World Save the Date... NPR Probed National Public Radio may be monitored on Israel; Jewish reaction is cautious optimism Yad Ezra's 15th Annual Dinner CHANAN TIGAY Jewish Telegraphic Agency Joel E. Jacob, honoree New York Sunday, October 16, 2005 W Congregation Shaarey Zedek Lawrence Jackier Terri Farber Roth Fundraising Dinner Co-Chairpersons Margie Krasnick Shayna Silverman Dinner Arrangements Co-Chairpersons Bryce Sandler Dinner Program Book Chairman For more information, please call Yad Ezra at (248) 548 3663 - Special thanks* to... Business Dinner Sponsor - Schechter Financial Group j SCHECHTER FINANCIAL GROUP Trus.tert .-tdrison: 13g Dinner Sponsor - Ronda and Ron Ferber *as of May 2, 2005 9T7730 In THE WORLD'S FIRST LUXURY HYBRID IS HERE! COME SEE THE 2006 RX400h! Polling Data MEADE L.A1E70.1. 5/19 2005 32 ord that the head of the federal corporation over- seeing public radio and tel- evision is mulling a proposal to begin monitoring National Public Radio's coverage of the Middle East for bias is being met with cautious optimism by Jewish officials and U.S. legislators. "This is something we've been call- ing on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to do for years," said Alex Safian, associate director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. "It's potentially a move in the right direc- tion, depending on what kind of analysis the Corporation for Public Broadcasting does." Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., rec- ommended the move when the cor- poration met in Washington last fall. At the time, he suggested that about $50,000 be earmarked for a study of NPR's Mideast coverage. Long criticized by some as reflexive- ly anti-Israel, NPR ought to be striv- ing for a balance in its Mideast cover- age where "half the story's comments are favorable to the Israeli govern- ment and half are opposed," Sherman said. "Ethnic balance" — in which equal numbers of Arabs and Jews are inter- viewed — is insufficient, he insisted. "Plenty of Jews are harshly critical of Israel," he said, adding that while there may be Palestinians who sup- port Israeli policies, "they're all dead, so you can't interview them." A spokesman for the corporation said "no one was available" to com- ment on the NPR situation. of Southfield • 1-888-205-8340 28300 Northwestern Hwy. • Southfield ... WL7 PIC.WgrAMPAFIliVE5iAMVHF!' A Division Of The Meade Group... Serving The Metro Detroit Area For 33 Years. Ivww.meaclelexus.com Mon. - Thurs. 9-9 Tues., Wed., Fri. 9-6 Sat. 9-4 Most recently, according to the corpo- ration's Congressional testimony, its polling data demonstrated that nearly 80 percent of people who listen to public radio believe Middle East cov- erage is balanced. Eight percent think it has a pro-Israel bias, while 5 per- cent feel it favors the Arabs. In April, the corporation created two new positions to independently assess public programing, but not necessarily related to the Middle East. According to a report in the New York Times, the corporation's chair- man, Kenneth Tomlinson, believes public television programming is tainted by a liberal bias and is waging a campaign to correct it. Late last year, the Times said, Tomlinson talked to S. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, about look- ing into the balance of NPR's Middle East reporting. The corporation has not yet gone ahead with the project. One shouldn't assume that all American Jews oppose NPR's cover- age of Israel, said Martin Raffel, act- ing executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "The com- munity's not monolithic in its approach to NPR," he said. "There are some people who believe that NPR's coverage is just fine." For his part, Raffel believes "there is an issue here that needs to be addressed — or a series of issues." In 2003, Sherman, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and nine other U.S. legislators asked that NPR assess its own coverage of the Middle East. "We have concluded that we are fair and we refuse to give you the data underlying this report," was Sherman's characterization of NPR's response. But in the past year or two, he believes NPR's coverage of the Middle East "may have been amelio- rated just by them covering the Arab- Israeli conflict less. "If one of your indicators is the number of times I hit the roof, the roof of my apartment and my office has been dented less in the last 12 months than during the 12 prior months," he said. CAMERA's Safian said his group has done several studies on NPR's coverage of the region and has found that the programming not only offers a preponderance of Palestinian voic- es," but tends to give those voices longer chunks of air time.11: "