me

Channel 56
Takes Heat

Groups call for a boycott because of an August program bitised against Israel.

ALAN HITSKY
Interim Editor

F

•

•

•

our Detroit-area Jewish
organizations are calling on
.
the Jewish community to
withhold contributions
from WTVS-Channel 56, Detroit's
public television station.
The four groups — La'Asot (To
Do), Zionist Organization of
America Metro Detroit District,
Jewish War Veterans Department of
Michigan, and Americans For A Safe
Israel — placed a full-page advertise-
ment in today's Jewish News. They
are upset with Ch. 56 for broadcast-
ing an anti-Israel program on Aug.
31 that the station admits was unbal-
anced and biased.
David Gad-Harf, executive direc-
tor of the Jewish Community
Council of Metropolitan Detroit,
resigned from the WTVS board after
previewing "People and the Land."
WTVS General Manager Steve
Antoniotti called the independently
produced program a point-of-view
documentary with no illusions of
balance.
The documentary questions the
$3 billion annual U.S. foreign aid
allocation to Israel. It attempts
to show that Israel's mandate
is to drive the Palestinians out
of what it feels is Palestinian
land. It calls settlements
"dozens of little South
Africas," and says that "one-
third of Gaza has been puri-
fied of Palestinians."
Berl Falbaum, president of
La'Asot, said Jewish organiza-
tions nationally contacted public TV
stations across the U.S. to request
that "People and the Land" not be
aired. "Most stations refused to run
it" because of its bias against Israel
and factual inaccuracies, Falbaum
said.
Falbaum, a public relations execu-
tive, believes Jewish groups should be
more forceful in dealing with media
injustices. "If Ch. 56 had run an
inaccurate piece on the black corn-

munity, they would have been closed
and the Land" if they had been in
down within an hour," he said.
place.
Dr. Jerome Kaufman, president of
Dan Alpert, WTVS senior vice
the Metro Detroit District ZOA, said president and station manager, sent a
prepared statement to The Jewish
he resents the fact that the station
broadcast programming
News. He said a boy-
cott has a chilling
"that has no basis in
fact. It is our obligation
effect on free speech.
"The decision to air •
to respond to that." He
said the Jewish commu-
`People and the Land'
nity's long history of
(with our followup
program) was not an
rationalizing insults
"leads to the killing of
easy one," Alpert
wrote, but came with-
Jews. It's a shtetl mental-
ity. Jews have to have
in the context of the
station's mandate to
the guts to stand up for
allocate some funding
our own issues."
to "non-mainstream"
Falbaum said stand-
independent filmmak-
ing up and protesting
ers because it receives
"works for everyone else.
We have to create the
some
federal funds.
Berl Falbau m:
"Confronted
with
psychology that anti-
Withhold d
such a mandate,"
Semitism is publicly not
Alpert wrote, "we felt
acceptable."
David Gad-Harf said there was
it best not to callously disregard it or
to suppress this clearly one-sided
strong consensus within the Jewish
point-of-view program, but rather to
Community Council to not partici-
offer context it sorely lacked."
pate in the action against WTVS. He
The station aired a panel discus-
said individuals are free to take any
action, but the Council board, which sion immediately after the show. The
panel included the show's producers.
he s id was outraged by the TO ram
"We have applied this formula to
esignatio
other controversial point-of-
view programs, including
those which presented Israeli
viewpoints CA Search for
Solid Ground,' 1989) or per-
ceived anti-Arab viewpoints
(Thad in America,' 1994),
and feel it is the best and
most even-handed way to
deal with the balancing role
we must at times play.
"We hope that individuals in all
'
d se nt a strong m
and incited numerous telephon e * ca s
communities will see the good faith
efforts made by Detroit Public
and letters of protest to the station.
He said a communal protest could
Television [Ch. 56] in this approach
and continue to help preserve this
force Ch. 56 into a defensive,
unique broadcast service."
counter-productive position. "I'd
Asked if WTVS was required to
rather see positive steps," said Gad-
broadcast "People and the Land,"
Harf.
The station, he said, is formulat-
Alpert acknowledged that the station
could have selected other "non-main-
ing guidelines for point-of-view pro-
stream voices" to fulfill federal man-
gramming that he believes would
have prevented the airing of "People
dates. 0

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