propaganda that reflects a deeply sick and twisted worldview and an epic failure of corporate governance at one of the largest news agencies in the world, which, by not correcting the failure, implicitly endorses it.

"Pure facts are not enough"

The Baron is a website published and edited by former Reuters correspondent, editor and manager Barry May.  It serves as a kind of virtual watering hole for Reuters employees and provides company news, event information, directories, a library, videos featuring Reuters executives, and company trivia.

In a video posted on the site, former Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger, who has an amusing habit of publicly revealing too much information, speaks to the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong about coverage of the global financial crisis and its lessons for journalists as reflected by Reuters' philosophical approach to news reporting:

"If we have learned anything from these past two years, it has been that pure facts are not enough. The arguments about whether the factual seeds of the financial crisis have been adequately reported are ultimately meaningless.  The facts were there but they weren't put together in a way that was compelling enough or powerful enough to change the course of events.  Today, it's context, connectedness, and community that matter.  Context, connectedness, and community. [...]  It's the context and analysis around the news that helps people make better decisions, helps them to do their jobs better, and gives them an edge in making sense out of the confusion around us. [...] The more you abandon the faceless and the characterless, the more you can actually set the agenda.  The more you look beyond the story for connections, the more value you will have.  And if you have value and no one else does, you will get paid."

Although Schlesinger highlights coverage of the financial crisis to illustrate his point, it's clear he is generalizing his advice to all areas of news reporting.  And there, as they say, is the rub.  Schlesinger, Editor-in-Chief at the time for the largest multimedia news company in the world, one purportedly committed to a corporate governance charter and handbook of journalism which expressly forbid its correspondents from embellishing the facts or engaging in advocacy journalism, is openly encouraging ... advocacy journalism. 

You see, it's no longer sufficient to report the facts; they must be "put together" in a way that is "compelling" enough to "change the course of events".  This, so the correspondent can "set the agenda", add value, and "get paid".

Hmm, we think we're finally beginning to understand the Reuters approach to journalism.

The death of Reuters

One can always tell when a creature is in its death throes.  It screams in agonizing rage, lashing out with its claws, snarling with its teeth bared; its body writhing up and down, left and right until... it collapses in exhaustion, its blood supply run dry, it's head a dead pulp.

That's where Reuters is today.  One can easily see this as the monster media company surrenders any last vestige of rational thought, respectable journalism, or integrity.

Reuters' big problem

Over the last two and a half years and some 700 posts, we think we've done a reasonably convincing job of demonstrating Reuters' systematic (some might say axiomatic) pro-Arab and anti-Israel bias.  This leads to the next logical question:

Why?

Why are Reuters correspondents biased in this way?  How are their interests served by writing story after story which advocates for Arab national or religious interests and defecates on Jewish national and religious interests?

There are of course, many possible explanations, not all of which are mutually exclusive.

As a transnational corporation with a presence in over 200 cities globally (the largest multimedia news agency in the world according to its website), Thomson Reuters is always seeking to grow markets, profits, and shareholder returns.  Indeed, this is the raison d'etre of all corporations operating under an Anglo business model.

Thus, the agency is obviously keen to deliver a media product which feeds this growth.

Much of the developed world -- North America, Europe, Australia, and parts of Latin America -- are mature and competitive markets, already saturated by a host of media companies, including of course, Reuters.  There may be some opportunities for incremental growth here, but nothing that will support the kind of double-digit growth in audiences and profits corporations crave.

That type of growth can only be found in the emerging markets like, for example, the audience of 350 million Arabs in the Middle East.

Does such a market opportunity present any obvious conflicts with Thomson Reuters much ballyhooed Trust Principles?

Well, consider this video to which we linked last summer.  It documents a symposium at the 2009 World Economic Forum entitled "Race for an Audience; Media in the Middle East" and is hosted by Caroline Drees, formerly Reuters Middle East Editor and now Managing Editor for the Middle East and Africa.  (Yes, she was promoted).

