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Did Oprah Pick Another Fibber? Truth and Fiction in Elie Wiesel's Night In his special report Alexander Cockburn interviews former Wiesel colleague and Holocaust survivor Eli Pfefferkorn. What Raul Hilberg, the Holocaust's greatest historian, really thinks about Wiesel's "Night". Also in this special issue: Is Hugo Chavez Hitler or Father Christmas? Larry Lack tells the full story of Venezuela's hand-outs to Uncle Sam's Shivering Poor. Plus, Jeffrey St Clair profiles the Endangered Visigoth and traces the rise and possible fall of Rick Pombo, destroyer of nature. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
Today's Stories March 18 / 19, 2006 Cockburn
/ St. Clair March 17, 2006 Eduardo
Galeano Greg
Moses Richard
Falk / David Krieger Cindy
and Craig Corrie Amira
Hass Mike
Marqusee James
Petas and Robin Eastman-Abaya Website
of the Day
March 16, 2006 Norman
Solomon Tom
Philpott Heather
Gray Amira
Hass Missy
Comley Beattie Sen.
Russell Feingold Lucinda
Marshall Andrew
Bosworth Clancy
Sigal Website
of the Day
Jonathan
Cook Winslow
Wheeler Diane
Christian Ron
Jacobs Missy
Comley Beattie Jared
Bernstein Noam
Chomsky Website
of the Day
March 14, 2006 Earl
Ofari Hutchinson Dave
Lindorff Kevin
Zeese Todd
Chretien Jason
Kunin Thomas
Palley Cockburn
/ St. Clair Website
of the Day
March 13, 2006 Uri
Avnery Dave
Lindorff Mike
Whitney David
Green Jeremy
Scahill Mike
Ferner Corey
Harris Paul
Craig Roberts Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn Ralph
Nader Paul
Craig Roberts Ben
Tripp John
Strausbaugh Landau
/ Hassen Robert
Bryce Gary
Leupp Fred
Gardner Ron
Jacobs Jonathan
Scott Ramzy
Baroud Jordan
Flaherty John
Chuckman Joe
Allen Julia
Kendlbacher St.
Clair / Walker / Pollack / Vest Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
March 10, 2006 Ben
Rosenfeld Lila
Rajiva Saree
Makdisi Elena
Shore Joshua
Frank Dave
Zirin Aura
Bogado
March 9, 2006 John
Walsh Annie
Zirin Brian
McKenna Chris
Floyd Rachard
Itani Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Wylie
Harris Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day
March 8, 2006 Patrick
Bond Brian
Concannon, Jr. Pat
Williams Lance
Selfa Mokhiber
/ Weissman Walter
Brasch Vijay
Prashad Website
of the Day
March 7, 2006 Werther John
Blair Dave
Lindorff Mike
Whitney Warren
Guykema Sen.
Russell Feingold Robert
Jensen Norman
Solomon Bernie
Dwyer Website
of the Day
Ralph
Nader Dave
Zirin Vanessa
Redgrave Walter
A. Davis Joshua
Frank Nate
Mezmer Paul
Craig Roberts Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn Jennifer
Van Bergen Steven
Higgs Winslow
T. Wheeler Ron
Jacobs Rev.
William E. Alberts Colin
Asher Fred
Gardner "Pariah" John
Scagliotti Seth
Sandronsky Joan
Roelofs Arjun
Makhijani Ardeshr
Ommani Diana
Barahona Ben
Tripp St.
Clair / Socialist Worker Staff Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend March 3, 2006 Laura
Carlsen John
V. Whitbeck Chris
Floyd Mohamed
Hakki Pratyush
Chandra John
Scagliotti Website
of the Day
March 2, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Dave
Lindorff Ramzy
Baroud Saul
Landau Joe
Allen Steve
Shore Denise
Boggs Norman
Finkelstein Website
of the Day
March 1, 2006 Mairead
Corrigan Maguire Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Faheem
Hussain Antony
Loewenstein Elizabeth
Schulte Mike
Whitney John
Ryan Michael
Donnelly Tom
Reeves Website
of the Day
February 28, 2006 Sen.
