14
Friday, May 11, 1984
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
and representatives of America's
finest newspapers, including the
New York Times, Wall Street Jour-.
• nal, Los Angeles Times, Washington
Post and the Christian Science
Monitor as well as journalists from
Time, Newsweek, the New Yorker
and the TV networks.
Invited and attending from the
Jewish press in America were the
editors of the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, the Jewish Week of New
York and The Jewish News of De-
troit..
In addition, there were profes-
sors of journalism and former public
officials like Stuart Eizenstadt, a key
member of the Carter Administra-
tion, and Ephraim Evron, former Is-
raeli Ambassador to the United
States.
Much of what they had to say
was enlightening, but their com-
ments rarely followed any orderly
fashion. Instead, like a play with
some wonderful dialogue but no
cohesive plot, the conference fea-
tured a number of significant state-
ments but little sustained discussion
on any given topic. In other words, it
didn't really go anywhere. And
maybe it was unrealistic to expect
otherwise.
At one point late in the confer-
ence, Ben Bagdikian, a professor of
journalism at Berkeley, asked the
participants rhetorically: "If you had
to report on this conference, what
would yibu say?" His point was that
there was disagreement on virtually
every topic (which, he noted, was
only natural) so that summarizing
was virtually impossible. But despite
the fact there were no agreements or
conclusions reached, the conference,
by allowing working journalists to
explain what they do and how they
view their role, shed a good deal of
light on the topic at hand — namely,
whether or not American coverage of
Israel is fair, why the Jewish state
receives so much media attention
and whether in the long run such in-
tense scrutiny will help or hurt Is-
rael's cause.
The format for the conference
was to have four sessions, each deal-
ing *ith a paper commissioned in ad-
vance and written by an expert for
the participants to discuss. Some of
the most provocative comments and
observations, though, came in reac-
tion to no particular position paper
but to the broader topic of media fair-
ness. Marcia Rose Shestack, a TV
journalist from Philadelphia, noted
that her brother is an NBC-TV corre-
spondent in Cairo and his reports
from Cairo rarely get on the air be-
cause his New York editor tells him,
For God's sake, we want more
bang-bang."
The Wall Street Journal's Seth
Lipsky offered several telling points.
He asserted that the press is not sup-
posed to report the truth, but only do
the best it can by deadline. "The press
can't be expected to know the full
truth right away. It's a constant
process of revision." He also said that
the press isn't supposed to be objec-
tive (though it can choose to be) be-
cause the owners of printing equip-
ment can use it any way they want
and it's better to fight with words
Is the media
obsessed
with Israel?
Li
... Israel is always portrayed as the
main factor in every Mideast problem
and solution, and that is wrong ..."
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