Friday, June 29, 1984

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

he American media have a
bias against Israel and have gener-
ally distorted the reporting of major
events such as the Lebanon war, De-
troit News columnist George Cantor
told The Jewish News in a recent
interview.
Cantor, who recently toured and
wrote a six-part series on Israel for
the Detroit News, said:
"It pains me to criticize my own
profession but it's absolutely ludicr-
ous how the media have reported the
Lebanon war. It is incredible that re-
porters from major newspapers could
be sent to Lebanon not knowing that
a civil war had been raging for seven
years before Israel got there„
"Parts of /Lebanon already had
been shelled into ruins . . . cities had
been destroyed . . . yet the damage
was blamed on Israel.
"The coverage of Sabra and.
Shatilla somehow implied' that the
blood was on Israel's hands . . . that
Israel was responsible for the mur-
ders. If you talked to people on the
street, they'd think that Israel killed
the refugees."
Cantor, who is Jewish, said that
the media also have not comprehen-
sively reported the . Palestinian prob-
lem, omitting the fact that other
Arab countries would not take them
in.
"They have not told the story
that Israel is a country of refugees
with a million people coming from
Moslem lands," said Cantor.
Criticism about the lack of reli-
gious freedom in Jerusalem, Cantor
added, is another "phoney issue"
raised by the media.
"I was there in 1965 and could
not visit the Old City nor see the
Western Wall," said Cantor. "Since
1967, Jews, Christians and Moslems
have total access to the city. It is just
hypocritical to write about religious
freedom there and it bothers the hell
out of me." •
Cantor said he does not believe
the distortion results from anti-
Semitism but rather from a political
bias.
"The media identifies with radi-
cal revolution ethos," he said. "They
have sympathy for people with revo-
lutionary liberation rhetoric.
"The profession is permeated
with people with a radical bias, espe-
cially on prestige news outlets such
as Time magazine, Newsweek, the
Washington Post, the New York
Times and the television networks.
"Many reporters are refighting
the Vietnam War, recasting the PLO
into the revolutionaries in Vietnam
and the Israelis have become the

Berl .Falbaum is a long-time Detroit area
journalist who also teaches journalism at
Wayne State and Oakland universities.

Detroit News columnist George Cantor
has plenty of professional criticism
for his colleagues' coverage of Israel.

BY BERL FALBAUM
Special to The Jewish News

Americans. Israel's biggest sin seems
to be that it is an ally-of the United
States.
"What's more, the reporters saw
how their superiors won their spurs
through coverage of Vietnam and
applied the same methods in this
situation."
In addition, he said that since
Watergate and the Vietnam War,
many reporters make no pretense of
trying to be objective. "Many select
facts to prove their preconceived no-
- tions," said Cantor.
Be said journalists are not prop-
erly educated to cover international
politics. "They are not trained to be
foreign correspondents. American

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education for journalists does not
emphasize foreign language, geog-
raphy, history -- subjects which
should be prerequisites for doing a
conscientious job. They come out of
the same schools with the same
biases as if they were cut out with a
cookie cutter.
"In television, it all depends how
good your hairblower is working that
day whether you will be a top corre-
spondent. It is ludicrous. They have-
no historical .framework . . . no
perspective . . . no knowledge of the
language?' •
Cantor also said thatjournalism
is the "easiest profession in the
world," adding: "Anyone who can
string two sentences together in
coherent English can be a journalist.
You can drop nets out of the window
and bring people in who are as good
as the people on the sfaffs of news-
papers presently."
- Cantor, 43, a Wayne State Un-
versity graduate in journalism,
joined the Detroit Free Press in 1963.
He worked as a general assignment

reporter for
for two years before being
assigned to cover the Detroit Tigers.
After five years as a baseball
writer, he was named to the Free
Press city desk where he served as an
assistant city editor until 1972.
Then he was appointed the
paper's travel writer, a position he
held until he joined the Detroit News
in 1977 as part of its page one team.
In July 1979 he was appointed a
columnist. He also appears on the
WXYZ-TV News program twice a
week, reporting primarily feature
stories. In addition, he does commen-
tary on the WWJ-Radio program,,-;
"Looking at Detroit," five days a
week.
He has written a three-volume
travel book, The Great Lakes Guide, ;
Book, published by the University of
Michigan Press.
He lives with his wife and two:,
daughters in Southfield.
Despite the distortion by the
media, Cantor believes that the
American public is sufficiently
sophifkicated to recognize the biases.
"I think the average American is
more pro-Israel than the press is. I
don't think the public is fooled be-
cause the average person is smarter
than the media gives him credit for.
They know, they sense the unfair- ;
ness with which Israel has been 11
treateddl'hey recognize the inconsis-
tencies of the media."
Cantor said he' did not know`
what corrective measures the Israel .
government can take to prevent bias
reporting.
"The Israeli press office does a
good job. I don't think they can do any
more. It's a question of heal thyself
. . . the American press must identify
its own biases."
Cantor said he recognized the
potential for bias and distortion in
his own articles. "Being a Jew played'
a part two ways: I had a natural emo :!
tional pull as to what happens in
rael and I worried how that might At
affect my objectivity. I saw it happen./
many times when Jewish reporters
bent over backwards to prove their s
objectivity and fairness to the Arab
viewpoint even to the point of distort-
ing. Many were fairer than fair and
in doing so were unfair to the legiti-
mate Israel viewpoint. In their own
minds, this was a way of compensat-
ing for whatever emotional pull they
felt towards Israel.
"I identified that I had bias:es
and I was very conscious of thefact
that I might be sympathetic to Israe
l:.
I had no questions in my mind,.-Eor
instance, as to the right of Israetito
exist
"EVerything flowed from the
and if Isaw negative things in Israel,
I reported them."
In his six-part report, Ca
wrote stories on the West Bank,"the
religious divisions within Israel,
adjustments Americans hav
make after aliyah, the Arab Isms s,
the Lebanese occupations balanced
against patriotism and Masada.
On his return, he was criticized,
he said, by a rabbi for reporting the
division between Orthodox Jews and
the secular community. "But that's

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