Russ Feingold Ralph
Nader Joshua
Frank Aziz
Haniffa Benjamin Dangl Norman Solomon Mike
Ferner Sharon
Smith Website
of the Day
February 27, 2006 Buncombe
/ Cockburn Paul
Craig Roberts Ingmar
Lee Ron
Jacobs Dave
Lindorff Pat
Wolff Lila
Rajiva Website
of the Day
February 25 / 26, 2006 Alexander
Cockburn Lila
Rajiva Lee
Sustar Jennifer
Van Bergen / Madis Senner Justin
E.H. Smith Paul
Craig Roberts Jason
Leopold Gilad
Atzmon Zahid
Shariff Fred
Gardner Dick
J. Reavis David
Stocker John
Bomar Mike
Marqusee Pratyush
Chandra Ben
Tripp Dr.
Susan Block Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
February 24, 2006 Alan
Maass William
S. Lind Dave
Lindorff Pierre
Tristam Meg
Bannerji Robert
Jensen Mark
Engler Jennifer
Loewenstein Website
of the Day
February 23, 2006 Chet
Richards Jonathan
Feldman Joshua
Frank Ron
Jacobs Amira
Hass Samah
Sabawi Norman
Solomon Christopher
Reed Website
of the Day
February 22, 2006 Robert
Pollin Phil
Doe Pirouz
Azadi Saul
Landau Brian
McKinlay Sam
Smith Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Diane
Farsetta Website
of the Day
February 21, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Franklin
Spinney Dave
Lindorff Alevtina
Rea Bruce
K. Gagnon Dave
Zirin Bill
Quigley Website
of the Day
February 20, 2006 Jennifer
Van Bergen Rachard
Itani Gideon
Levy Joshua
Frank Newton
Garver Pratyush
Chandra Seth
Sandronsky Cockburn
/ St. Clair Website
of the Day
February 18 / 19, 2006 Werther Uzma
Aslam Khan Joe
DeRaymond Edward
F. Mooney Paul
Craig Roberts Elaine
Cassel P.
Sainath Thomas
P. Healy Brian
Concannon, Jr. Fred
Gardner Rep.
Cynthia McKinney Brian
Tokar Chan
Chee Khoon Andrew
Freedman St.
Clair / Walker Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
February 17, 2006 Floyd
Rudmin Gervasio
Rodríguez Gary
Leupp Ramzy
Baroud Amira
Hass Matthew
Koehler Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Debbie
Nathan Website
of the Day
Febrauary 16, 2006 Lila
Rajiva Norman
Solomon Ron
Jacobs Paul
Craig Roberts Website
of the Day
February 15, 2006 Brian
Conacnnon, Jr. Dave
Lindorff Saree
Makdisi Joshua
Frank Amira
Hass CounterPunch
Wire Robert
Bryce Website
of the Day February 14, 2006 John
Sugg Don
Santina William
A. Cook Ray
McGovern John
Ross Website
of the Day
Lila
Rajiva Christopher
Brauchli Dave
Lindorff Ron
Jacobs Mike
Whitney Michael
Neumann Website
of the Day
February 11 / 12, 2006 Alexander
Cockburn Ralph
Nader Paul Craig
Roberts Pat Williams Fred Gardner Saul Landau John Chuckman Roger Burbach Seth Sandronsky Website of
the Weekend
February 10, 2006 Carl
G. Estabrook Sen.
Russell Feingold Roxanne
Dunbar----Ortiz Saree Makdisi Website of
the Day
February 9, 2006 Dave Lindorff Mike Marqusee Paul Craig Roberts Peter Phillips William S. Lind Christine Tomlinson Innocent Targets in the "Long War": False Positives and Bush's Eavesdropping Program Will Youmans Robert Robideau Richard Neville Peter Rost Website of the Day
February 8, 2006 Ron Jacobs Stan Cox Sen. Russ Feingold Robert Jensen Rep. Cynthia McKinney Niranjan Ramakrishnan Don Monkerud David Swanson C.L. Cook Christopher
Fons Jeffrey Ballinger Website of
the Day
February 7, 2006 Edward Lucie-Smith Robert Fisk Paul Craig Roberts Neve Gordon Joshua Frank Peter Montague Jackie Corr Jeffrey St.
