"It is unclear to me why CTV News Calgary decided to replace the already reductive “pro-Palestine” qualifier with the outright biased and inappropriate “anti-Israel.” Ultimately, it would be more fair and accurate to refer to the encampment as a Gaza solidarity encampment."
May 10, 2024
Dear Tyson Fedor and Terry Vogt,
I’m writing to express serious concern about your coverage of the University of Calgary Gaza solidarity encampment in the article, “Police move in after encampment erected at University of Calgary for pro-Palestinian protest,” by Tyson Fedor in CTV News Calgary on May 10, 2024.
It is unclear to me why CTV News Calgary decided to replace the already reductive “pro-Palestine” qualifier with the outright biased and inappropriate “anti-Israel.” Ultimately, it would be more fair and accurate to refer to the encampment as a Gaza solidarity encampment. What unites protesters at these rallies is generally a belief in human rights which extends to Palestinians. Views on Israel differ drastically among demonstrators. In fact, “anti-Israel” is the qualifier used by pro-Israel advocacy groups to describe protests. It is unfair for a media outlet to adopt such a one-sided phrase.
Judith Levine provides strong arguments against the media using these terms at all. She writes:
While one term seems to refer to people and the other to the state, the terms pro-Palestinian and anti- (or pro-) Israel blur the distinction between governments and people. To be for Palestinian liberation is not necessarily to endorse Palestinian nationalism or a future Arab-supremacist nation. She adds that the “irresponsible” media do not refer to elected officials who vote to fund the bombs that are killing tens of thousands of people and decimating homes, hospitals and schools as “anti-Palestinian”.
To describe these protesters as “anti-Israel” is to violate your diversity statement in CTV’s journalistic standards: “it is a core principle of CTV News to represent ethnocultural groups, Indigenous people and persons with disabilities in a balanced and accurate manner.” Given that your article fails to include any context whatsoever regarding what protesters are concerned about in Gaza, this article falls short of meetingCTV’s journalistic standards. It is not balanced to slant the narrative away from supporting Palestinian human rights towards being “anti-Israel.”
The article also violates the RTDNA Code of Ethics, which is clear about the importance of providing relevant context and not oversimplifying complex issues. The RTDNA Code also states that “Ethical journalism resists false dichotomies – either/or, always/never, black/white thinking – and considers a range of alternatives between the extremes.” This article obviously violates these basic principles.
I insist that updates are made to make this article meet CTV’s own standards.
Sincerely,
Jason Toney
Director of Media Advocacy, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East