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Montreal
Metro Demonizes Israel's Independence Day |
May 6, 2009 |
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Dear
HonestReporting Canada Subscriber,
A disturbing trend seems to be emerging with the
Montreal media when Israel celebrates its Independence Day every
year. Namely,
that Israel and/or its supporters are demonized in
news coverage surrounding the day's festivities.
In 2002, as tens of thousands of pro-Israel supporters marched
in the streets of Montreal on Independence Day,
Le Devoir focused on a handful of anti-Israel
demonstrators giving them prominent coverage on its front page.
Last year, the Montreal Gazette's coverage of a rally marking
Israel @ 60 was criticized by many HonestReporting Canada
subscribers for being too "negative," for impugning Jewish
patriotism, and for focusing on an isolated incident, out of
context, where a youth picked up the fleur-de-lis and discarded
it, saying "I don't want this one" in exchange for the Israeli
flag. As letters poured into the Gazette, the newspaper
reflected on its coverage and subsequently
acknowledged that their story "Missed the Mark" and had
stumbled at both the reporting and editorial levels. We are
happy to say that the
Gazette's coverage of this years festivities faired much better.
 This year, the
Montreal Metro, a French-language daily newspaper
available for free around the city, entered into the foray. On
April 27th, the Metro featured the following grossly
inflammatory and misleading photograph. Appearing in colour on
page 12, this Associated Press photograph (see below) shows an
image of a blood-soaked Israeli and American handshake, all
while blood drips onto pictures of dead or wounded Palestinian
children as a Palestinian woman walks idly by. The message disseminated to Metro readers
is that of an American and Israeli policy to be complicit in the
murder of innocent Palestinian children.
Here is the photo as it appeared in print under the headline:
"Middle East: Historic Week"
Caption translation: "Palestinians in Gaza responded to
an appeal by Hamas yesterday and participated in the official
commemorations stressing the 61st anniversary of the Nakba.
Meaning "catastrophe," this Arabic word is used to describe the
displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians following
the creations of the State of Israel. The Jewish state will
celebrate its 62nd Spring this week."
The Metro's photograph and caption are deceptive not only for
what is shown, but also for what is not indicated. The
original AP photograph clearly states in its caption
that the Palestinian woman "walks next to a poster... during
an event organized by Hamas culture ministry... to commemorate
Nakba day," but instead, Metro's version doesn't inform its
readers that the woman wasn't part of the poster in the first
place. Likewise, readers have no way of knowing who (Hamas - a
terrorist organization) created the
dubious poster image in the
background. Without a properly contextualized caption,
Metro seems to almost be promoting this Hamas propaganda piece.
But caption context aside, Metro editors could have selected
from hundreds of different
photographs showing
regular Israelis in revelry. Whether at national parks,
museums, beaches, street parties, parades, community barbeques,
or
images of festivities celebrating Tel Aviv's centennial.
But instead, Metro editors chose this inflammatory image and as a
result, what should have been presented as a truly "historic"
day, was instead used as an opportunity to demonize Israel.
Metro, has in this regard, shown a great lack of sensitivity
and poor news judgment and has only demonized Israel, its
supporters, and has greatly mislead its readership about Israel's
61st anniversary.
How
You Can Make A Difference:
If you would like to express your concern to the Montreal Metro for
its poor news judgement in printing
a misleading and inflammatory photo depicting Israelis and Americans
organizing the murder of Palestinian children in its April 27th
edition (page 12), please send your comments to the Metro's
Editor-in-Chief, Eric Aussant at
eric.aussant@journalmetro.com or call (514) 286-1066.
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