NPR's pro-Israel critics punish WBUR
Originally published in Current, June 3, 2002
By Mike JanssenWBUR, Boston's popular news/talk station and an NPR affiliate, has lost at least $1 million in funding due to a boycott launched by donors and underwriters who say NPR's coverage of the Middle East tilts against Israel.
WBUR spokeswoman Mary Stohn said the station might lose as much as $2 million—8 percent of its budget--by the end of its fiscal year June 30. The loss could take a toll, said General Manager Jane Christo, but fallout won't be clear until July. The lagging economy had already hurt WBUR's underwriting revenue.
With the surge of Middle East war news, news media are hearing more accusations of unbalanced reporting from partisans of both sides. Boycotters have threatened to drop subscriptions to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, and CNN also has come under fire.
NPR has taken flak for months, until recently with roughly equal volume from both sides. But correspondence over the past month has been dominated by charges of anti-Israeli bias, said NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin. Member stations field their share of angry letters, but WBUR is the only station known to have suffered a significant financial loss to boot.
The underwriting boycott against WBUR began in October, when two Boston-area businesses ended contracts: WordsWorth Books in Cambridge, a longtime client, and Cognex Corp. in nearby Natick.
At the time, Cognex President Robert Shillman told the Boston Globe his company had bought at least $120,000 in underwriting spots on WBUR over the past five years but was stopping to protest NPR's "profoundly pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli bias."
Shillman also said he aimed to spread the boycott by sending a letter to 40 business executives around the country. He did not return Current's calls seeking comment.
Hillel Stavis, president of WordsWorth Books, told Current he took issue with what he saw as a history of factual errors and blind spots in NPR's coverage. Reporters quote Palestinian claims without independent verification but hold Israeli claims to a higher standard, he said. And, he said, NPR excludes worthy Israeli sources while including a disproportionate number of speakers favoring Palestinians.
"NPR should have a diversity of opinion," he said. "They always claim to, but in reality they don't."
Bites from a familiar watchdog
WBUR's loss is new, but one group behind it isn't. Stavis and Shillman reportedly have ties to the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a persistent critic of NPR's coverage for almost a decade. Stavis sits on CAMERA's board; Shillman is a member, according to the Globe article.
On its website, CAMERA urges readers to pressure Boston-area underwriters to reconsider their support. Unfortunately for WBUR, that tactic seems to work.
Over the last month, Christo said, two underwriters pulled out not because they thought NPR was biased but because clients threatened to withdraw their business if they kept supporting WBUR.
"Underwriters who call me might get a pile of things from a pressure group, with cover letters saying, 'This is documented proof of NPR's bias against Israel.' Lots of times the c.e.o.'s will look at this and go, 'Oh my God!'" Christo said. "If they don't accept it wholeheartedly, they're at least concerned."
Groups such as CAMERA have orchestrated much of the listener outcry. "It is systematic, and it is organized," Stohn said. Most critics focus on NPR, though some take issue with coverage by the BBC or WBUR itself.
Christo responds by asking listeners where they heard bias, then listening to the story in question with a team of four staffers. If appropriate, the staffers write back with their own critique, sometimes with letters as long as four pages and possibly with a tape or transcript of the story to support their analysis.
"I feel as if I have to do that because I have to be able to stand behind what goes out over my air," Christo said, conceding, "I don't have people that suddenly agree with me."
Though a small number of pro-Palestinians have complained to WBUR, "all of the loss that we can define is from people who say it's anti-Israel," she said.
Why only WBUR? No one is sure. Christo noted the station's influence and popularity—during All Things Considered it pulls top share in the market among 25- to-54-year-olds. And Dvorkin pointed to CAMERA's influence in Boston, its hometown.
Donors in Chicago have pulled out support, CAMERA said, but Chicago Public Radio President Torey Malatia said the impact has been "fairly modest."
Keeping balance within NPR
Christo and Dvorkin dispute charges of bias.
"I stand behind what NPR does as balanced and objective," Christo said.
Dvorkin detected no "overwhelming" bias but said critics sometimes hit the mark and that at times NPR's reports should give more context. "We have to be very careful to make sure that we're attentive to these criticisms, and not just dismiss them out of hand because they come from lobby groups," he said.
Acknowledging the criticism, NPR Senior Vice President of Programming Jay Kernis told the network's board May 16 that the news division has taken several steps to improve its reporting on the Middle East. When the Israeli military invaded Ramallah, NPR News put two more correspondents on the scene and flew Foreign Editor Loren Jenkins and Mideast editor Doug Roberts to Jerusalem.
Jenkins, along with news veep Bruce Drake and Managing Editor Barbara Rehm, also wrote an in-house guide to principles governing coverage and reviewed it with each show, desk and Middle East correspondent. The news chiefs also evaluate the fairness of recent coverage every three to four weeks.
Christo and staff listen to news reports so they can respond to complaints.
Web page edited June 5, 2002
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