Israel Matzav

About that 'free' 'Palestinian' press

In a post about the trials and travails of New York Times' Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner on Monday, I mentioned the pitfalls of foreign reporters being dependent on 'stringers' when covering the 'Palestinian Authority.' JPost reports on a story this morning that is a good example of how the 'Palestinian Authority' influences international media coverage. In this case, they rigged the result of a union election.

Many journalists accused the PA leadership of stealing the vote to ensure that Fatah members and security officers took control of the union.

The journalists said they would not cooperate with the newly-elected syndicate and urged the PA to cancel the vote and hold new a new vote.

Hani al-Masri [pictured. CiJ], a prominent journalist from Ramallah, said there had been “no real supervision” during the voting for the syndicate’s general assembly.

About 300 “journalists” who participated in the election had nothing to do with journalism, he said. “Some of them were members of the Palestinian security forces, while most of the journalists who were registered as members of the syndicate’s generals assembly were actually employees of the Palestinian Authority or political activists,” he added.

Masri also complained that many of the “journalists” who ran in the election or were allowed to cast ballots had abandoned the profession a long time ago and were involved in other work.

He noted that hundreds of Palestinian journalists from Gaza were excluded from the election. “We can’t talk about democratic or legitimate elections while hundreds of journalists from the Gaza Strip were deprived of their right to run or vote,” he said.

Masri and many other journalists said the results of the vote for the syndicate show that it has now become a “branch of Fatah.”

And what do you think will happen if the 'Palestinian Authority' doesn't like the coverage?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:50 PM