Israel Matzav

Terrorizing reporters

I talked a bit yesterday about how the major news agencies rely on local stringers who justify the local population's behavior, because the agencies' regular reporters are afraid to be in 'Palestine' or Lebanon. But I never thought it was as blatant as this post from Little Green Footballs says it is:

For those who still don’t want to believe that Hizballah is stage managing the news from Beirut, please note this statement from TIME magazine reporter Christopher Allbritton, reported by J. Peter Pham & Michael I. Krauss: Hate to Say We Told You So, But...

Time magazine stringer Christopher Allbritton, writing on his blog while reporting from southern Lebanon, casually illustrated this latter technique: “To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s passport, and they’ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one.”

And something tells me that Mr. Allbritton had better leave Lebanon in a hurry....

Please note that I have found a post on Mr. Allbritton's blog where he discusses the assertion in question and denies its significance. I question his assertion that the IDF treats reporters the same way, and I find it hard to believe that the 'embedded' reporters in Iraq were treated the same way by the US Army. But let's see if we can get any real journalists to comment on that.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:23 PM