Tom Gross
Tom Gross is a British-born journalist and international affairs commentator, specializing in the Middle East. He was formerly Jerusalem correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and for the New York Daily News.
He is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the National Review in the United States, and has also written in Britain for the Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Evening Standard and The Guardian, among other publications.
His work has appeared in Israel in Ha’aretz, Ma’ariv and the Jerusalem Post, in Canada in the National Post, and in translation elsewhere in the world.
In recent years Gross has worked more as a commentator than a reporter.
Much of his work has concerned the way the international media covers the Middle East. His analysis of the 2006 Hizbullah-Israel war is cited elsewhere on Wikipedia,[1][2] as is his writing on “The Forgotten Rachels.”[3][4] He has been sharply critical of the BBC, arguing that their Middle East coverage is strongly slanted against Israel.[5][6]
He has also been strongly critical of The New York Times, both for their general foreign coverage,[7] and historically for what he terms their “lamentable record of not covering the Holocaust.”[8] “The Times,” wrote Gross, “possibly because they feared people (wrongly) might think of it a ‘Jewish’ paper, made sure reports were brief and buried inside the paper. During the war, no article about the Jews’ plight ever qualified as the Times’ leading story of the day.”
Gross runs a news service, popular among journalists,[9] about the media coverage of the Middle East.[10] He also co-writes the media blog on National Review online.[11]
Education
Gross was educated at Oxford University, where he studied politics, philosophy and economics.
Prague
Before being based in the Middle East, Gross lived and worked in Prague, where he served as correspondent (covering the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Albania) for the (London) Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. He also wrote a regular op-ed column for the Prague Post and op-eds for the leading Czech daily Lidové Noviny.
Elle and MTV
Before turning to political journalism and commentary, Gross worked in more popular media. He helped launch the Czech edition of Elle magazine, the first international glossy magazine in post-communist Eastern Europe.
He also served as Prague Events Coordinator for MTV Europe, and has written for other glossy fashion magazines, including Harper’s and Queen, the Italian edition of Elle and the British edition of Cosmopolitan.
Work on Roma
Tom Gross has also worked and written extensively on the political and social situation of the Roma (Gypsies). “This is one of the most painful and disturbing problems in Europe today, though it is often neglected or misreported by the mainstream media,” he wrote.
For two years, based in Prague, he served as a special advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the plight of Czech Roma, mainly relating to citizenship issues arising as a result of the break up of Czechoslovakia. He has even gone so far as to criticize the internationally renowned liberal icon and playwright Vaclav Havel,[12] for not doing enough to help Roma while he served as Czech president.
He has acted as a consultant on Roma to the OSCE and for several non-governmental organizations, including Amnesty International, Helsinki Watch, the Danish Refugee Council and the Dutch Asylum Seekers Center.
His views on Roma have been cited in a number of print publications, including The New York Times. He has also written about Roma in publications including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Ha’aretz, and the Prague Post.
Gross wrote the obituary in Britain's Guardian newspaper for Milena Hubschmannova, professor of Roma studies at Prague’s Charles University, and one of the leading Roma experts of her generation.[13]
His grandfather, Kurt May served as Director of the United Restitution Organization (for victims of Nazism). Among his many achievements, May was responsible for compelling the postwar German government to admit that the Nazis had persecuted Roma on grounds of race and ethnicity. The decision was made in a 1956 German court ruling after a 10-year legal battle, and opened up the possibility of Roma claiming compensation for Nazi crimes.
Television and radio
Tom Gross has worked on several television programs and documentary films, including BBC TV specials on Czech Roma, the “BBC Rough Guide to Prague and Bratislava,” and a BBC documentary on Sudeten Germans.
On the Middle East, he has appeared as a guest commentator on CNN, Fox News, NPR and other networks.
Books
Tom Gross is co-author (with Margaret Helfgott) of “Out of Tune: David Helfgott and the Myth of Shine” (Warner Books, New York, 1998) and of “The Time Out Guide to Prague” (Penguin Books, London, 1995).
“Out of Tune” received enthusiastic reviews in leading newspapers in the US, Canada, Australia, Britain, China and South America. It was acclaimed as “a significant and courageous work on both music and the movies.”
Gross has also contributed essays to a number of books, including “Those Who Forget The Past” (edited by Ron Rosenbaum, Random House, New York, 2004).
He has worked as a consultant on several books, including “Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey” (by Isabel Fonseca), and as an editor on others, including “Germany and its Gypsies: A post-Auschwitz ordeal” (by Gilad Margalit).
External links
Tom Gross Media [13]
The National Review Media Blog [14]
References
- ^ 2006 Lebanon war [1]
- ^ “Media Missiles: Working for the enemy,” National Review, Aug. 2, 2006 [2]
- ^ Rachel Corrie
- ^ “The Forgotten Rachels,” The Spectator, Oct. 22, 2005 [3]
- ^ “Living in a Bubble: The BBC’s very own Mideast foreign policy” [4]
- ^ “The BBC discovers ‘terrorism,’ briefly: Suicide bombing seems different when closer to home,” Jerusalem Post, July 12, 2005 [5]
- ^ “All The News That’s Fit To Print?” National Review, March 14, 2003 [6]
- ^ “Reporting Auschwitz, Then & Now: The lamentable record of The New York Times,” Jerusalem Post, Feb. 2, 2005 [7]
- ^ Journalist Feedback about Gross [8]
- ^ Tom Gross Media: Mideast Dispatches [9]
- ^ The National Review Media Blog [10]
- ^ “Persecuted under Vaclav Havel,” The Spectator, Nov. 8, 1997 [11]
- ^ “Obituary of Milena Hubschmannova, Czech champion of the Roma,” The Guardian, Sept. 19, 2005 [12]