Mission & Goals. 2
Know your target. 2
Setting up an appointment. 2
The Meeting. 2
Issues to raise. 2
General tips for the meeting. 2
The Reports. 2
Letters. 2
General advice. 2
Your mission is to ensure fair, honest, and accurate
news coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The goals are:
·
To ensure that stories are not framed within
the pro-Israeli worldview
·
To ensure that the coverage highlights the
basic elements of the conflict: what is taking place is first and foremost
resistance to occupation
·
To push the coverage to be framed within the
context of a struggle for Palestinian independence not the context of an
allegedly beleaguered Israel fighting for its survival and security
Build a map of the foreign desk: who is the director,
who is his or her assistant, who are the reporters, who chooses the
headlines, who sets up the font page.
There are books and web pages that will show you who
are the people in the positions in the media outlet you are interested
in. We subscribe to the Media
Yellow book which gives updated information quarterly (with phone numbers
and email contact information).
There are also some web pages that will allow you to do that. An example is at
http://capwiz.com/adc/home/
Most newspapers (unless very small) have two separate
groups of editors: news editors and opinion page editors. You will usually need to meet with those
two groups separately. Contact the
managing editor to set an appointment with the News Editors.
Your first achievable goal is to get noticed: to
become someone they
recognize and respect. Set up a meeting with the paper’s foreign news desk.
If you decide to make a first contact by phone, that
is fine but they will usually ask you for a letter stating the same
things. Here is how we approach
speaking and writing to them to get attention:
1) We represent a group of organizations and activists
for human rights with emphasis on the Middle East. List those groups, many of us are
members of several groups, list them all (Al-Awda/Palestine Right to Return
Coalition, Palestine Media Watch, ADC, Amnesty etc).
2) We would like to set up a meeting with the foreign
news desk to exchange information and discuss coverage in the media outlet
in question.
Have a get together with the activists selected to go
to the meeting.
Recommend no more than 6 activists and that brief
presentations be given
from no more than 3 (maximum 4 of the activists). Time will be limited and
this will not be a history lesson or a lengthy
lecture.
One important function of the meetings is to let them
know that we are a serious enterprise and not a transient group of
malcontents.
Here is how we successfully did this on Palestinian
issues:
- As you get in the room and meet people, try to
relax, mingle (ask about
the paper, the building, the weather whatever).
- When the meeting starts, the lead person (person who
made the appointment) usually starts as follows. Thank them for meeting
with us, state that we really appreciate the opportunity to exchange
information and present our perspective.
State that what you think we should do is have a round of brief
introductions and that then we have very brief areas that some of our team
members will address.
- Team member introductions should be brief: name,
what you do in life for a
living, groups you volunteer with.
- "Chair" then asks the first presented for
3-4 minutes. That segment would
show maps (Salman Abu Sittas's map with all the
Palestinian villages
depopulated 1947-1949, maps of the present WB/Gaza
areas in perspective, the settlement blocks, apartheid). Brief and to the point.
- Presentation on current conditions: apartheid,
occupations, present
reports by international human rights groups (Amnesty,
HRW, PHR, UNCHR etc)
- Presentation on the analysis of the paper's coverage
(research should have
been completed ahead of time and hand outs prepared).
- These three core presentations can be accompanied
with handout, visual
presentations, etc.
- Chair sums-up, asks for feed back and Q&A from
the editors. Be very
thoughtful in this section as this is where mistakes
can be made. You can
do role playing before the actual meeting and
anticipate questions and
defensive postures from the paper's editors. Do not be too
confrontational.
Speak of the facts and the desire for better coverage.
The past cannot be changed, the future can.
- At the end of the meeting, ask if you could meet
with them again in a
month or two (you may also indicate that you get lots
of good speakers and
intellectuals and it maybe worthwhile to have a
meeting with some of those).
- Ask for the business cards of attendees before you
leave.
To
ensure success, focus on a few points at a time. The American media is spectacularly unprofessional when it
comes to their coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If you tried to point all of their
deficiencies at once, you will get bogged down and will get nowhere. Instead, what you should do is focus on
tackling a couple of issues at a time: for two or three weeks, harping on
them until they mend their ways.
