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Following a 2004 article published in the ''[[British Medical Journal]]'' which criticised Israel for a high level of Palestinian civilian casualties and claimed that the pattern of injuries suggested routine targeting of children in situations of minimal or no threat, the journal received over 500 responses to its website and nearly 1,000 sent directly to its editor. In an analysis of the responses published in the journal, [[Karl Sabbagh]] concluded that the correspondence was orchestrated by Honest Reporting and aimed at silencing legitimate criticism of Israel. In his analysis Sabbagh pointed to evidence that the correspondents had not read the article. Sabbagh also documented a significant proportion of offensive, abusive and racist insults among the correspondence. An editorial by the BMJ referred to the campaign as bullying and said that the best way to counter such behaviour was to expose it to public scrutiny.<ref name=BMJEd>{{cite journal |url=http://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.b500 |title=What to do about orchestrated email campaigns |first1=Fiona |last1=Godlee |first2=Tony |last2=Delamothe |name-list-style=amp |journal=[[British Medical Journal]] |year=2009 |volume=338 |pages=b500 |doi=10.1136/bmj.b500 |pmid=19244222 |s2cid=34867504 |access-date=12 May 2012}}</ref><ref name=BMJKS>{{cite journal |url=http://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.a2066 |title=Perils of criticising Israel |last=Sabbagh |first=Karl |date=24 February 2009 |journal=British Medical Journal |volume=338 |page=a2066 |doi=10.1136/bmj.a2066 |pmid=19244219 |s2cid=7160405 |access-date=12 May 2012}}</ref> [[Daniel Finkelstein]], associate editor of ''[[The Times]]'', responded that Sabbagh's piece was "anti-Israel propaganda" that did not meet even "basic academic standards" of scientific analysis.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.thejc.com/comment/columnists/medical-journal-made-me-ill |title=Medical journal made me ill |last=Finkelstein |first=Daniel |date=5 March 2009 |newspaper=The Jewish Chronicle |access-date=25 July 2012}}</ref>
Following a 2004 article published in the ''[[British Medical Journal]]'' which criticised Israel for a high level of Palestinian civilian casualties and claimed that the pattern of injuries suggested routine targeting of children in situations of minimal or no threat, the journal received over 500 responses to its website and nearly 1,000 sent directly to its editor. In an analysis of the responses published in the journal, [[Karl Sabbagh]] concluded that the correspondence was orchestrated by Honest Reporting and aimed at silencing legitimate criticism of Israel. In his analysis Sabbagh pointed to evidence that the correspondents had not read the article. Sabbagh also documented a significant proportion of offensive, abusive and racist insults among the correspondence. An editorial by the BMJ referred to the campaign as bullying and said that the best way to counter such behaviour was to expose it to public scrutiny.<ref name=BMJEd>{{cite journal |url=http://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.b500 |title=What to do about orchestrated email campaigns |first1=Fiona |last1=Godlee |first2=Tony |last2=Delamothe |name-list-style=amp |journal=[[British Medical Journal]] |year=2009 |volume=338 |pages=b500 |doi=10.1136/bmj.b500 |pmid=19244222 |s2cid=34867504 |access-date=12 May 2012}}</ref><ref name=BMJKS>{{cite journal |url=http://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.a2066 |title=Perils of criticising Israel |last=Sabbagh |first=Karl |date=24 February 2009 |journal=British Medical Journal |volume=338 |page=a2066 |doi=10.1136/bmj.a2066 |pmid=19244219 |s2cid=7160405 |access-date=12 May 2012}}</ref> [[Daniel Finkelstein]], associate editor of ''[[The Times]]'', responded that Sabbagh's piece was "anti-Israel propaganda" that did not meet even "basic academic standards" of scientific analysis.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.thejc.com/comment/columnists/medical-journal-made-me-ill |title=Medical journal made me ill |last=Finkelstein |first=Daniel |date=5 March 2009 |newspaper=The Jewish Chronicle |access-date=25 July 2012}}</ref>


During the [[2023 Israel-Hamas war]], [[Associated Press]], [[Reuters]], The [[New York Times]] and [[CNN]] strongly refuted allegations from HonestReporting that they had prior knowledge of the October 7 attack by Hamas, pointing out that they did not have reporters on the ground in the area during the attack. Additional criticism also came from the [[Committee to Protect Journalists]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/09/media/news-outlets-deny-prior-knowledge-of-hamas-attack/index.html |title=News outlets deny prior knowledge of Hamas attack after Israeli government demands answers over misleading report |author=Oliver Darcy |date=2023-11-10 |publisher=[[CNN]] }}</ref>
During the [[2023 Israel-Hamas war]], [[Associated Press]], [[Reuters]], The [[New York Times]] and [[CNN]] strongly refuted allegations from HonestReporting that they had prior knowledge of the October 7 attack by Hamas, pointing out that they did not have reporters on the ground in the area during the attack. Additional criticism also came from the [[Committee to Protect Journalists]]. Two of the outlets, the Associated Press and CNN, however, said they had severed ties with the freelance photographer Hassan Eslaiah after he was identified in the report as having been present with Hamas militants during the attack.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/09/media/news-outlets-deny-prior-knowledge-of-hamas-attack/index.html |title=News outlets deny prior knowledge of Hamas attack after Israeli government demands answers over misleading report |author=Oliver Darcy |date=2023-11-10 |publisher=[[CNN]] }}</ref>


