AUGUST 9, 2010

BOGUS PARALLELS - THE INDEPENDENT’S DONALD MACINTYRE RESPONDS

Last month, Media Lens examined an Independent interview with Tony Blair, "the international community's Middle East envoy." (http://www.medialens.org/alerts/10/100720_peace_envoy_blair.php). The interview was by Donald Macintyre, the paper's Jerusalem correspondent. ('Tony Blair: Former PM urges Israel to ease Gaza blockade', Independent, 4 June 2010; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/tony-blair-former-pm-urges-israel-to-ease-gaza-blockade-1991105.html)

We wrote in our alert:

“The whole tone of the Independent interview was uncritical and respectful; a bland and meek summation of the sincere and well-intentioned thoughts of a man with the blood of untold numbers of victims on his hands: men, women and children in Iraq, Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia and, indeed, in Palestine itself.”

We noted that the piece gave no hint that the West and, in particular, the United States, has been full tilt behind the Israelis in crushing the lives and aspirations of the Palestinians. We suggested to Macintyre that, in echoing Blair’s rhetoric without challenge, he had “ignored the consistent and massive military, financial and diplomatic support given to Israel during its increasing strangulation of Gaza - the US, the UK and its allies are deeply complicit in this terrible crime."

Macintyre dismissed our response as being “full of misleading assumptions about journalism in general and mine in particular.” We invited him to enlighten us further, but received no reply. Three weeks later he had still not responded again, despite a gentle emailed nudge. It was only once our alert went out on 20 July, and many readers challenged him, that Macintyre felt moved to write directly to us:

“Since I have in the last 24 hours had a lengthy series of emails from your supporters urging me to reply to the prominent attack on me on the Media Lens website, I assume that you will now publish the attached response in full.” (Email from Donald Macintyre, 21 July, 2010).

Like other mainstream journalists, Macintyre prefers not to notice the fact that many of the emails sent to him (and also copied to us) were not from “supporters” - they were from people interested to see how his arguments stacked up against ours so that they could make their minds up for themselves.

We will discuss Macintyre’s email below - we have also published it in our forum: http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10739#10739

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