Here is a list of such
issues:
- Lack
of quote space in stories from the Palestinian Authority
- Lack
of quote space in stories from Palestinian civilians
- Use
of “retaliation”/“response” when describing Israeli actions
- Never
using “retaliation”/“response” when describing Palestinian actions
- Rarely
using the word “occupied” when describing WB/Gaza/Jerusalem
- Not
describing Gilo as a settlement but as a suburb/neighborhood
- Using
the word “terrorist” for Palestinians but not for Israelis
- Humanizing
Israeli deaths but not Palestinian deaths
- More
photographs of Israeli civilian suffering and not as many for
Palestinians
- Using
the word “crossfire” to explain cause of death of Palestinians --- but
never using it to describe Israeli deaths
- Minimizing
Palestinian cooperation, and maximizing Israeli cooperation
- Not
mentioning Ariel Sharon’s war crimes
- Never
showing maps depicting the Israeli offers
Make sure they understand that you are not there
simply to vent off or to
let out your anger or attack the paper. You are there to present your case
for better coverage.
The tone of your requests should be:
* All you want from them is
to be fair
* All you are trying to help
them be a better paper to their own readers
Whenever you go to a meeting with them, give them the
press kit. The package will contain:
- Human right
group reports
- UN findings
- Talking
points handout
- A package on
the media
Schedule one meeting every three months. After your
initial meeting with the editorial board, you can schedule informal
meetings with individual key people.
Make sure you send them a thank you card - preferably
both via email and snail mail. A thank
you phone call is also good.
When possible, schedule meetings AFTER lunch. They will try to schedule them at 11:00
am so that at 12:00 noon they will end it for lunch.
The reports are your bread and butter: they are the
evidence that gives substance to your arguments and your points. If you accuse a paper that they rarely
give the Palestinian Authority quote space, the other side will react by
saying that no, they do. Unless you
tell them that you have examined their work closely and you know for a FACT
that they don’t, they will try to contradict you, even when they have no
idea what they are talking about!
So, maintain those reports and keep them updated. You will be glad you did when you are
facing the editorial board.
A relatively painless way of doing this is to write a
brief, daily critique of their stories.
Highlight the most obvious violations point by point (3 or 4 points
per story, total of a few lines).
Make sure you keep writing your letters. A daily summary of your critique sent
out every morning or evening will drive the point home that you are
watching them very closely. This
will not only keep your name visible, but will give you a great archive to
go back to for issues to raise during meetings. Nothing impresses them more than seeing how you are in total
command of your criticism when you tick off specific points in specific
stories. It will show them that you
are totally on top of this issue - and that does intimidate them.
Preparation is the keyword. Having a detailed report, and coming to meetings with
specific demands, will impress them.
When you present an argument, make sure you simplify
it and present only the strongest points.
A well-known technique of shooting down arguments (unfairly) is to
latch on to the weakest part of it, attack that part (even if it is
incidental to the argument) and then claim victory when you step back on
that point. So, when you are
presenting a set of facts, drop anything that you are not 100% sure of.
Focus on FACTS rather than opinion.
Avoid embarrassing them too much when you have
something embarrassing about what they have done or said. Put them on the spot once in a while,
but don't use all of your ammunition.
They will be grateful that you held back.
Avoid using the term "Jews" or
"Zionist". Use
"Israelis" or "Israeli occupation".
View your task as a long term one. They need to understand that you will
always be here. This will force
them to develop a long term strategy of managing you as opposed to them
trying to shoo you off - either by giving you something and expecting you
thank them and go away or by intimidating you by rebuking you strongly.
Always be patient and polite.
They need to understand that you are a representative group.
Be persistent but don't be a pest in follow-up with
them. One mail every
two days should be the average. But make sure you do not go too many
days without having your name pop up in their mailbox.
Be responsive and useful: Whenever possible, be a
resource for them that makes life easier and not tougher for them. When they ask for information, try to be
as responsive as possible.
*Michael Tarazi (http://www.nad-plo.org/)
and Mazin Qumsiyeh of (Al-Awda) contributed to this primer
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