Community Views Editor's Notebook One-Sided Reporting Fans The Conflict Flames A Tragic Way We're Filling A Void BERL FALBAUM SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS PHIL JACOBS EDITOR PHOTO BY AP/ADEL HANA Sometimes, in heard it. silence, in effect, is more devas- the public politi- Imagine the accolades Yassir tating on Israel than what is pub- cal arena, what Arafat would have received had lished, even though the latter isn't talked about he proposed a comprehensive may be slanted. is much more proposal for settlement of the At least one can argue and re- important than conflict. spond to what is published; one what is said. • Arab journalists and politi- cannot do anything when the is- This is especially cal commentators are arrested sues are not raised at all and, fur- true in the news and jailed by Arafat for being crit- ther, there is an implication that coverage of the ical of him and his corrupt gov- the other side — the Arabs — are Middle East, and the unmistak- ernment, but even self-interest not guilty of political wrongdo- enly one-sided approach by the — defending democracy and the ing. media to the conflict. First Amendment — is not One of the major reasons for Critics of the western media enough to motivate the media to this lopsided political coverage is point to distortions, inaccuracies, criticize him. that Arafat has been described and what they consider a "liber- • Many Arabs have been tor- by the media as the "Prince of al bent" and bias against Israel tured by the Palestinian Au- Peace" and critical stories would and, in many cases, they are cor- thority, and at least 12 Arabs contradict their premise. For rect. have died as a result of torture in years now, he has been portrayed The reporting, for instance, on Palestinians prisons; hardly a as being prepared for peace while Har Homa and the opening of the word has been written con- Israel is not. "infamous" tunnel was hardly demning these deaths, while New York Times columnist what one might call "objective" every civil liberty violation by Is- Anthony Lewis even went so far or accurate. Indeed, it came close rael brings an avalanche of con- —almost incredulously — as to to being a disgrace. demnation from the media — commend Arafat's "nonviolent" But what is not being report- and the world. policies. After more than 30 ed is even more indicative of the The media, so-called objective decades of ruling over the most media's anti-Israel political agen- human rights organizations, brutal mayhem imaginable — da. Consider: mayhem aimed, not just at • The Palestinian Israelis, but his own peo- Authority adopts a pol- ple as well — even Arafat icy of murdering Arabs must have been surprised who sell land to Jews by this description. (four are killed), and This warped political the media greet the de- discussion has had enor- velopments with si- mous and incalculable im- lence or, at best, a plications for Israel. It has yawn. created a public perception, No screaming front over the years, of Israeli page headlines, such "intransigence" and that it as would appear had is responsible for the stale- Israel adopted the re- mate in the Middle East verse of this policy. No Palestinian protestors and an Israeli armored vehicle near conflict. a Jewish settlement. moral outrage. Given that the impres- One can only imag- sion has been created over ine the condemnation which along with the United Nations, a long period, it will not be easy would have followed had Israel which has lost all credibility to change the perception. It may adopted such a brutal, inhu- when it comes to the Middle even be too late, but a coordinat- mane, as well as racist policy. East, watch benignly, apparent- ed, strategically effective effort • Prime Minister Binyamin ly unable to bring themselves to should be launched. Netanyahu makes public a major articulate any critical words. That would require an un- plan for settling the conflict — "Al- * The developments at Har compromising commitment to lon-plus" — and the media greet Homa and the opening the of adopting vital communications the proposal with avoidance. tunnel are reported as violations programs, to assure that the full Even such a severe critic of Is- of the Oslo Accords which, of story is told. rael as New York Times colum- course, they are not, and Arafat's We can't force the media to nist Thomas Friedman wrote, actual circumvention of the ac- cover that which they have cho- when the plan was ignored: A cords (almost 30) are ignored, in- sen to ignore. tree fell in Israel and no one cluding his continued call for the But we must work to fill the si- destruction of Israel. lence. Indeed, at least given the Bed Falbaum is a public relations Unfortunately, the list is al- stakes involved, we have an specialist and a freelance most endless. The media's one- obligation to try. ❑ writer. sidedness in this regard and the TheDJN@aol . corn 11 What Do You / Think?" Do you think paying for High Holi- day tickets is the way synagogues should support themselves? To respond: "So, What Do You Think?" 