Stories meant to inform, not persuade

By PAUL HAIST

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Newspaper offices routinely receive telephone calls, e-mails and letters from readers who take issue with the paper’s coverage of a particular topic.

These conversations range from the routinely courteous to somewhere east of Eden, a less than an idyllic place to be.

The Jewish Review is no different.

Lately, a man who sympathizes strongly with the settler movement in Israel has contacted the Review more than once regarding the settlers and this paper’s coverage of that issue.

Most recently, he expressed disappointment with the special reports published on pages 2 and 3 of the July 1 edition in which the settlements issue was examined by Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporter Dina Kraft.

The caller felt that the articles cast the settlers in a negative light. He asked if the Jewish Review would interview a person known to him who is the mayor in an Israeli settlement.

I replied that in my view the articles were neither pro nor anti settler movement.

Rather, they were straight-forward and objective reports of narrowly defined scope about a volatile and emotional situation in Israel that impinges significantly on the peace process.

Few issues in the Jewish community are more sensitive than Israel. Few issues are more likely to inflame opinion.

Part of the Jewish Review’s job is to report on Middle East affairs of interest to Jews. We do that with stories such as those just published and with occasional opinion pieces on the opinion pages.

While the Jewish Review publishes news stories about Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East and around the world, the Jewish Review staff does not report news stories from the Middle East, except on those rare occasions when one of the staff happens to be there.

We occasionally write about Israel and the Middle East on the opinion pages where we endeavor over time to maintain a balance of opinions from a firmly pro-Israel perspective.

For news stories about Israel and the Middle East the Jewish Review relies on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The JTA is supported by the North American Jewish community through its member newspapers and other sources for the purpose of reporting on issues from around the world that are of interest to Jews. The JTA, for example, was one of the world’s first news organizations to report on the crimes of Nazi Germany—and that was before the war.

The JTA does an excellent job. Their reporters and editors are first-rate professionals and their stories are virtually always meticulously objective.

Where there may occasionally be oversights, the staffs of the subscriber newspapers, such as the Jewish Review, are quick to point out the issue to the JTA editors—if they don’t catch it themselves first and issue a revision—and, in the collaborative process that is the core of news reporting, a problematic section is corrected—usually.

Are there still occasional errors or questionable situations or judgment calls? Of course.

However, the two stories in the July 1 Review about the settlers issue are good examples of the kind of informative and even-handed reporting that is the standard delivered by the JTA.

Kraft’s reporting is dispassionate and fact-based. It quotes witnesses or authorities on both sides of the issue.

The stories provide insights into the issue that are helpful in increasing our understanding of what is happening and what is at stake, regardless of our personal predispositions.

That’s what good news stories should do.