How The Media War Stops Positive Reports About Israel:

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

Gerald M. Steinberg, PhD

Professor Gerald Steinberg runs the NGO Monitor.  They publish detailed research on over 150 NGOs that claim they are standing for human rights and so have only  humanitarian objectives.  They need to keep their "Halo" to impress people.  Critical debate about issues is the last thing they want to happen.  Born in the UK and a graduate of Cornell University  in Ithaca, New York  where he received his PhD in Political Science, Steinberg has been teaching at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, a section of  Tel Aviv, Israel since 1982.   Professor Steinberg has pro Israel feelings.  He has found fault with groups such as Human Rights World, Amnesty International, Christian Aid, Oxfam and others who show their bias against Israel.  He's being treated like a pariah by the news media.  .

1. NGO's are " non-governmental organizations (NGO).  It is the term commonly used for an organization that is neither a part of a government nor a conventional for-profit business. They are usually set up by ordinary citizens.   NGOs may be funded by governments, foundations, businesses, or private persons."  Most of our media is so classified.

The bureau chiefs at AP have given explicit orders to their journalists to never quote NGO Monitor or its founder and president, Gerald Steinberg.  A former AP journalist published an article in The Atlantic that told how he was kept from doing this. Matti Friedman's article was about the media bias during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  He had come across "a myriad of lunatics and bigots and found that Steinberg was the only person that was subjected to an interview ban.  

He had wanted to interview him to get the other side of the allegations that Israel had committed "war crimes" in Gaza in 2009 and wasn't allowed to do this.

                                                                          

IDF Entering Gaza in Operation Defensive Edge

Steinberg reports that besides AP, similar silencing also came from other media platforms.  

AP (The Associated Press) an American wire service, is the USA's only source for news, making this a terrible disservice to those of us who want old time journalism of reporting facts without showing favoritism.  "Cutbacks at longtime U.S. rival United Press International, most significantly in 1993, left the AP as the primary nationally oriented news service based in the United States, although UPI still produces and distributes news stories and photos daily. Other English-language news services, such as Reuters and the English-language service of Agence France-Presse, are based outside the United States.".  

                                                                            

Bar Ilan U's brain research center

It's like the good old days of my time when we had 2 newspapers delivered to our home; the morning Oregonian and the afternoon Journal, each one back a different political party, it seemed.   Today we just get the Oregonian which has even changed its format into trying to look like a magazine.  Trying to get a letter into the editor was impossible for me that defended Israel, but they loved to print those letters that were against Israel.  Well, who needs newspapers today when we have the internet!  That put an end to my subscription.  

Steinberg started NGO Monitor after the 2001 NGO forum of the UN Durban conference.   The primary objective was to have open debate and provide accountability where none existed.  He developed systematic checks and balances and spoke the truth about the power these NGOs held.  

What he sees happening is the power of NGOs has grown since his beginnings and that NGO media has political influence.  Their funding has also grown and their media impact has become powerful, particularly when reporting about Israel.  

"The Western press has become less an observer of this conflict than an actor in it, a role with consequences for the millions of people trying to comprehend current events, including policymakers who depend on journalistic accounts to understand a region where they consistently seek, and fail, to productively intervene." from website.  

CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) has been doing an excellent job of pointing out false reporting to the media sources and getting them to change.  They are policing such writings.  They publish the errors along with the facts  and have people write in complaining about it.  

What I see is not only the suicide bombers and attackers, the rockets, mortars and missiles raining down on Israel, but the media on the enemy's side as well.  It's been like this for a long time, now.  I remember reading about the Arabs staging pictures that were posted in newspapers that through the  bad light on the Israelis, and not on the reality.  But this is the first time that it has come out that our reporters were told by their bosses not to print anything good about Israel by covering their tactics.  For shame!

Resource:THE JEWISH PRESS, December 5, 2014, page 3, NGO Monitor President Responds To claim Of AP Ban by Jewish Press Staff.  

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_M._Steinberg

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/articles/staff

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/what_the_media_gets_wrong_about_israel_

http://www.camera.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar-Ilan_University