THUMBS UP to Jewish Press Associate Editor Jason Maoz for his trenchant “Media Monitor” columns informing readers about an array of Israel-related media issues.
Maoz has reported on the biases of regional newspaper columnists such as Charley Reese and Bill Maxwell as well as those of national figures like Milton Viorst and ex-LA Times reporter Marjorie Miller. He has called attention to the pernicious role of the so-called “New Historians” and the bombshell story in the New York Times (August 14, 1999) about Israel introducing into its own schools a revisionist history book in which Israel is said not to have faced overwhelming odds against the Arabs in 1948. Ignoring the controversy about the revisionist claims, the Times headline declared that “facts” were now replacing “myths.” In reality, the “new historians” and the newly-introduced textbook are under fire for flawed methodology and inaccuracy.
Another Maoz column reported on Hussein Ibish, spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Calling him a “rising star in the anti-Israel firmament,” Maoz notes that Ibish is quoted and interviewed widely in the media as a credible source despite his virulent record of attacks on Israel. Only days after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, for example, Ibish wrote “Rabin has been elevated to the status of a secular saint…The truth is, of course, that Rabin was a monster, a war criminal, ethnic cleanser, mass murderer and terrorist.”
A two-part column by Maoz offered a list of journalists deemed unfair in their coverage of Israel. He included reader suggestions, writing that “the most unpopular names on the list were those of Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace and Patrick Buchanan … but the animosity directed toward Thomas Friedman and Anthony Lewis was so pronounced as to startle even an incorrigibly cynical sort like the Monitor.”