The video is rather long so we'll draw your attention to 28:15 where Nakhle El Hage, Director of News and Current Affairs at Al Arabiya, admits that by and large, stories appearing in the Arab media are contrived so as to win audiences:

We tell people what they want to hear.  If they want to see pictures of massacres, we show them.  If they want us to tell them that any Arab or Muslim killed in any part of the world, even if he or she are terrorists, are martyrs, also we can win the people.

Later, at 40:53, El Hage goes on to acknowedge that Arab media has a "big problem" in that their audience is "very emotional" and has been "trained" since the time they were children to adopt a cause, to have an enemy and to believe that the media should be part of the political campaign against that enemy.

El Hage notes that Arab audiences watching conflicts like the 2006 war in Lebanon and the 2008 war in Gaza behave like spectators at a football match, cheering for the Arabs, who want to see more blood and more fighting and that media firms which offer this, like Al Arabiya, successfully increase the size of their audience.  To this, Reuters' Drees asks:

Why is it a problem?  Who are we to educate the audience of what they should want?

El Hage is compelled to explain to Drees that they are in the news industry and should give people the news, not football matches.

We think the mad scramble for audience share and profits in one of the fastest growing media markets in the world, along with the desire of that audience for a very specific type of news product, a fabricated news product where the media is part of the political campaign as described by El Hage, goes a long way in explaining Reuters' systematic bias in its reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

And for a corporation committed to a policy of accurate and unbiased reporting, this represents a big problem.

Fox guarding henhouse at Thomson Reuters

Our focus here at RMEW is on the day-to-day propaganda appearing in Reuters stories on the Middle East conflict.  As our post on gatekeeping below suggests however, propaganda in journalism doesn't just happen by happenstance.  It's part and parcel of an organized and covert effort by journalists and editors, possibly managing editors, to manipulate audience opinion via systematically biased storytelling, i.e., lies, half-truths, deliberate distortions, omissions, and opinion masquerading as factual reporting.

Ultimately, responsibility for a propaganda campaign rests with senior managers and the Board of Directors for the corporation that employs the journalists who engage in the campaign.  These corporate guardians are charged, by investors and other stakeholder groups, with the task of seeing to it that employees uphold the company's standards and ethical principles.  When these guardians fail in that oversight mission, or worse, when they themselves are complicit in the propaganda campaign, it is left to the shareholders and the market to enforce ethical discipline on the company.

This leads us to an announcement by Thomson Reuters a couple of weeks ago, of the appointment of one Mark Malloch-Brown to the Board of the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company, an entity purportedly created to safeguard the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.  From the Reuters website:

Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company was established in 1984 when Reuters became a public company. The directors of Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company have a duty to ensure, to the extent possible, that the Trust Principles are complied with.

So who is Mark Malloch-Brown?  He is a Trustee of the Shell [Oil] Foundation, former Vice President of George Soros' multibillion dollar investment vehicle, the Quantum Fund, former Vice Chairman and current Board member of the Soros-founded and funded Open Society Institute, Board member of the similarly Soros-funded International Crisis Group, and previously, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations under Kofi Annan.

Malloch-Brown, who served as Annan's deputy during the UN Oil-for-Food scandal, also managed the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 requiring the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah following its war with Israel in 2006, something it has utterly failed to do.  Malloch-Brown is an unabashed apologist for both Hezbollah and Iran, infamously suggesting in an interview with the Financial Times, that Hezbollah, which fired thousands of rockets targeting Israeli civilian communities during the war, not be considered a terrorist group and that, in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Iran merely wants international "respect". 

Finally, Malloch-Brown is an anti-American polemicist, a nation he sees as standing in the way of UN-led internationalism populated by a heartland that is ignorant of the greatness of the United Nations because the country is under the influence of "Rush Limbaugh and Fox News".

