Coverage of Sri Lankan reporter’s murder censored
Reports on the murder of editor Lasantha Wickramatunga have been censored by the Sri Lankan authorities to remove criticism of the government.
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'Any journalist who enters Gaza becomes a fig leaf and front for the Hamas terror organization'
…so says Daniel Seaman of the Israeli government press office.
Writing in the New York Times, Ethan Bronner postulates that this attitude may have its roots in Israel’s 2006 conflict with Hezbollah. Then, domestic and international journalists were given pretty much free reign, and now many in the IDF see this as a contributing factor in the failure of the campaign.
The IDF should, in theory, be allowing some journalists in to Gaza. An agreement was reached with the Foreign Press Association in which six randomly selected foreign reporters would be allowed across the border (as well as two selected by Israel). However, despite the arrangement, no-one has been allowed through. This morning, Israel’s ambassador in London, Ron Prosor, claimed the delay had been due to ‘infighting’ in the FPA, a charge the association strongly denies.
Pinter: blowing up the media
In 1992, Harold Pinter talked to Index on Censorship editor Andrew Graham-Yooll about his struggle to publish ‘obscene words to describe obscene acts and obscene attitudes’. Indexoncensorship.org here reproduces the article.
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Propaganda and censorship in Gaza
Rachel Shabi in the Guardian points out the role of Israel’s recently-created National Information Directorate in the portrayal of the conflict in Gaza. The Directorate was set up after an inquiry in to the second Lebanon war in 2006, with the aim of co-ordinating the message going out to international media.
But propaganda and censorship could yet backfire. Robert Fisk is critical of the IDF’s barring of foreign journalists from Gaza. When the Israelis did this in 2000, exaggerated claims of a massacre in Jenin emerged, without the possibility of verification by independent reporters.