Blog For Arizona

Dis-May-ed

Wrong-wing polemicists go unchallenged in our nations newspapers every day. But perhaps the worst case of imbalance in the Tucson press, and the American press in general, is the absolute dearth of voices providing balance and perspective on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

One of the worst offenders, employing pure jingoism and lies in an echo-chamber seemingly reserved only for his use, is Clifford D. May, the Director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (truly evil organizations don't take names like 'Legion of Doom', you know).

I have repeatedly requested the Arizona Daily Star to provide some balance, but after several consecutive columns from the extreme Wrong in the person of Mr. May, with no balancing voices from the Israeli or Palestinian peace movement, I despair of the ability of one man to force the editors to listen. Luckily, the editorials editor is fairly new. Unluckily, he has not returned my messages requesting a more fair editorial balance from our newspaper on Israel.

Unless a community demands that there be a fair balance in both news reporting and opinion publication, newspapers can be used to make an extreme and unrepresentative viewpoints seem mainstream; that is what the Star is doing on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Their editorial choices depict the Palestinians as wholly wrong and of malign intent, and Israel as a paragon of virtue, incapable of doing wrong. The majority of Americans have a much more realistic and balanced view of the conflict, yet the editorial policy of Star consistently promotes an extremely biased viewpoint, and slights any more moderate voices.

If you read the Daily Star at all, please take a moment to contact the Star's editorials editor and express your concern about the their exclusion of any but the most extreme views on this issue. Do not ask that they not print extreme views, like those of Clifford May, just that they provide equal time to alternative viewpoints. Dennis Joyce is at djoyce@azstarnet.com, and his phone number is 520-573-4235.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 7/18/2004 03:26:00 PM