Leading international journalists have talked about the extraordinary pressures they face when reporting from Israel.
The former New York Times bureau chief in Jerusalem Jodi Rudoren has admitted to “defensive writing” after several “Twitter campaigns” against her.
Rudoren says this was “to protect myself and keep me focused on the essence of what I’m trying to do instead of these distractions but you could totally get out of hand with this”. She says there is not a healthy debate in the US about Israel because of the power of pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC.
The interviews are contained in Balcony Over Jerusalem, in which journalists tell how they come under attack from pro-Israel groups if they report what they see in Israel and the West Bank.
Reuters has a special rule book on what wording must be used while German’s largest newspaper group, owned by Axel Springer, makes journalists sign that they agree to “support the vital rights of the people of Israel”.
As The Australian’s Middle East correspondent for six years, I also encountered repeated pressure from the privately funded, Melbourne-based lobby group the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. After one attack, the then editor of The Australian, Clive Mathieson, wrote to the head of AIJAC, Colin Rubenstein, to say that repeated attacks on AIJAC’s website for one story — for something the story did not say — “border on the malicious”.
Read the full article by John Lyons at The Australian (subscription only).