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CNN Follows BBC's Footsteps in Middle East Reporting
LONDON, Sept 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Following in the footsteps of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the American broadcasting mogul, CNN, has instructed its journalists to stop referring to Gilo as a "Jewish settlement" and replace it with "Jewish neighborhood", reported a U.K daily Monday.
Earlier in August, The Independent's Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk, reported that the BBC banned its reporters in London from describing Israeli killings of Palestinian resistance activists as "assassinations", and instructed them to use Israel's own euphemism for the murders, calling them "targeted killings".
According to Fisk, the circular is a "major surrender to Israeli diplomatic pressure."
"Yesterday, [the BBC's] World Service television presenters were obeying a scandalous new edict from their London editors that they must in future refer to the Israeli assassinations as 'targeted killings' - the anodyne phrase Israel wishes journalists to use," Fisk wrote. "The phrase is in any case a lie."
Ministers of information in both Palestine and Lebanon have shown their dismay at BBC's initiative towards biased reporting.
"How do they classify the killings of children - targeted killings, assassination or just a killing by mistake?" he added.
Now, CNN is doing the same.
"CNN under constant attack from right-wing Jewish pro-settler lobby groups has instructed its journalists to stop referring to Gilo as a 'Jewish settlement'. Instead, they must call the settlement, built illegally on occupied Arab land outside Jerusalem, 'a Jewish neighborhood'," said Fisk Monday.
"Arabs have long protested over CNN's reporting of the Middle East especially its pejorative use of the word 'terrorist' but they are likely to be outraged by this latest softening of the station's reporting in Israel's favor.
"Some of the land on which Gilo is built was taken from the Palestinians of Beit Jala Gilo is Hebrew for Jala but no hint of this historical background will be permitted on CNN," he added.
Fisk said the instruction from CNN's headquarters in Atlanta was straightforward, quoting the memorandum as saying, "We refer to Gilo as a Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem, built on land occupied by Israel in 1967. We don't refer to it as a settlement.''
This extraordinary kowtowing in favor of the Israelis follows months of internal debate within CNN. The company has been constantly criticized by its own CNN Watch, Honestreporting.com and other pro-Israeli pressure groups in the United States that monitor its reports on the Middle East, said Fisk.
However, many journalists at CNN headquarters are angered by the new instructions.
"There's a feeling by some people here that what we are doing is searching for euphemisms for what is really happening. We've managed to eliminate the word 'terrorism' we now talk about 'militants' because we know that the word 'terrorist' is used by one side or another to damage the other side. But now there's pressure on us not to use the word 'settler' in any context but to just refer to the settlers as Israelis," one of them told
The Independent.
In his article, Fisk gave examples of past biased CNN reporting.
"In the past, CNN used 'terrorist' only about Arabs the Israeli settler who murdered 29 Palestinians in a Hebron mosque in 1994 was always called an 'extremist' on CNN and at one point described Arab protests at the illegal settlements built by Jews on Palestinian land as 'conflicting heritage' claims," said Fisk.
He, however, considered the new instruction as "perpetrating a lie," since Gilo was illegally annexed by Israel after the 1967 war not just "occupied" as CNN wishes its viewers to believe. It is also far from being a "neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem"; it was built on land which Israel again illegally used to extend the boundaries of Jerusalem.
A CNN reporter told The Independent, "There has been an intense internal debate over the use of words. We are having problems. There are many small pro-settler Jewish groups who're trying to win the war of words."
In a commentary published on August 18th, Fisk asked readers to watch out for terminology that is used in the war of words.
"Just watch out for the following key words about the Middle East in television reporting over the next few days: 'targeted killings', 'neighborhood', 'disputed', 'terrorist', 'clash' and 'crossfire'. Then ask yourself why they are being used," he said.
"But where the lives of men and women are concerned, must we be treated by television and agency reporters to a commentary on the level of a football match?"
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