His Excellency Boaz Modai, Ambassador of Israel, and The Irish Times
On 4 September 2014 The Irish Times published a report under the heading “Trauma and grief the Israeli legacy in blitzed Ground Zero of Gaza offensive”. The report was an account of the impact on a village, called Khuza’a, in the Gaza Strip of the military bombardment by the Israeli Defence Forces. The report included interviews with some of the 10,000 residents of the village, including relatives of those killed and injured.
His Excellency Boaz Modai, the Israeli Ambassador, complained to the editor of The Irish Times that several aspects of the article were “highly problematic and injurious to the spirit of good and fair journalism”. In particular he objected to any comparisons between the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington and the Israeli military campaign “of self defence mounted by a democratic state that was under sustained rocket attack for weeks”. The Ambassador argued that the report relied entirely on the hearsay evidence of Palestinians and that as a result the “Israeli military was portrayed as evil”. He also complained about the choice of photographs used to illustrate the article, some of which he felt were irrelevant to its subject matter. He concluded his complaint by urging the newspaper to issue a clarification that the journalist wrote the piece “from a position of personal criticism of Israel, that she built the article entirely around hearsay, and that The Irish Times itself deliberately indulged her personal slant through the headline, the sub-headline and the photos that were chosen to accompany the article”.
The editor of The Irish Times replied to the Ambassador starting that the term “Ground Zero” had been used to “convey to readers the extent of the devastation, not to draw parallels with 9/11”. He went on to defend the choice of photographs used to illustrate the article.
At this point the Ambassador made a formal complaint to the Press Ombudsman’s Office claiming that the article breached Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy), Principle 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment) and Principle 3 (Fairness and Honesty). The Press Ombudsman’s office offered its conciliation services. The editor of The Irish Times offered to meet the Ambassador, pointing out that they had met in the previous year over other concerns and “it was a fruitful meeting” for both parties. The Ambassador acknowledged that the previous meeting had been a “constructive dialogue”, but that he had been “saddened and surprised” by The Irish Times coverage of the latest conflict and concluded that another meeting with the editor would be of “little benefit”.
As the complaint could not be resolved through conciliation it went to the Press Ombudsman for consideration.
I can find no evidence of a breach of Principles 1, 2 or 3 in the article published on 4 September. It is an account by a reporter of the reaction of a civilian population in the aftermath of a destructive bombing campaign. The reporter interviewed residents of the town who gave their reaction to what had happened. Of course their reactions and their analysis might be partisan and one-sided. But readers know that what is reported in this instance reflects the views of one side. They know that an overall understanding of a conflict is built up through successive reporting and that a full picture is built up slowly. Reporting from one side of a conflict is part of that process. There are always varying interpretations of the “truth” and conflicting views about what is fact and what is comment. This is especially the case in long running international conflicts that occasionally break down into military campaigns.
The use of the expression “Ground Zero” in the headline and the body of the article reflects a widespread use by journalists today of a term to describe the destruction of buildings in the aftermath of bombings and attacks. I am not persuaded by the Ambassador’s claim that there was an attempt to link the destruction brought about by the Israeli Army in Gaza with the attacks in New York and Washington in 2001.
In regard to the choice of photographs used to illustrate the article I believe appropriate images were chosen and their positioning around the article did not breach any Principle of the Code of Practice.
13 February 2015