!MEDIA MONITOR I HOUSE CALLS MADE ) FOR NAIL AND FOOT CARE DR. SEYMOURE BALAJ HOUSE CALLS BY A JEWISH DOCTOR IIT 398-2815 SJM&F, 25-40. Looking to share experience of a lifetime? Promise friend- ship, fun and a personal awakening. Fall in love with Israel on Summer Singles Mission. Call Jewish Welfare Federation 965-3939, ext. 121 E FEATURE ORIGINAL JEWELRY DESIGNS NOT AVAILABLE ELSEWHERE BERL FALBAUM Special to The Jewish News ASTREIN'S 120 W. MAPLE • BIRMINGHAM • 644-1651 MON.-SAT. 10-5:30 • THURS. & FRI. 'TIL 9:00 M/CNISA/AMX ACCEPTED It's his job to know good advertising—and he also knows a good investment. Terry Wilson puts his money in U.S. Savings Bonds. Bonds now pay com- petitive rates, like money market accounts. Find out more, call 1-800-US-BONDS. U.S. SAVINGS BONDS THE GREAT AMERICAN INVESTMENT Bonds held less than five years earn a lower rate. A public service of this publication. Together, there's so much good we can do. • • • Alert to Parents! "Special Occasions Require Special Dresses" • EVENING WEAR • SPORTS WEAR • ACCESSORIES When we ask you to please recognize the signs of cystic fibrosis and other lung- damaging diseases, we're not trying to alarm you. Look at it this way. If your child does NOT have C F or another serious lung-damaging disease, he has nothing to lose by checking with a doctor, or taking a simple diagnostic test. If your child DOES have C F, or another condition that could damage his lungs, he has a lot to lose by not having the chance for early diagnosis and prompt effective medical care. So, when you look at it like that... we hope you'll look at this and learn the following: SIGNS OF LUNG-DAMAGING DISEASE I. Recurrent wheezing 2. Persistent coughing/excessive mucus 3. Pneumonia more than once 4. Excessive appetite/poor weight gain 5. Clubbing (enlargement of fingertips) Cystic fibrosis signs also may include: salty taste of the skin; persistent, bulky diarrhea; nasal polyps. cr- Cystic Fibrosis Foundation 29325 14 Mile • Corner of Middlebelt Broadway Plaza • 727-4483 106 FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1988 he coverage must be representative. We suggest that the main failure of the media . . . was that the totality of its coverage was not as represen- tative as it should have been to be accurate. We believe that to live up to their own professed standards, the media simply must exercise a higher degree of care and a greater level of sophistication than they have yet shown in this area . . ." This statement could have been made by a member of the Jewish community discussing the coverage in the Middle East of the Gaza and West Bank disturbances. But it isn't; it is part of the conclusion reached by the Kerner Commission which in- vestigated the causes for the urban crisis in the U.S. in the late 1960s. And part of its analysis included the media. The commission — 20 years later — recently reviewed the state of race relations in this country and reported that lit- tle had changed between blacks and whites. It might have added that the media have remained the same as well. Consider this 1960s obser- vation by the comission: "We found that the disorders, as serious as they were, were less destructive, less widespread, and less a black-white con- frontation than most people believed!' This also has been a com- plaint of Israelis, and Jews who have visited Israel dur- ing the last few months. While centering on the con- frontations between "stone- throwing teenagers" and "armed" Israeli soldiers, the media have distorted daily life, giving an exaggerated picture to the world. The commission continued: "We are deeply concerned that millions . . . who must rely on the mass media .. . formed incorrect impressions and judgments about what went on in many American cities. The overall effect was, we believe, an exaggeration of both mood and event!" Similarly, the world believes that Israelis and Arabs alike have all but abandoned the routines of their daily lives. By omission, the media distort; by lack of balance, they sensationalize. It is, of course, understan- dable that the Gaza riots T ALL JEWELRY ALWAYS 20% OFF Portrait of the Great American Investor Kerner's Lessons Are Still Not Applied Fighting Children's Lung Diseases I his space contributed as a public set, ice. would be the focal point of coverage but simultaneously the media should report how the disturbances have af- fected — if at all — the coun- try as a whole. And all of Israel is not ablaze. Indeed, thousands of Arabs from the Gaza Strip continue working daily in Israel. Kerner: "The media — especially television — also have failed to present and analyze to a sufficient extent the basic reasons for the disorders." In Israel, a new Kerner Commission report might add that the media have failed to explain how Israel came to "occupy" the territories, that it has an obligation to main- tain order or the fact that there are no Arab countries with which to negotiate. As in Israel, where the media center on conflict, the Kerner Commission reported 20 years ago that news peple exploit confrontation rather than report the underlying causes of the riots. The com- mission found evidence of "coaxing" 1960s rioters and there are indications that this has occurred in Israel as well, if not directly than indirectly by the presence of camera crews. Some newsmen, then as now, have "done things for the sake of the story that could have contributed to ten- sion." The commission reported a lack of understanding bet- ween reporters and police. In Israel, the army has had sub- santial difficulty with "con- trolling" the media in riot- torn areas. Almost plaintively, the com- mission asked for "wisdom, sensitivity and expertise .. . and compassion," the same request being made today by Jews throughout the world. No one is suggesting that Israel be immune from criticism; no one is sug- gesting that the crisis is not serious nor that somehow the media should ignore the violence and human rights abuses. Nor is the only democracy in the Middle East suggesting that the press be censored or muted. "Freedom of the press is not the issue," the commission wrote 20 years ago. It is not the issue today in Israel. While the technology of the media has witnessed dramatic change, the substance of news reports in confrontational events such as those in Israel, remain very primitive.