27676 Franklin Road, Southfield, MI 48034 I felt awful Saturday night upon learning about the Princess Di tragedy. And on Sun- day a friend sug- gested that it wasn't a very good day for the business ofjour- nalism. The business ofjournalism? No, I felt awful Saturday night that someone lost their life. I think the deficit reflects us all, not "the business ofjournalism." That's the easy way out. Be- fore we self-righteously blame paparazzi photographers, as low- er-rung on society's civility lev- el as they are, let's remember one thing. They are fulfilling a de- mand created not by the news- papers or their advertisers. Someone is reacting these publi- cations. Someone is placing an order that creates a white-hot competition. Now, I know none of "us" ever admit to reading one of these publications. We are not among the millions who do, are we? Please. The fact of the matter is, our lives have often become so filled with arti- ficial ingredients that we now need a crisis to keep us on our mental edge. We can check off these events. There was the Jim and Tam- my Faye Baker scandal of years past. There was the Branch Da- vidians. Even in Israel during the Jewish Federation's Miracle Mission, a cab driver held up the morning paper, and there in He- brew it spoke to me about Waco and David Koresh. Where were you the day O.J. tried to get away in his Bronco? Where were you the day of his not-guilty verdict? Did you care about Princess Di's divorce from Prince Charles? This is not about the "business of journalism." It's about the "business of us." Our lives have become so empty that we live them vicariously through the love affairs, scandals and con- troversies of people we call "celebrities." I hate the word "celebrity." We journalists do dig for stories. Hopefully we do so with ethics and objectivity in mind. That's not to say that I haven't made mistakes in the past, and will continue to make them. I believe this craft, just like any other, has its pluses and minuses. During a story that broke here early in the spring, we had Israeli newspaper reporters using our office one afternoon. The story was about the FBI questioning Southfield resident David Tenen- baum, an employee at the War- ren tank factory. One Israeli reporter told me that he was go- ing to wait until Mr. Tenenbaum left his home to walk to shul for Shabbat. At that time, he'd take his photograph. The reporter would hide behind some bush- es to photograph his subject. He offered me the photograph. I asked him never to ask me a question such as that one again. I also told him not to associate The Jewish News with this prac- tice. We weren't interested and never will be. Subsequently, we were given a photograph of Mr. Tenenbaum by his attorney to run in The Jewish News. The only require- ment was that it only run here in Detroit. We not only turned down our sister papers' request for use of this photograph, but we were reprimanded by the publisher of another Jewish newspaper for not sharing it with everyone. No way. The biggest plus we can re- mind all of our friends and neigh- bors about is that the scandals, the af- fairs, the addictions and the controver- sies of these famous people will not im- prove our lives or change anything about our own exis- tence. These celebri- ties are people with their own set of chal- lenges. Do we all live such per- fect lives that we are spending enough time with our loved ones? I doubt it. We are uplifted by the Stan- ley Cup. But we don't have time to talk to our children about their day. We know the names of the people in the British royal fam- ily, yet we don't know the name of Moses' mother. We rush to watch television shows that catch celebrities go- ing into drug rehab, yet we can't take two hours a week to go to temple or synagogue. You know who is watching us watch all of this stuff? You've got it, those "sponges" that absorb everything: our children. Why should they care? We don't. Please. Step back a moment. Try and improve your under- standing of who you are and what is really important in your life. Di's life was important, but so is yours. You, your family, your community. Take that en- ergy and fill the many vacancies we have in our community through volunteering, learning, synagogue and temple work. 111 Living vicariously through celebrities?