This is the man that Thomson Reuters has hand-selected to be a guardian of the corporation's much-vaunted Trust Principles:

[...] That the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Thomson Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved;
That Thomson Reuters shall supply unbiased and reliable news services to newspapers, news agencies, broadcasters and other media subscribers and to businesses governments, institutions, individuals and others with whom Thomson Reuters has or may have contracts [...]

We're sure.

Nidal al-Mughrabi, pathologically incapable of writing a straight story on the Middle East conflict

Reuters correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi informs us that the leader of terror group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, is to "embark on a regional tour" of Muslim countries in the Middle East (makes him sound like Justin Bieber, no?).

In a piece of just 363 words, al-Mughrabi manages to insert several key propagandistic phrases intended to demonize Israel and lead readers to believe that territory which has only ever been sovereign to the Jews, is by rights, exclusively Arab:

A Haniyeh aide said he will meet leaders in Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey and discuss rebuilding the Gaza Strip which suffered damage during a month-long Israeli offensive in 2008-09.
About 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, and 13 Israelis were killed in the war which Israel said it launched in order to curb cross-border rocket fire from Palestinian militants.

For al-Mughrabi, whose bio says he has worked and lived in Gaza for 15 years, the Israel-Hamas war in 2008-09 was an "Israeli offensive", which the veteran news correspondent is apparently completely unable to verify was precipitated by (thousands of) rockets fired by Palestinians into Israeli civilian communities.  The cause of the war remains mere hearsay.

Yet, if we are to believe the absurd notion that al-Mughrabi cannot ascertain any independent facts with which to confirm the casus belli and can only accept that which "Israel said", are we also to believe that Israeli officials characterized the firing of rockets into Israeli civilian communities as emanating from Palestinian "militants"?   In other words, if al-Mughrabi is citing Israeli officials, is he citing them accurately?

We challenge al-Mughrabi to produce evidence of an occurrence of Israeli officials referring to Hamas rocket crews as "militants".  He won't be able to of course, because Israelis refer to these groups as terrorists, not militants.

So the 15-year Reuters veteran is apparently not only unable to independently verify events leading to the 2008-09 war between Israel and Hamas, he is also unable to cite faithfully, those who can verify these events.

One thing al-Mughrabi is able to do, is advance an ahistorical, Arab-ethnocentric, and racist fiction intended to suggest that the city of Jerusalem rightfully belongs to the Arabs.

The more secular Fatah movement led by Abbas, holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinians want both areas for a future state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.

There is no "Arab East Jerusalem".  It's a racist epithet formerly used to characterize the eastern portion of Jerusalem as it stood for a mere 19 years following the invasion, conquest, and ethnic cleansing of the Jews from the city by the Arab Legion in 1949.

But the term is used quite deliberately today, nearly a half-century after it became obsolete, by al-Mughrabi and his biased colleagues at Reuters in an effort to manipulate readers into believing that Jerusalem is by rights, by history, or by ethnicity, Arab.

This notion is false; it's propagandistic; and it's a violation of both Reuters Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism for correspondents to peddle it.

But we know how seriously Reuters takes its ethical commitments to the public.

Cyveillance accessing, downloading all RMEW pages

Since 7:01 am yesterday, Cyveillance has been systematically accessing and downloading all of our web pages via spiders.  The company bills itself as the "world leader in cyber intelligence" monitoring the internet to provide "advanced warning of company-specific threats", and as this article suggests, engages in surveillance on behalf of many Fortune 50 companies.

Hi guys and welcome!  Say hello to James and Alix for us.

Crispian Balmer defines the word "bias"

Thomson Reuters maintains a corporate governance charter called the Trust Principles.  Amongst other commitments to high ideals and lofty ethical values, the Trust Principles affirm:

That the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Thomson Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved.

It's Reuters systematic failure to uphold its commitment to freedom from bias that we often focus on at RMEW.  And here's a prime illustration...

In an op-ed on the Shalit deal, misleadingly labeled as "Analysis" so Reuters can syndicate the de facto opinion piece to hundreds of other media outlets, Jerusalem Bureau Chief Crispian Balmer asserts:

The Palestinian Territories are split geographically and ideologically, with Gaza run by Hamas and the occupied West Bank run by President Mahmoud Abbas, who wants peace with Israel.

