NPR

March 25, 2003

Terry Gross’s “Tit-for-Tat” Interview with James Bennet

On March 12, 2003, NPR's “Fresh Air” broadcast an interview with host Terry Gross and New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief James Bennet. Among other things, Gross asked Bennet about Israel's anti-terrorist actions in Gaza–but she didn't term them anti-terrorist actions. Instead, she repeatedly referred to “tit-for-tat murders,” drawing a parallel between Hamas's terrorist attacks against Israeli children and the Israeli army's attempts to root out the killers.

March 11, 2003

Terror Rules at NPR

An Islamic extremist explodes a bomb amidst a crowd of civilians on March 4th, killing more than 20, including himself. Less than a day later another Islamic extremist explodes a bomb on a civilian bus, killing more than 15, including himself. Parallel stories, but not covered in a parallel way on National Public Radio.

February 18, 2003

NPR’s Second Intifada

In the final segment of its seven part series on Middle East history, National Public Radio covered the so-called second Palestinian Intifada. As in the previous segments, NPR once again offered up a highly skewed lineup of experts, with critics of Israel heavily represented and pro-Israel voices virtually absent.

January 21, 2003

CAMERA Op-Ed: NPR’s Gradstein Falsely Labels Israel “Extremist”

National Public Radio's Linda Gradstein recently reported Israel's attempt to bar Israeli-Arab politician Ahmed Tibi from running in upcoming elections because of his alleged support for attacks against Israelis and his denial of the state's legitimacy (Israel's Supreme Court reinstated Tibi a few days later). Among those Gradstein interviewed was Shmuel Sandler, an Israeli professor whom she described as seeing "growing extremism" among his countrymen:

January 3, 2003

CAMERA Op-Ed: Blaming the Media, With Reason

A respectful dissent, please, from Gary Rosenblatt’s column, “Don’t Just Blame the Media,” (Nov. 8). Rosenblatt asserts that “for the most part, mainstream American coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been fair.”

January 1, 2003

NPR and Israel: June, July 2002

Yet another two-month study reveals National Public Radio coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict continues to be marred by factual distortions and disproportionate presentation of Arab and pro-Arab speakers. Skewed and serious allegations against Israel are, at times, aired in completely one-sided programs without giving Israel the right of response. Partisan language shades reporting, blurring the terrorist role of Palestinian groups and leaders and casting Israeli leaders alone as “hard-line.”

December 11, 2002

CAMERA Critiques NPR History Series

In September 2002, NPR aired a seven-part series entitled "The Mideast: A Century of Conflict" purporting to bring "context and perspective to the story" of the Israeli-Palstinian conflict and "to help listeners understand the complex situation in the Mideast, the history, and the consequences of the confrontation." In fact, the series was marred by severe lack of balance, error and distortion