Israel in the World Press: A Conversation with NPR Correspondent Linda Gradstein
14 July 2008
Report submitted by Elina Fonarev
14 July 2008
Report submitted by Elina Fonarev
Ms. Gradstein prefaced her remarks with a request that they not be publicized outside of the context of the aims of our course and that they not appear in the public media. She then proceeded to deliver a talk on the prominence of Israel in the world press. According to her, Israel gets a lot of world press for four reasons. First, Israel is the largest foreign aid recipient per year at $3.5 billion. (What isn’t often cited is that most of the military aid must go to the purchase of American weaponry.) The next largest recipient happens to be Egypt, but it receives must less coverage than Israel. The second reason is that the Jewish community is prominent within the media. Many media stations are either owned or headed by Jews. Third, Evangelical Christians are curious about Israel. The fourth reason is that Israel is an easy place to work for the media. Many networks have bases stationed in Israel because it is westernized and thus the communication is better. All this leads to Israel being “over-covered” by the media. As an example of the distortion, despite the fact that Israel is only the size of New Jersey with a population of 7 million, Ms. Gradstein cited a survey conducted in China in which the respondents were asked about Israel’s size, based on its prominence in the media, many responded that Israel was three times as big as China. She also gave the example that on the day of the recent attack on Jaffa Road, in which three Israeli Jews were killed by a Palestinian skip-loader operator, the event was on the front page of all world newspapers. That same day some 80 Somalis were killed, but in the New York Times, for example, this item was buried on p. 6 . (She mentioned racism as one of the causes for lack of interest in stories about Africa.)
A Q & A session followed:
Question: What is the Israeli feeling about Evangelical support?
Answer: The right wing is happy about the Evangelical support because the Evangelical Christians are pouring a lot of money into Israel, and in their view, with the hostility Israel often faces on the world stage, it needs whatever friends it can get. The center and left wings are more ambivalent about this support given many of the Evangelists’ hard line on not ceding any of the biblical Land of Israel in exchange for peace or in order to avoid control over a population that doesn’t want Israel to exist as a Jewish state. However, despite these concerns, and the fact that the ultimate motivation behind the Evangelicals' support is to speed the End of Days and the ultimate conversion of all Jews to Christianity, most Israelis continues to welcome this financial and moral support.
Question: Is the coverage of Israel too critical?
Answer: When a country is over-covered like Israel, some of the coverage will be critical.
Question: How do you define your style of journalism?
Answer: Ms. Gradstein does not believe in so-called “balance,” in which journalists feel a need when covering a story to always present the view of the other side. In her view, this is a rather simplistic and often distorting approach. She states that she uses factual language and tries to avoid inflammatory language in her reporting. She says that she and NPR have often been accused of being anti-Israel; however, the Israeli press is much more critical of its own government and its policies. For example, the Israeli media has been especially critical of Prime Minister Olmert, who is facing many corruption scandals. Almost all Israeli news is now readily and immediately available in English translation on the web and in some cases in print and this should temper such claims of NPR's anti-Israel bias.
Question: Is the coverage of Israel changing?
Answer: Coverage of Israel is changing for three major reasons. First, most media outlets can handle only up to one or two ongoing stories at a time. Over the past few years these stories have been coming mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan. Second, a relatively quiet situation is not interesting. Since Israel is in an in-between situation where there is no war and yet no peace it is not exciting to the general public. Lastly, many fewer people are reading newspapers everyday anymore. This has led many newspapers to close their Middle East bureaus, and receive wires from larger newspapers such as the New York Times, AP, or Reuters, etc. Many outlets have tried to cut down on costs recently as well. This leads to a reduction in journalists; however, there are still about 400 foreign correspondents in Israel—a huge number, and these journalists still have to justify their existence.
Question: What kind of stories have you been doing recently?
Answer: Ms. Gradstein has lately been trying to do more human-interest pieces. She is no longer just doing the daily news (what the profession calls “bang-bang items”), as she believes that human interest pieces are inherently more probing and revealing and ultimately have greater impact. She gave examples of recent pieces on amazing advances in solar energy in Israel. She expressed some frustration with the delay that sometimes occurs in getting such pieces aired.
Question: How do you feel about coverage of the recent attack carried out on Jaffa Road, where a Palestinian worker ran amok with the skip loader he was operating, running over cars and pedestrians and flipping a public bus, and killing 3 and injuring tens of others?
