Last month, CJPME announced our Media Accountability Project, a new initiative to challenge Canadian media bias against Palestinians and Palestinian narratives. We are ecstatic to say that our impact has already far exceeded our expectations. The graph below, provided by our media monitoring platform, compares our media mentions after our first month of operations against certain pro-Israel lobby groups. We’re clearly off to a good start, given that our budget is just a fraction - less than 5% - of CIJA’s and FSWC's.

Below, we highlight some of the impact we’ve had in our first month since the launch of this initiative.

If you believe in this type of work, please consider donating to our work. If you’d like to participate more closely in this work, we offer a Media Responder role, where people can sign up to receive alerts to email outlets which have recently published poor articles or broadcasts.

Keep in mind that the examples described below do not include media mentions for CJPME, which are highlighted on our “CJPME in the Media” page. Just recently, for example, CJPME was interview for Global News, and cited in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the CP24 TV broadcast.

Instead, the examples below describe ways in which CJPME has literally changed and influenced reporting in Canada on Palestine-Israel.

CJPME's media impact – one month in

Below is a list of outcomes achieved through our Media Accountability Project, which include article corrections and updates, headline changes, editor’s notes, published letters, and more. Here are some of the top victories of the past month:

• CJPME gets its first adjucated win with headline change in Saltwire (NL). When a media outlet is unresponsive to a CJPME complaint, we have the option of raising the issue with the National Newsmedia Council (NNC), which then performs an adjudication. The NCC ruled in our favour in a case where Saltwire grossly misrepresented the content of a letter supporting Palestinian human rights.
• CJPME gets published in newspapers across the country. With its newly energized media advocacy, media outlets are often obliged to give CJPME a platform when we are able to demonstrate that an outlet has not provided fair coverage to an issue. As such, CJPME recently published letters in The Hill Times, The Guardian (Charlottetown/Saltwire), and the Hamilton Spectator, among others.
• The Winnipeg Free Press corrects headline to identify speaker as Israeli official, and not an "activist." Following exchanges with CJPME, the Winnipeg Free Press conceded that the title of an article misrepresented the guest speaker at an event as an independent "activist", even though the article itself described her as an Israeli Official. The Press updated the article title, and coincidentally, the Israeli official was fired on the same day.
• Toronto Star updates article to clarify meaning of Palestinian protest chant. Following pressure from CJPME, the Toronto Star corrected an article smearing an NDP candidate over her support for Palestinian rights. In describing a common Palestinian chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” the Star had provided only a hostile interpretation which painted it in a negative light, without asking Palestinians themselves what it meant. After CJPME intervened, the article was updated (and with an editor’s note) to acknowledge that the chant is “interpreted by some as a rallying cry for Palestinian freedom.”
• Associated Press corrects errors in coverage of Israeli violence in West Bank, number of illegal settlers. The hugely influential Associated Press corrected errors in their reporting during the week of March 7th, or otherwise incorporated CJPME’s feedback in later reporting. This included a fixing the inaccurate and misleading language that “about half” of Palestinians killed in 2023 were “militants”; an important addition to mention that a Palestinian was killed during the settler attack on Huwara; and a correction to the number of illegal Israeli settlers from 500,000 to 700,000.
• National Post corrects false Mahmoud Abbas quote in Op-Ed, but leaves many errors. On March 13, the National Post corrected an op-ed by Avi Benlolo, which had falsely attributed a quote to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas which was actually from a video posted to a Facebook page affiliated with the Fatah movement. CJPME noted many other falsehoods in the article in a complaint it has taken to the National Newsmedia Council.
• CBC corrects error regarding Huwara pogrom. On March 5, the CBC’s Saša Petricic corrected a factual error in its reporting on Israel’s pogrom in Huwara as a result of a CJPME objection. The report had claimed that a Palestinian man was “killed by rioting Israeli settlers,” but reports suggest that he may have been killed by Israeli soldiers. CBC partially corrected its error by noting that a Palestinian man was “killed amid rioting by Israeli settlers,” while regrettably failing to point out the complicity of Israeli soldiers in the killing.
• Toronto Sun publishes Palestinian perspectives on the Nakba, anti-Palestinian racism. On February 28, the Toronto Sun published an article about the Nakba and anti-Palestinian racism, titled “CJPME asks for inclusion of Palestinian perspective,” in response to CJPME media advocacy. CJPME had noted that a Toronto Sun story about a workshop on “Anti-Palestinian racism: Nakba denial” had focused on complaints from a pro-Israel group, but totally ignored all Palestinian perspectives and even what the Nakba was.

Other instances of impact include:

• Saltwire and its affiliated newspapers published a letter from CJPME rebutting a claim in an op-ed by Gwyn Dyer that a “cycle of violence” between Israelis and Palestinians “stretches back” to 1967, which had therefore ignored 1948.
• The National Post published a letter from CJPME rebutting the racist claims in an op-ed by Avi Benlolo that Palestinians possess a "death culture" due to the inculcation of "generations of Palestinian children to be venerated as 'martyrs' for mass murders.
• The Toronto Star corrected an inaccurate headline to reflect that Israel had only promised a temporary pause on the authorization of new illegal outposts, not a complete halt.
• The Associated Press updated an article to prominently include the fact that a Palestinian had been killed in Huwara. Previously, his death was not mentioned until the 14^th paragraph
• Richmond News published a letter from CJPME about the strong opposition in civil society to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which conflates antisemitism with criticism and protest of Israel.
• Global News corrected a headline which had falsely stated that the UN Security Council had passed a “draft resolution” on illegal Israeli settlements, but it was only a non-binding resolution.
• Following CJPME’s advocacy, Richmond News improved its coverage of Canadian civil society opposition to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, including by identifying some of the prominent organizations which oppose it due to free speech concerns.
• The Associated Press corrected an article which had presented inaccurate statistics on the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in 2022. It had not specified that the number excluded Palestinians in Gaza who were also killed.
• The National Post published a letter from CJPME about the Nakba, following CJPME’s complaint about an op-ed on the creation of Israel which had omitted any mention of the Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed.

Can you support our work?

CJPME's impact on media coverage is only possible through the generosity of donors. If you believe in what CJPME is doing to pressure media for fair and unbiased coverage, please consider making a gift of financial support to CJPME. Our work depends entirely on private donations. Monthly donations are especially helpful, as they sustain our ongoing work and make it easier for us to strategize for the future. If you don't like to donate by credit card, you may donate via email transfer, over the phone (438-380-5410), or complete and mail in this form. Thank you!