On what does Balmer base his claim that Abbas wants peace with Israel?  On the specious argument that, "Abbas has led Palestinian negotiating efforts for years".

To that we say, so what?

Abbas has frequently boasted that in his "negotiating efforts", he has made no concessions to the Israelis, and never will.

Is that evidence of someone who "wants peace with Israel"?

No.

On the other hand, Balmer relies on anonymous "critics" (a violation of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism) to claim:

His [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] many critics allege he has no intention of ever concluding a broad treaty, despite his often-repeated calls for talks.

So notwithstanding the fact that Abbas has refused to compromise in peace talks with Israel and is currently refusing even to negotiate, Balmer endorses him, unequivocally, as a man who wants peace.  At the same time, Netanyahu, who has already made unprecedented concessions to the Palestinians and repeatedly calls for peace talks, is cynically cast by Balmer as someone who does not want peace.

A perfectly logical argument -- coming from a partisan masquerading as an independent journalist.

Tom Perry gloats with his brothers in arms

Reuters propagandist Tom Perry writes about Hamas "stealing the thunder" from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for successfully blackmailing negotiating the release of over 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Israeli Gilad Shalit.  Here's how Perry describes these Palestinian prisoners:

Though lacking Saadat and Barghouti, the swap will resonate with Palestinians, who regard the 6,000 or more prisoners held by Israel as national heroes and freedom fighters.
From a domestic perspective, the timing comes at a good moment for Hamas. A hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners whose demands include an end to solitary confinement is making daily headlines in the Palestinian media.

Not once in his 700+ word piece does Perry balance his parroting of Palestinian rhetoric with a mention of the crimes committed by these prisoners, including the 400 serving life sentences for murder.  This is a blatant violation of both the Reuters Trust Principles and the agency's Handbook of Journalism:

As Reuters journalists, we never identify with any side in an issue, a conflict or a dispute. Our text and visual stories need to reflect all sides, not just one [...]  Similarly in a political dispute or military conflict, there are always at least two sides to consider and we risk being perceived as biased if we fail to give adequate space to the various parties.

Perry suggests Palestinian prisoners have been on hunger strike to demand an end to solitary confinement but in fact, there are only about 20 Palestinians in solitary -- those convicted of the most heinous crimes.  The rest are demanding they be able to take university courses and receive Arab TV channels.

Perry then rehashes his insipid lies about

1) Mahmoud Abbas:

But credibility matters to both. Abbas, 76, a believer in peace negotiations despite a deadlock that has lasted over a year, has enhanced his standing in recent months, showing a more defiant approach toward Israel and the United States.

Sure, the man who refuses to negotiate is a "believer in peace negotiations".

2) The raison d'etre of Hamas:

Hamas' critics, meanwhile, say the movement has been facing a credibility crisis, struggling to reconcile its commitment to armed struggle against Israel with the responsibilities of governing Gaza, where it seized power from Abbas in 2007.

Hamas stated commitment is to genocide of the Jews.  Can't allow that unattractive reality out of the bag, eh Tom?

3) The risible notion that Hamas has been trying to prevent violent attacks on Israelis:

They [Hamas critics] have pointed to a contradiction between Hamas' words and deeds as it has sought to rein in militants whose rocket attacks into Israel have drawn punishing reprisals.

Several hundred Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks have originated from the Gaza Strip in 2011 alone.  There is absolutely no "contradiction between Hamas' words and deeds".

But then, you knew that; didn't ya' Tom?

A reader reply to Reuters

When we were kids, network television stations would occasionally broadcast an editorial on some current and controversial issue.  The editorial was clearly identified as such and the station would subsequently broadcast a responsible reply from someone in the community who disagreed with the position of the station editors.

