The Media Accountability Project  

Good coverage – Media outlet to be thanked

A CJPME Media Researcher has launched a media alert for the following article. Please submit a quick response to the media, even if it’s just a sentence or two:

Title of Piece: The Fifth Estate: “Are charities getting tax breaks for funding illegal West Bank settlements?”

Media Outlet: CBC News
Click here to watch the documentary on-line.

Click here to read the accompanying news article.

Reminder: When using CJPME’s Media Alert system, please ensure your feedback aligns with our Terms of Participation. Focus on highlighting violations of journalistic standards and ethics. Refrain from using abusive, hateful, or disrespectful language.

Comments of the CJPME Media Researcher:
(Note: Please do not copy and paste the material below as the content to your message to the media — put all comments in your own words):

A new documentary released by CBC's The Fifth Estate is generating significant blowback. Upset by how CBC lifts the veil on Canadian charities complicity in apartheid, pro-Israel groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and HonestReporting Canada (HRC) are fiercely the attacking the public broadcaster.

While we acknowledge the flaws in CBC's overall coverage — and work diligently to challenge their cover-up of the genocide — this documentary represents a departure from the norm. It is extremely valuable to express our support for the journalists and producers who worked on this documentary. It is more than likely, based on all we know about the inner-workings of CBC's newsroom, that those who put this together had to navigate around many obstacles. The pressure of pro-Israel lobby groups could discourage CBC leaders from greenlighting work like this in the future. We should make an effort to balance the blowback with support, as we need more journalism like this, not less.

• HRC launched a pressure campaign, calling the program "vile anti-Israel propaganda under the guise of news." We must ensure that CBC hears that many people thought the investigation was important.
• Today, CIJA accused CBC of promoting "antisemitic conspiracies" and is publicly pressuring the Parliament's Heritage Committee  to make CBC "conduct a thorough investigation to confront systemic bias" against Israel. 
• In reality, the episode showed Canadians how Israeli violence, occupation, and apartheid benefit from pro-Israel charities in Canada. These loopholes in our tax system make all Canadians complicit, and this report adds to the pressure to revoke the charitable status of Israeli lobby groups.
• Join us in telling the CBC to ignore the backlash of the Israel lobby and to continue doing reporting the explores the many ways Canada is complicit in Israel's crimes against Palestinians.

Please click here to launch an email in which you can draft a response to this media coverage. If this link does not work for you, simply open an email in your email program, address it to basem.boshra [at] cbc.ca, Ioanna.Roumeliotis [at] cbc.ca, and draft and send your email.

If you have any problems, please email [email protected].

Thank you very much. Every response makes a difference.

The CJPME Media Centre Team
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