Commentary

Globe and Mail Oct. 4, 2003

Ideology and idiocy

Leonard Asper has reduced the complicated issue of media coverage of the Mideast to baiting and name-calling — he should know better, says journalism professor CHRISTOPHER DORNAN

First of all, let's set the record straight.

Leonard Asper did not say that all news reporters are anti-Semitic, lazy, doctrinaire Marxists. It's just that, you know, if the shoe fits. As a class – an identifiable group, if you will – news reporters in Mr. Asper's eyes are tarred with these unfortunate ... tendencies.

There is a word for the act of maligning wholesale an identifiable group on the basis of shared, derogatory attributes. It's not a nice word.

The occasion for Mr. Asper's characterization of reporters was a speech on Western news coverage of the Middle East, delivered at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue in Winnipeg. Many Canadians, Jewish or not, are distressed and angered by what they see as a too-pervasive bias against Israel in the reporting of the conflict in the region, just as many Canadians, Arab or not, are keenly alert to what they perceive as the thematic depiction of Islam in the media as an alien and threatening culture.

Both are perfectly legitimate concerns. And believe me, both are topmost in the minds of journalists whose job it is to bear honest witness to an area of the world where innocents are killed in ice-cream parlours by fanatics with bombs strapped to their chests, and equally innocent people die when they just happen to be standing too close to the car carrying an extremist leader when rockets rain down from helicopters above. In a business built on the premise that words and images have consequence, journalists are, by now, well-attuned to how sensitive media coverage of the Middle East has become.

(By way of illustration, I'll get e-mail for describing assassinated Palestinian leaders as "extremist," suicide bombers as "fanatics," and suicide bombers as "suicide bombers," rather than "homicide bombers." This is a dispute fought right down to the level of semantics and semiotics.)

In this much at least, Mr. Asper was correct: He was right to deliver a speech on this topic. He is the chief executive officer of the largest private-sector media company in the country – a company that includes a television network and most of Canada's urban daily newspapers. If the issue is top of mind with reporters and editors, surely it should be of concern to the man who employs them.

There are those who argue that by expressing an opinion on the matter he is meddling in how the coverage should be reported, that his own employees cannot help but take the hint; and that therefore he should keep his mouth shut. But this is an absurd position. Leonard Asper cannot be stripped of his right to speak simply because he runs a media conglomerate. What was he supposed to tell the synagogue when he was invited to deliver a talk on "Media Bias in Reporting on the Middle East"? That his corporate responsibilities couldn't possibly allow him to comment? He's one of the best-placed people in the country to comment.

It would have been odd if he didn't state his position. We should want to know where such a man stands on this issue. We ask no less of our politicians.

No, the problem is not that he spoke out. It is what he said.

So, what did he say, exactly? To begin with, he stressed that his remarks were his own personal views and did not represent the editorial policies of his company's media holdings. This is either disingenuous or naive. When the person in charge of a national media corporation offers his deep-down opinion on what he hopes for in news coverage, the people who work for him cannot help but take notice.

Next, he thanked the many journalists with whom he consulted in preparing his remarks. I want to meet the yes-men who told him this speech was a good idea. (No doubt, I'll be hearing from them via e-mail.)

He further stressed that the bias he detected against Israel was most evident in the European media and "state-run" broadcasters, by which he seemed to mean organizations such as the BBC and the CBC. The bulk of the speech was his attempt to explain where such "institutional bias" comes from.

His reasoning ran as follows: First, there is "the Marxist mentality" of journalists. Lefties by inclination, resentful of capitalism, the type of people who "gravitate" to journalism simplistically divide the world into aggressors and aggrieved. Hence, back in the 1960s, Israel was the "media darling" of the Western media, simply because it was seen as the victimized party in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Now that Israel is seen as having the upper hand, journalists have reflexively cast it as the villain.

Second, he detected a motif of "blame the Jews" anti-Semitism in media coverage. "Hints" of this are present even in the Canadian media, he suggested, and he singled out the CBC's Neil Macdonald.

Guilty, apparently, of heart-torn sympathies for the region that extend to both Palestinians and Israelis, Mr. Macdonald has been a piñata for those who see the Palestinians as terrorists, pure and simple, even though he is no longer the CBC's Middle East correspondent. He answered these charges forcefully in this paper yesterday, and needs no defending from me.

Third, Mr. Asper castigated the Israeli government itself, which he argued has been inept in its public relations and handling of journalists. And finally, he blamed the laziness of reporters who are all too willing to be spoon-fed lies and propaganda, but can't be bothered to pick up a book on the history of the region.

Here's what's wrong with Mr. Asper's position: It's dumb as all get out.

Even if one truly believes that there's something amiss with the media depictions of the Arab-Israeli conflict, this is not how to advance one's case. Journalists are all too often constitutionally Jew-hating Marxists who are intellectually dishonest and therefore morally bankrupt? Pardon?

Mr. Asper takes a complicated matter that merits serious attention and reduces it to baiting and name-calling. He should know better, but apparently, he doesn't. This guy hasn't the foggiest idea how journalism works, but for the moment, much of Canadian journalism works for him.

The literal definition of bigotry is the intransigent adherence to one's own beliefs, no matter the evidence or arguments to the contrary. But, hey, I'm not saying that all media proprietors are blinkered ideologues.

Christopher Dornan is director of Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication. His account of recent developments in the newspaper industry is contained in How Canadians Communicate.