The contested concept of 'impartiality' lies at the heart of running battles between unionised staff and news organisations in Australia over coverage of Israel's genocidal onslaught.
Should the media use the words "apartheid" and "genocide" in relation to the State of Israel?
Apartheid is an interesting one. Apartheid South Africa and Israel had a long and close relationship. "By 1973, an economic and military alliance between Israel and South Africa was in the ascendancy. The military leadership of both countries was convinced that both nations faced a fundamentally similar predicament, fighting for their survival against the common enemy of the PLO and the ANC.[98] Within less than a decade, South Africa would be one of Israel's closest military and economic allies, whilst Israel would occupy the position of South Africa's closest military ally, and Israel had become the most important foreign arms supplier to the South African Defence Force (SADF)." (Wikipedia, Israel-South Africa Relations). The architect of apartheid in South Africa Hendrik Verwoerd, said approvingly "Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state". Yet despite that, there are reasons why we should be wary of describing Israel as an apartheid state. Apartheid was a project in which a white minority sought to subjugate and exploit a black majority in perpetuity. Israel is a Jewish state which seeks to eventually expel or otherwise eliminate an Arab minority leading to a more or less purely Jewish population sustained if necessary by the labour of transient Asian migrant workers. Apartheid is an Afrikaans language word which specifically applied to the South African situation. I can understand why anti-apartheid campaigners from the past use it in relation to the State of Israel today, but in doing so they risk overlooking the important differences between apartheid South Africa and modern Israel.
What about "genocide"? I would put that one back into the court of the Australian and New Zealand media. They talk about the Nazi genocide and the Rwanda genocide, so under what conditions would they be willing to talk about the Gaza genocide? It would seem to be to be well established, as a matter of fact and according to the common definitions, that a genocide is taking place in Gaza. Why not say it?
But more important than the terms we use (such as "apartheid" or "genocide"), or choose not to use, is the need for honest, intelligent and objective discussion about what is actually going on in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. The Five Eyes media are conspicuously failing to do that. Instead they have drawn a veil of silence over the underlying facts and the fundamental issues of the conflict.
The ABC says “Maintaining trust and credibility as an ABC journalist means you forgo the opportunity to share your opinions about stories on which you report or may be involved in.”
On the contrary. Journalists have a right to express a personal opinion in both their private and professional capacities. After all, like the rest of us, including state servants, they remain human beings and moral agents who have not just a right but a duty to hold and express an opinion on the things that matter in the world. We have certain expectations of journalists of course, which derive from their special role as shapers of public opinion. We expect their opinions to be well-informed, measured, reasonable and morally based and we expect them to give full expression to any contrary opinions which are also reasonable. In short, journalists need to deliver a higher quality of opinion than the rest of us if they are to justify their special position in the social order. We look to journalists as we look to ministers of religion to guide our thoughts with fairness, wisdom and understanding, as many of them still do. However such as these are in danger of becoming the minority in the nations of the west, where the news media is increasingly becoming a vehicle for state and commercial propaganda. When some "journalists" are paid exorbitant salaries to loudly express facile opinions that conflict with the known facts while others are shown the door for writing balanced, impartial and well-informed articles, then we know that the crisis of western democracy has penetrated deep into the fourth estate. A lot of the action seems to be going on around state media (ABC in Australia and RNZ in New Zealand) but that is arguably because the battle for honest reporting and professional journalism has already been well and truly lost within the privately owned media.
Should the media use the words "apartheid" and "genocide" in relation to the State of Israel?
Apartheid is an interesting one. Apartheid South Africa and Israel had a long and close relationship. "By 1973, an economic and military alliance between Israel and South Africa was in the ascendancy. The military leadership of both countries was convinced that both nations faced a fundamentally similar predicament, fighting for their survival against the common enemy of the PLO and the ANC.[98] Within less than a decade, South Africa would be one of Israel's closest military and economic allies, whilst Israel would occupy the position of South Africa's closest military ally, and Israel had become the most important foreign arms supplier to the South African Defence Force (SADF)." (Wikipedia, Israel-South Africa Relations). The architect of apartheid in South Africa Hendrik Verwoerd, said approvingly "Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state". Yet despite that, there are reasons why we should be wary of describing Israel as an apartheid state. Apartheid was a project in which a white minority sought to subjugate and exploit a black majority in perpetuity. Israel is a Jewish state which seeks to eventually expel or otherwise eliminate an Arab minority leading to a more or less purely Jewish population sustained if necessary by the labour of transient Asian migrant workers. Apartheid is an Afrikaans language word which specifically applied to the South African situation. I can understand why anti-apartheid campaigners from the past use it in relation to the State of Israel today, but in doing so they risk overlooking the important differences between apartheid South Africa and modern Israel.
What about "genocide"? I would put that one back into the court of the Australian and New Zealand media. They talk about the Nazi genocide and the Rwanda genocide, so under what conditions would they be willing to talk about the Gaza genocide? It would seem to be to be well established, as a matter of fact and according to the common definitions, that a genocide is taking place in Gaza. Why not say it?
But more important than the terms we use (such as "apartheid" or "genocide"), or choose not to use, is the need for honest, intelligent and objective discussion about what is actually going on in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. The Five Eyes media are conspicuously failing to do that. Instead they have drawn a veil of silence over the underlying facts and the fundamental issues of the conflict.
The ABC says “Maintaining trust and credibility as an ABC journalist means you forgo the opportunity to share your opinions about stories on which you report or may be involved in.”
On the contrary. Journalists have a right to express a personal opinion in both their private and professional capacities. After all, like the rest of us, including state servants, they remain human beings and moral agents who have not just a right but a duty to hold and express an opinion on the things that matter in the world. We have certain expectations of journalists of course, which derive from their special role as shapers of public opinion. We expect their opinions to be well-informed, measured, reasonable and morally based and we expect them to give full expression to any contrary opinions which are also reasonable. In short, journalists need to deliver a higher quality of opinion than the rest of us if they are to justify their special position in the social order. We look to journalists as we look to ministers of religion to guide our thoughts with fairness, wisdom and understanding, as many of them still do. However such as these are in danger of becoming the minority in the nations of the west, where the news media is increasingly becoming a vehicle for state and commercial propaganda. When some "journalists" are paid exorbitant salaries to loudly express facile opinions that conflict with the known facts while others are shown the door for writing balanced, impartial and well-informed articles, then we know that the crisis of western democracy has penetrated deep into the fourth estate. A lot of the action seems to be going on around state media (ABC in Australia and RNZ in New Zealand) but that is arguably because the battle for honest reporting and professional journalism has already been well and truly lost within the privately owned media.