==Honest Reporting Canada==
==Honest Reporting Canada==

Revision as of 11:02, 10 November 2023

HonestReporting (HR; also Honest Reporting or honestreporting.com) is a non-governmental organization that "monitors the media for bias against Israel" and has been described by several news outlets as a "pro-Israel media watchdog group".[1][2][3] The organization is a United States 501(c)3 registered charity headquartered in New York City, with its editorial staff based in Jerusalem.

History

HonestReporting was founded as an email list by Jewish British university students in 2000, and sponsored by the Aish Hatorah Yeshiva, after a skewed news report in The New York Times showed a bleeding boy near a yelling Israeli soldier waving a club. The caption read "An Israeli Policeman and a Palestinian on Temple Mount." The picture was interpreted as depicting the Israelis as aggressors against Palestinian children and was used in an official Egyptian government website, in the Palestinian information center website www.islam.net and on online calls to boycott Coca-Cola for doing business with Israel.[4] In fact, the picture was of an American Jewish boy, Tuvia Grossman, being saved by Israeli soldiers from a lynch mob in the mostly Arab neighborhood of Wadi Joz in Jerusalem, during Rosh Hashanah, at the onset of the Second Intifada.[4] The boy's father sent a letter to The New York Times, but the caption was at first only partly corrected. The email list called for the readers to personally participate in getting the editors to show the facts, urging the readers to first carefully read the article and decide for themselves, and then to respond factually and correctly in their own words. The readers were also urged to send in similar news coverage that was unfactual or written in a biased way. The list reported about successful cases, the first being the full correction of the first article by The New York Times and the publication of the ordeal the boy actually went through.[4][5]

By 2003 the list had 150,000 subscribers and began raising funds for it to become an independent organization. In 2003, HonestReporting Canada (HRC) was founded as an "independent, non-profit organization" headquartered in Toronto, Canada.[6] In 2006, HonestReporting was granted "independent Charitable Organization status in Israel to complement its US status."[7]

In March 2006, a dedicated website by HonestReporting for covering the Media in the UK was launched by two expatriate Britons, CEO Joe Hyams, and Managing Editor Simon Plosker.[8] In 2011, the HR UK website was merged into the main site.[9]

Mission

HonestReporting's self-declared mission statement claims that,

"We embrace the principle that a healthy democracy requires a well informed citizenry. Accordingly, the mission of HonestReporting is to ensure truth, integrity and fairness, and to combat ideological prejudice in journalism and the media, as it impacts Israel. We engage the next generation and educate the public to understand and value the above aspirations."[10]

Activities

HonestReporting reviews news articles and op-eds regarding Israel to check for and respond to any bias or fake news.[11][12] They create and distribute content and tools for readers to understand news about Israel from a fair perspective.[13] They hold in-person and on-line events with experts about how the Jewish people and Israel is portrayed in the media.[14]

Successes

HonestReporting has prompted many corrections in the media over the years[15][16] including:

Idris Muktar Ibrahim, a producer at CNN, was found to have written on Twitter praise for Hamas and in a separate tweet posted "#TeamHitler."[17] After HonestReporting contacted CNN about the producer's ability to report impartially, CNN ended their working relationship with him.[18] He later apologized.[19]

Award-winning journalist Shatha Hammad was discovered to have posted on Facebook that she was friends with Adolf Hitler[20] and that they "share the same ideology, such as the extermination of the Jews"[21] Hammad made other posts using the nickname "Hitler" and denying Israel's right to exist.[22] She also termed terrorists who murdered Israeli worshippers in the 2014 Jerusalem synagogue attack as "martyrs." After HonestReporting's exposure of her posts, the Thomson Reuters Foundation and the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund withdrew the awards they had granted her.[23]

News producer Fady Hanona was discovered to have posted Anti-semitic social media posts by HonestReporting,[24][25] leading news outlets he previously worked for such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and others to cut ties with him.[26]