As Reuters regularly demonstrates, those days are over.  Not only is there no line space provided for formal replies to Reuters many editorials and opinion pieces on the Middle East conflict, Reuters is not even transparent enough to acknowledge that the vast majority of stories published on its websites and syndicated to hundreds of newspapers and media outlets around the world are, in fact, opinion pieces.  Indeed, they reflect the deeply-held ideological views of the Reuters correspondents, editors, and likely, managing editors, responsible for those stories.

The Elder of Ziyon website posted today, a video produced by British polemicist Pat Condell entitled "The Great Palestinian Lie".  Condell's views are controversial, and this video is no exception, but then again, at least with Condell, the audience knows it is getting opinion -- not opinion masquerading as news.  That marks a refreshing difference with Reuters.

Reuters journalist circulates email calling for Palestinian state

From the "oops!" department, Reuters journalist Svebor Kranjc responded to an email issued by the European Jewish Congress (EJC) opposing the Palestinian statehood bid with an email of his own:

“I am going to support it!... You have your state but you don't want others to have their state. So sad...”

The Jerusalem Post story doesn't indicate how many recipients were on Kranjc's email list.

The EJC responded by complaining to Reuters:

“We call upon Reuters, one of the oldest news agencies in the world and one that has a reputation for fair and balanced news, to remove employees who bring a political agenda into their work in journalism and media, and in their professional relations."

Apparently, the EJC hasn't visited our website -- nor read any of Tom Perry's stories.

Fisking Tom Perry (part III)

Continuing with our "Fisk" of Perry's propaganda:

Israel says the [security] barrier was aimed at stopping suicide bombings and other militant attacks and says it is working.   
But Palestinians say it is aimed at seizing control of land. The section that has cut Nabi Samuel off from the rest of the West Bank for example, also loops around nearby Jewish settlements deemed illegal by the world court, anchoring them to Israel.

Perry cites contentious Palestinian claims and then attempts to support those claims with a spurious example and symbolic fiction he wants readers to believe is authoritative and relevant, though the world court's advisory opinion is neither.  At the same time, the Reuters reporter is apparently at a complete loss to verify the simple fact that the Israeli security barrier has indeed reduced, by 99 percent, the number of Palestinian terror attacks in the country.  

Critics say the PA has focused too much attention on the city [Ramallah], turning it into a de facto capital that is taking the place of East Jerusalem, now beyond the West Bank barrier and part of what Israel calls its indivisible capital.

There's that fictional "East Jerusalem" again, which Perry (and his anonymous "critics") lament is being forgotten as aspired-to capital of an aspired-to Palestinian state.  

The [Palestinian] authority points at two major differences between the institutions it has built and a similar project led by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the 1990s.
Now, there is a transparent system of financial management which has trimmed its reliance on donor support.
The World Bank, in a report published this month, said PA public institutions now compared favorably to other countries in the region and beyond -- another reason Palestinian officials say they are ready to lead a real country.

In actual fact, the World Bank confirmed in its most recent report that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is as dependent as ever on the dole, making the Palestinians the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world.

In the last three months, the PA has twice failed to pay its 150,000 employees their salaries on time and in full, damaging its public standing.

Though the PA has not been remiss in meeting its salary commitments to those Palestinians responsible for the murder of Israelis.

The PA's critics say its strategy of negotiating peace with Israel has been a complete failure.

A complete failure because the Palestinian Authority refuses to enter into negotiations with Israel.

In Gaza, Hamas faces its own dilemma as it tries to reconcile its stated commitment to armed struggle against Israel with its responsibilities as a government eager to avoid punishing Israeli reprisals.

In violation of the Reuters Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism, Perry employs yet another euphemism ("armed struggle") to conceal the Hamas commitment to genocide of the Jews.

Many argue that the time for a two-state solution has passed. Perhaps. But the Arab Spring might provide new momentum. If Arab governments begin to reflect popular sympathy with the Palestinian cause, then Israel could come under more pressure than ever.

The "Palestinian cause", indeed.