Clair Website of the Day
February 6, 2006 Christopher
Brauchli Robert Fisk John Chuckman Jenna Orkin Paul Craig
Roberts
February 4 / 5, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Mike Ferner James Petras Alan Maass Fred Gardner Ralph Nader Bill Glahn Saul Landau Laura Carlsen James Brooks Mike Roselle John Holt Sarah Ferguson William S.
Lind Niranjan Ramakrishnan Seth Sandronsky Derrick O'Keefe Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Elisa Salasin St. Clair / Vest Stew Albert Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
February 3, 2006 Toufic Haddad Heather Gray Tim Wise Conn Hallinan Eva Golinger Daniel Ellsberg Dave Zirin Robert Bryce Website of
the Day
February 2, 2006 Winslow T.
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Reed Website of the Day
February 1, 2006 Sharon Smith Jason Leopold Cindy Sheehan Joseph Grosso Earl Ofari Hutchinson Steven Higgs Robert Robideau R. Siddharth Jim Retherford Rep. Cynthia
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Roberts Website of
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Weekend
Edition So Much for "Sunshine Week" AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy By ALISON WEIR
In the midst of journalism's "Sunshine Week"--during which the Associated Press and other news organizations are valiantly proclaiming the public's "right to know"--AP insists on conducting its own activities in the dark, and refuses to answer even the simplest questions about its system of international news reporting. Most of all, it refuses to explain why it erased footage of an Israeli soldier intentionally shooting a Palestinian boy. AP, according to its website, is the world's oldest and largest news organization. It is the behemoth of news reporting, providing what its editors determine is the news to a billion people each day. Through its feeds to thousands of newspapers, radio and television stations, AP is a major determinant in what Americans read, hear and see--and what they don't. What they don't is profoundly important. I investigated one such omission when I was in the Palestinian Territories last year working on a documentary with my colleague (and daughter), who was filming our interviews. On Oct. 17, 2004 Israeli military forces invaded Balata, a dense, poverty-stricken community deep in Palestine's West Bank (Israel frequently invades this area and others). According to witnesses, the vehicles stayed for about twenty minutes, the military asserting its power over the Palestinian population. The witnesses state that there was no Palestinian resistance--no "clash," no "crossfire," not even any stone-throwing. At one point, after most of the vehicles had finally driven away, an Israeli soldier stuck his gun out of his armored vehicle, aimed at a pre-pubescent boy nearby, and pulled the trigger. We went to the hospital and interviewed the boy, Ahmad, his doctors, family, and others. Ahmad had bandages around his lower abdomen, where surgeons had operated on his bladder. He said he was afraid of Israeli soldiers, and pulled up his pants leg to show where he had been shot previously. In the hospital there was a second boy, this one with a shattered femur; and a third boy, this one in critical condition with a bullet hole in his lung. A fourth boy, not a patient, was visiting a friend. He showed us a scarred lip and missing teeth from when Israeli soldiers had shot him in the mouth. This was not an unusual situation. When I had visited Palestinian hospitals on a previous trip, I had seen many such victims; some with worse injuries. Yet, very few Americans know this is going on. AP's actions in regard to Ahmad's shooting may explain why. We discovered that an AP cameraman had filmed the entire incident. This cameraman had then followed what apparently is the usual routine. He sent his video--an extremely valuable commodity, since it contained documentary evidence of a war crime--to the AP control bureau for the region. This bureau is in Israel. What happened next is unfathomable. Did AP broadcast it? No. Did AP place the video in safe-keeping, available for an investigation of this crime? No. According to its cameraman, AP erased it. We were astounded. We traveled to AP's control bureau in Israel. With our own video camera out and running, we asked bureau chief Steve Gutkin about this incident. Was the information we had been told correct, or did he have a different version? Did the bureau have the video, or had they indeed erased it. If so, why? Gutkin, repeatedly looking at the camera and visibly flustered, told us that AP did not allow its journalists to give interviews. He told us that all questions must go to Corporate Communications, located in New York. He explained that they were on deadline and couldn't talk. I said I understood deadline pressure, and sat down to wait until they were done. When he called Israeli police to arrest us, we left. Back in the US later, I phoned Corporate Communications and reached Director of Media Relations Jack Stokes, AP's public relations spokesman. I had conversed with Stokes before. Over the past several years I have noticed disturbing flaws in AP coverage of Israel-Palestine: newsworthy stories not being covered, reports sent to international newspapers but not to American ones, stories omitting or misreporting significant facts, critical sentences being removed from updated reports. I would phone AP with the appropriate correction or news alert. One time this resulted in a flawed news story being slightly corrected in updates. In a few cases stories were then covered that had been neglected. In many cases, however, I was told that I needed to speak to Corporate Communications. I would phone Corporate Communications, leave a message, and wait for a response. Most often, none came. Several times, however, I was able to have long conversations with AP spokesman Stokes. None of these conversations, however, ever ended with AP taking any action. Some typical responses:
Despite this unresponsive pattern, when I learned firsthand of an AP bureau erasing footage of an atrocity, I again phoned Corporate Communications. I no longer had much expectation that AP would take any corrective action, but I did expect to receive some information. I gave spokesperson Stokes the numerous details about this incident that we had gathered on the scene and asked him the same questions I had asked Gutkin. He said he would look into this and get back to me. After several days he had not gotten back to me, so I again phoned him. He said that he had looked into this incident, and that AP had determined that this was "an internal matter" and that they would give no response. While I should have known better, I was again astounded. AP was blatantly violating fundamental journalistic norms of ethical behavior, and clearly felt it had the power to get away with it. Journalism, according to the Statement of Principles of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, is a "sacred trust." It is the bulwark of a free society and is so essential to the functioning of a democracy that our forefathers affirmed its primacy in the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights. According to the Society of Professional Journalists, one of the four major pillars of journalistic ethics is to "Be Accountable." According to SPJ's Code of Ethics:
Finally, this week, on deadline with a chapter about media coverage of Israel-Palestine, I again tried to confirm some of my facts with AP. Certainly, I felt, during "Sunshine Week" AP would respond. As part of the Sunshine campaign, AP's CEO and President Tom Curley is traveling the country giving speeches on the necessity of transparency and accountability (for government) and emphasizing "the openness that effective democracy requires." "The trend toward secrecy," AP's president has correctly been pointing out, "is the greatest threat to democracy." I emailed my questions to AP, talked to Stokes by phone, and again was told he would get back to me. Again, I got back to him. Then, in a surreal exchange, he conveyed AP's reply: "The official response is we decline to respond." As I asked question after question, many as simple as a confirmation of the number of bureaus AP has in Israel-Palestine, the response was silence or a repetition of: "The official response is we decline to respond." The next day I tried phoning AP's President Curley directly. I was unable to reach Curley, since he was on the road giving his Sunshine Week speeches ("Secrecy," Curley says, "is for losers"), but I left a message for him with an assistant. She said someone would respond. I am still waiting. It is clearly time to go to AP's superiors. The fact is, AP is a cooperative. It is not owned by Corporate Communications spokespeople or by its CEO or even by its board of directors. It is owned by the thousands of newspapers and broadcast stations around the United States that use AP reports. These newspapers, radio and television stations are the true directors of AP, and bear the responsibility for its coverage. In the end, it appears, the only way that Americans will receive full, unbiased reporting from AP on Israel-Palestine will be when these member-owners demand such coverage from their employees in the Middle East and in New York. As long as AP's owners remain too busy or too negligent to ensure the quality and accuracy of their Israel-Palestine coverage, the handful of people within AP who are distorting its news reporting on this tragic, life-and-death, globally destabilizing issue will quite likely continue to do so. In the final analysis, therefore, it is up to us--members of the public--to step in. Everyone who believes that Americans have the right and the need to receive full, undistorted information on all issues, including Israel-Palestine, must take action. We must require our news media to fulfill their profoundly important obligation, and we must ourselves distribute the critical information our media are leaving out. If we don't take action, no one else will. AP can be reached at 212-621-1500. Alison Weir, a former journalist is Executive
Director of If
Americans Knew, which is currently conducting a statistical
analysis of AP's coverage of Israel-Palestine, to be released
within a few months. The organization has created cards that
describe AP actions for people to disseminate in their communities.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. |