In 2010, CNN fired its Senior Mideast Editor Octavia Nasr after HonestReporting highlighted a Twitter message saying that she respected the Shiite cleric the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Hezbollah's founders. The New York Times Media Decoder blog wrote: Some supporters of Israel seized on the Twitter posting almost immediately. A Web site called Honest Reporting that says it is "dedicated to defending Israel against prejudice in the media" asked, "Is Nasr a Hezbollah sympathizer? This is disturbing enough given that the group is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and is committed to the destruction of Israel. "And which of Fadlallah's individual views does Nasr admire?"[27]

Criticism

The American Journalism Review described the organisation as a "pro-Israeli pressure group".[28]

After being criticized by HonestReporting for articles published by The Independent, author Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent that some of their readers sent him hate-mail.[29]

Following a 2004 article published in the British Medical Journal which criticised Israel for a high level of Palestinian civilian casualties and claimed that the pattern of injuries suggested routine targeting of children in situations of minimal or no threat, the journal received over 500 responses to its website and nearly 1,000 sent directly to its editor. In an analysis of the responses published in the journal, Karl Sabbagh concluded that the correspondence was orchestrated by Honest Reporting and aimed at silencing legitimate criticism of Israel. In his analysis Sabbagh pointed to evidence that the correspondents had not read the article. Sabbagh also documented a significant proportion of offensive, abusive and racist insults among the correspondence. An editorial by the BMJ referred to the campaign as bullying and said that the best way to counter such behaviour was to expose it to public scrutiny.[30][31] Daniel Finkelstein, associate editor of The Times, responded that Sabbagh's piece was "anti-Israel propaganda" that did not meet even "basic academic standards" of scientific analysis.[32]

During the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times and CNN strongly refuted allegations from HonestReporting that they had prior knowledge of the October 7 attack by Hamas, pointing out that they did not have reporters on the ground in the area during the attack. Additional criticism also came from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Two of the outlets, the Associated Press and CNN, however, said they had severed ties with the freelance photographer Hassan Eslaiah after he was identified in the report as having been present with Hamas militants during the attack.[33]

Honest Reporting Canada

HonestReporting Canada (HRC) is the Canadian counterpart of the organization. It monitors Canadian media coverage of Israel and the Middle East to promote what it calls "balanced, accurate, and unbiased reporting" about Israel.[34]

HonestReporting Canada (HRC) was established in 2003 as an independent, non-profit group headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Since then, HRC has opened an office in Montreal in April 2008,[35] giving them official national and bilingual status. HRC plans to further expand across the country to other large Canadian cities and extend their operations to include regular monitoring of college and university campus papers.[36]

The executive director of HonestReporting Canada is Mike Fegelman.[37] Prominent Canadian Conservative Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister Peter Kent has served on the board of Honest Reporting Canada.[38]

Staff

The Chief Executive Officer of HonestReporting is Jacki Alexander.[39] She previously worked at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Florida and has a master's degree in the History of International Relations from the London School of Economics and BA in History and Religious Studies. The Executive Director of HonestReporting is Gil Hoffman.[40] He was previously chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post. The Editorial Director of HonestReporting is Simon Plosker who worked with the group from 2005 to 2020 and returned in 2022. He previously worked in various non-governmental organizations in the UK and Israel. The Director of Finance and Administration of HonestReporting is Jerry Glazer, a US CPA.

