Shareholders Demand Accountability on ’60 Minutes’ Christians Report
Algemeiner reports:
Four board members of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) attended the CBS May 24 shareholder meeting in New York, arguing that the television network had used distortions, omissions and factual errors on “60 Minutes” to present the Jewish state as an oppressor of Christians in the region.
In the controversial April 22 “60 Minutes” segment, reporter Bob Simon ignored a documented history of Muslim violence toward the Palestinian population in the West Bank, instead making it seem that Israel was entirely the culprit, critics of the program have said. Simon referred to Israel’s security fence as completely surrounding Bethlehem, “turning the ‘little town’ where Christ was born into what its residents call ‘an open air prison.’” In reality, the fence only arcs along the north, where it borders Israeli neighborhoods and does not surround Bethlehem; residents can move freely in and out along the entire south of the city.
Simon also claimed that the Christian population in the region has declined to less than two percent. As a percentage of the regional population compared to Muslims, Christians have, indeed, declined, but CBS failed to make clear that the Christian population inside Israel has grown substantially. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 34,000 mostly Arab Christians lived in Israel in 1949, and by 2009 that number rose to 122,000.
Far from oppressing Christians, Israel provides a safe haven for them, according to Carol Greenwald, a CAMERA board member who spoke at the CBS meeting. The “60 Minutes” segment “apparently sought to undermine Christian support of Israel in the U.S,” she told JointMedia News Service. The statement describing the “little town where Christ was born” as an “open air prison” was truly incendiary, Greenwald said.
CAMERA owns shares of CBS stock. At the meeting, Greenwald and other CAMERA representatives sought to confirm that CBS News has an official policy of correcting errors on air. Since part of the meeting’s agenda was the election of directors, Greenwald got up and said that as a shareholder, she needed to know the position of each director on that policy issue. Les Moonves, the network’s president, interjected that he knew the CAMERA board members had a problem with “60 Minutes,” but pointed out that it is an award-winning program. Greenwald added that she was not addressing “60 Minutes,” but raising a question about the network’s adherence to a key ethical standard. Greenwald was then told she would receive an answer in writing. . . .
More from SNAPSHOTS
President of Bethlehem Bible College Expresses Thanks for Antisemitic Comment
January 30, 2018
Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College, either can’t recognize antisemitism when he sees it or is OK with it. In a Facebook discussion underneath one of his articles at The Christian Post, a website [...]
Civilian Bounties, Quartz, Haaretz & Lousy Translations
January 29, 2018
Quartz, which describes itself as "a digitally native news outlet, born in 2012, for business people in the new global economy. We publish bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview," today took heat [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Arab Enrollment in Israeli Universities Grows 78%
January 27, 2018
Part of the campus of Tel Aviv University The number of Arab students in Israeli universities has grown an astonishing 78.5% over the last seven years, according to Israel’s Council for Higher Education (CHE). Although [...]
Is The U.S. State Department Hiding a ‘Game Changer’ Report on Palestinian Refugees?
January 25, 2018
The United Nations Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides aid to approximately 5.3 million Palestinians which they categorize as “refugees”—but the actual number may be as low as 20,000, according to a Washington Free Beacon [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Palestinian Leader Buys $50 Million Private Jet
January 25, 2018
The President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, has bought a private jet worth an estimated $50 million. The purchase comes after widely reported “major funding cuts from the U.S.,” as The Times of [...]
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Takes Heat for Inaccurate Knesset Tweet
January 22, 2018
After NBC anchor Andrea Mitchell posted an inaccurate and inflammatory comment on Twitter about the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, she was quickly corrected by Israeli journalists. In her Monday morning tweet, Mitchell asserted that “the 13 [...]
Updated: AFP Photo Captions Mislead on Gaza ‘Smuggling Tunnels’
January 17, 2018
Update Appended to Bottom of Post: AFP Removes Misleading Reference to 'Smuggling' Tunnels A series of Agence France Presse photo captions earlier this week misleadingly identified the tunnel discovered under the Kerem Shalom crossing, extending [...]
In English, Haaretz Misleads on Ibrahim Abu Thuraya
January 14, 2018
Update, 8:10 am EST: For Second Time, Haaretz English Edition Corrects on Abu Thuraya’s Leg Injury Despite the fact that Haaretz’s earlier this month corrected a photo caption which inaccurately reported on the unclear circumstances [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Israel Prevented ‘Several Dozen’ Terror Attacks in Europe
January 11, 2018
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu The nation of Israel prevented ‘mass’ terror attacks on the continent of Europe, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Jan. 9, 2018. This admission—made at a meeting of Israel-based [...]