No Child’s Play: NBC’s False Figures for Detained Palestinian Minors

All too often journalists sitting across the table from Arab leaders do their utmost to avoid asking any tough questions, lest they give "offense" to people clearly unused to being challenged. But now and then an intrepid interviewer does pose the uncomfortable question to a king or potentate. NBC's Tom Brokaw, for example, in a recent interview asked the tough questions of Jordan's King Abdullah. Why did they end up on the cutting room floor?
In an otherwise moving piece, NBC Nightly News' August 3, 2003 broadcast inappropriately politicized actor Christopher Reeve's recent trip to Israel. Reeve, a quadriplegic, visited Israel to promote his cause — stem cell research. But NBC marred the report by inserting unrelated references to the Arab-Israeli conflict, always to Israel's detriment.