See also

References

  1. ^ Berman, Daphna (June 22, 2007). "'Obsession' stokes passions, fears and controversy". Haaretz.
  2. ^ Eglash, Ruth (March 14, 2012). "Fake photos of escalation posted on Twitter". Jerusalem Post.
  3. ^ "Our Mission". HonestReporting. Archived from the original on June 20, 2009. Retrieved July 18, 2009. HonestReporting says of itself that it is "an organization dedicated to defending Israel against prejudice in the Media, we aim to provide educational tools and resources to anyone wishing to advocate for Israel.
  4. ^ a b c "The Photo that Started it All". HonestReporting. February 2012.
  5. ^ Grossman, Tuvia (May 9, 2009). "Victim of the Media War". Aish.
  6. ^ Honest Reporting Canada mission statement page, mentioning the foundation of the Canadian organization. Honest Reporting Canada website
  7. ^ About HonestReporting with links to legal documents (Hebrew), on Israel Toremet fundraising website
  8. ^ "HonestReporting Launches UK Site". TJ News Archive. Archived from the original on August 24, 2014. Retrieved May 17, 2016.
  9. ^ "HR: Elevating Action Against the UK Media". HonestReporting. August 3, 2011. Retrieved May 17, 2016.
  10. ^ "About". Honest Reporting. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  11. ^ "'Al Jazeera witness is PIJ terrorist' claims pro-Israel watchdog". i24NEWS. Retrieved January 10, 2023. HonestReporting executive director Gil Hoffman stated: "The credibility of the investigations of Al Jazeera in probing Abu Akleh's death are questionable now that HonestReporting exposed their chief witness as an active member of a murderous terrorist organization.
  12. ^ "Time Retracts Claim That Israeli Troops Harvested Palestinian Organs". Haaretz. August 25, 2014. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  13. ^ Jensen, Elizabeth (January 25, 2016). "NPR's Error-Filled Map: An Explanation". NPR.org. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  14. ^ "JNF inaugurates breakfast for Israel". Jewish Standard. May 4, 2017. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  15. ^ "Search for "success"". HonestReporting. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
  16. ^ Puni, Ran (January 3, 2022). "'Anti-Israel agenda in global media has personal motivations'". Israel Hayom. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  17. ^ "CNN Cans Producer Idris Mukhtar Ibrahim After He Posts About Praising Hamas Terrorism & Writing '#TeamHitler' On Twitter". MSN. November 19, 2022. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  18. ^ Halon, Yael; Grossman, Hannah (November 18, 2022). "CNN drops producer Idris Mukhtar Ibrahim over Hamas praise, '#TeamHitler' post". New York Post. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  19. ^ Shiundu, Linda (December 24, 2022). "Idris Muktar: Kenyan Journalist Says Tweets He Posted 10 Years Ago Cost Him CNN Job". Tuko. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  20. ^ Halon, Yael (October 19, 2022). "Reuters rescinds award from Palestinian journalist following surfaced social media posts praising Hitler". Fox News. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  21. ^ "Palestinian journalist stripped of award over antisemitic comments". Arab News. October 21, 2022. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  22. ^ i24NEWS (October 19, 2022). "Palestinian journalist stripped of award for pro-Hitler remarks". Ynetnews. Retrieved January 10, 2023.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  23. ^ Ben-David, Daniel (October 19, 2022). "Reuters strips award from Palestinian journalist after she said 'I'm friends with Hitler'". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved January 10, 2023. On Sunday, media watchdog HonestReporting uncovered posts made by Shatha Hammad, a freelance journalist who has written for Middle East Eye and Al Jazeera, in which she signed off her Facebook comments using the nickname "Hitler".
  24. ^ "NY Times cuts ties with Gaza freelancer who called to kill Jews 'like Hitler did'". The Times of Israel. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  25. ^ Kesslen, Ben (August 15, 2022). "NY Times cuts ties with freelancer who called for killing Jews 'like Hitler did'". New York Post. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  26. ^ Clarke, Tyrone (August 22, 2022). "The Guardian and the ABC join global media outlets in cutting ties with anti-Semitic freelance journalist Fady Hanona". Sky News. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  27. ^ Stelter, Brian (July 7, 2010). "CNN Drops Editor After Hezbollah Comments". Media Decoder Blog. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
  28. ^ Matusow, Barbara (June–July 2004). "Caught in the Crossfire". American Journalism Review. Archived from the original on June 13, 2010. Retrieved March 14, 2012.
  29. ^ Fisk, Robert (May 28, 2001). "The internet threat to truly honest reporting". The Independent. Retrieved March 3, 2011.[dead link]
  30. ^ Godlee, Fiona & Delamothe, Tony (2009). "What to do about orchestrated email campaigns". British Medical Journal. 338: b500. doi:10.1136/bmj.b500. PMID 19244222. S2CID 34867504. Retrieved May 12, 2012.
  31. ^ Sabbagh, Karl (February 24, 2009). "Perils of criticising Israel". British Medical Journal. 338: a2066. doi:10.1136/bmj.a2066. PMID 19244219. S2CID 7160405. Retrieved May 12, 2012.
  32. ^ Finkelstein, Daniel (March 5, 2009). "Medical journal made me ill". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved July 25, 2012.
  33. ^ Oliver Darcy (November 10, 2023). "News outlets deny prior knowledge of Hamas attack after Israeli government demands answers over misleading report". CNN.
  34. ^ Glinter, Ezra (October 11, 2007). "Films at Concordia cause controversy". Canadian Jewish News. Archived from the original on October 13, 2007.
  35. ^ "HRC Launches Montreal Office & French Monitoring Unit". HonestReporting Canada. April 25, 2008. Archived from the original on August 8, 2009.
  36. ^ Mike Fegelman, HRC Executive Director, June 18, 2008, Toronto
  37. ^ "Management team". HonestReporting Canada. January 27, 2012.
  38. ^ "The Minister of the Environment". Environment Canada. July 16, 2013. Archived from the original on August 23, 2013. Retrieved September 24, 2013.
  39. ^ Pierre, Dion J. (October 19, 2022). "Journalism Award Stripped from Palestinian Journalist Over Antisemitic Facebook Posts". The Algemeiner. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  40. ^ "HonestReporting announces appointment of Gil Hoffman as new executive director". Religion News Service. May 25, 2022. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
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