‘If it is to keep faith with the public, the media must expose how influence is exercised’

LOUISE ADLER: Why I commissioned John Lyons’s book, Dateline Jerusalem
BOB CARR: Israel lobby’s overreach far exceeded any other diaspora community

LOUISE ADLER: Why are Australia and its media so fearful of debate on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians? (Guardian)
RECENTLY 700 JOURNALISTS and writers signed a petition calling for fuller media coverage of the plight of the Palestinians. Reportage on the Middle East has long been contested. For Zionists the Australian media is a hot bed of biased, leftwing enmity, for Palestinians the lack of a fair hearing and accurate reporting is a given.

The petition triggered a furore as media proprietors and their editors were called out for self-censorship. There is a tacit consensus in newsrooms across the country that attempting objective reporting and honest analysis isn’t worth the grief. 

Both implicitly and explicitly it is agreed that subjects best avoided are: daily life for Palestinians, the relentless growth of settlements in the occupied territories, the concomitant moral erosion of the Israeli polity, and the complexities at play within Palestinian and Israeli politics.

If the media is to keep faith with the public then it must expose how influence is exercised.

Believing it to be in the national interest to publish an evidence-based account of the challenges the media confront in reporting on the region, I commissioned John Lyons to write Dateline Jerusalem: Journalism’s Toughest Assignment. 

BOB CARR: Israel lobby’s overreach far exceeded any other diaspora community (Pearls & Irritations)
For casting light on the savage lobbying the Australian media — and politicians — receive from the Israel lobby, John Lyons should be congratulated.