Answer: Ms. Gradstein does not believe that what happened on Jaffa Rd. was a terrorist attack, but the act of an unstable person who happened to be a Palestinian. She says that just because a person happens to be Palestinian does not mean that he is a terrorist and that she is very careful in trying to use neutral language in her pieces (e.g., she avoids terms such as "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" and uses instead "gunman" or "suicide bomber"). She mentioned that for days after the attack there was a police presence at Sur Baher (the Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem where the attacker lived), not to investigate or check Palestinians, but to prevent possible reprisal attacks by Jews.
Question: Do you think that even identifying the man who carried out this act as a Palestinian is problematic and incendiary?
The question is somewhat moot as by the time Ms. Gradstein’s piece aired this fact had been reported everywhere, but she added that the situation here is different than in the States, where we for the most part relate to individuals who commit acts of violence as acting primarily on their own behalf and not as representatives of some national or ethnic group. This is not the case in Israel. Moreover, given the background of the conflict and the fact that the reaction in Israel and throughout the world to the attack was in large part determined by the man’s nationality, she felt this fact was deserving of mention.
Question: How do you feel about the Israeli Army’s interaction with the media?
Answer: Linda says that she thinks that the Israeli army is too slow in their response to requests for information by the media. Most of the time, the media has to report that the army is still investigating in order to avoid an unfavorable situation.
Question: What are some social problems within the Jewish Israeli population?
Answer: The rabbinic laws that govern Jewish Israeli society pose a problem to Israel. First there is the issue of immigration. A person is entitled to Israeli citizenship if they have at least one Jewish grandparent. However, to be considered Jewish according to the halakha (Jewish law) he must have a Jewish mother or convert under the auspices of the Orthodox rabbinate in order to be considered Jewish. It is important to be considered Jewish because one cannot get married to a Jew within the State of Israel unless both parties are Jewish. Civil marriages are not allowed in Israel, only orthodox marriages are permitted. If a woman wants a divorce from her husband, the husband must give her the divorce. If he chooses not to give her the divorce than she cannot get remarried, and many times the husband blackmails the woman by making her pay him to give her a divorce. These social issues occur today mostly due to the Rabbinic laws that govern today and which are shaped m have become ultra orthodox as opposed to modern orthodox that previously existed. The problem with the ultra orthodox being in charge is that they do not care to find solutions to many of the social problems in Israel. This has led to a growing gap between the rabbinic establishment and others living in Israel.
Another social problem that exists within the Jewish Israeli population has to do with schools. Once a parent chooses a school for their child they are obligated to stay with that type of community and learning environment. There are four different types of school that a parent can choose from: “mainstream” public, public religious, ultra-orthodox and Arab, and none give a diverse experience to the child or expose him to peers from other backgrounds.
Question: What is the current opinion on the possibility of peace?
Answer: There has been a change in both the Palestinians and the Jews. Both want peace according to Ms. Gradstein. The problem that exists is that both sides for good reason are skeptical of the leadership on the other side—in addition to distrusting their own leaders. She says that the only existential threat to Israel right now is Iran. She also states that there are rumors that the Israeli army has been training for an attack and that the US has given it a so-called “amber light” for such an operation.
Question: How does the younger generation feel about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Answer: Palestinians and Israelis have had little contact in the recent generations. She says that not knowing causes fear and thus causes each side to demonize the other. However, she does believe that many among the younger generations are ready to settle the conflict.
Question: Are there any solutions to Jerusalem?
Answer: There are many solutions offered to the problem between the Palestinians and the Jews in Jerusalem. In her opinion, the bigger problem that must be faced is the Palestinian refugees. The creation of the Palestinian refugee problem in the course of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War is a complicated issue, but it is clear that while many fled of their own accord, the Israeli forces were also responsible for evicting many Palestinians from their homes. While at the time, in the area some 700,000 out of total 850,000 left the area that Israel would control after the war, there are now over 4 million refugees to whom the Palestinians want Israel to grant the right of return. However, across the Jewish Israeli political spectrum there is a consensus that this is simply untenable and that any large-scale return would undermine Israel’s existence as a Jewish State. Moreover, most of the villages that the Palestinians fled or were forced out of do not even exist anymore. If Israel agreed to recognize the Palestinian refugees than it would have to open up its borders to all of them. Israel will never do this, and so it refuses to compromise with the Palestinians in this respect and there is similar intransigence on the Palestinian side.
