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Articles
CTV news report called misleadingPosted On
08/19/04 By: No Author
In a scathing report,
HonestReporting Canada has taken CTV to task over a news
report CTV aired on Aug. 8.
The story, reported from
Jenin by CTV foreign correspondent Janis Mackey Frayer,
covered Israel’s decision to allow Palestinian police to
re-arm. Frayer told viewers that Jenin is currently run by
militant groups that are filling a power vacuum created by the
Palestinian Authority’s ineffectiveness, after which she
introduced Zakaria Zubeidi, who HonestReporting claims is the
Jenin leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades.
HonestReporting, responding to this report,
claimed that Frayer’s presentation of Zubeidei was misleading,
saying he was shown to be “a gentle strong-man: smiling,
holding a baby, sipping coffee and taking a walk outdoors,
while talking about the need to maintain order and prevent a
Palestinian civil war.”
They claim that she entirely
ignored Zubeidi’s role as a terrorist leader.
According
to HonestReporting, Zubeidi was involved in such acts as
planning a series of deadly attacks in which at least nine
Israeli citizens and one foreign worker were killed and
another on Nov. 28, 2002 that killed six and wounded 30 at a
Likud voting station.
HonestReporting stated the CTV
News report presented “a sympathetic and entirely uncritical
profile of the leading Palestinian terrorist
organization.”
HonestReporting said Frayer ended her
report by pointing out that Zubeidi “thinks order is needed so
they can focus on resisting the occupation,” while failing to
communicate that for Zubeidi and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades,
resisting the occupation means killing Israelis.
“She
adopted the terrorist leader’s euphemism for murder while
uncritically portraying it as a legitimate activity,” stated
HonestReporting.
CTV also added an accompanying news
article on the network’s website with biographical information
on Zubeidi. In this article, CTV reported that Zubeidi
“engaged in some acts one might see as contradictory. In late
July and early August, he kidnapped the governor of Jenin.”
HonestReporting again accused CTV here of ignoring the
leader’s role in planning the violent murder of
Israelis.
Furthermore, the article included several
paragraphs describing the group: “The brigades’ name refers to
the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem… The brigades are a group of
West Bank militias… They are aligned with Palestinian
Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction … The
brigades are composed of secular nationalists…” But the
group’s terrorist activities weren’t indicated even once,
noted HonestReporting.
For example, they said CTV
didn’t inform viewers that under Canadian law, the Al Aksa
Martyrs’ Brigades are deemed a terrorist organization and is
the same group that murdered Canadian citizen Yechezkel
Goldberg in a bus bombing this past January.
When
reached, Wendy Freeman, the executive producer of CTV News,
said she can’t comment on this, adding that only the president
of CTV can. However, he wasn’t available for comment.
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