A PLAY: GPI, the Washington Post and Israeli-Lebanon Protest Coverage in DC
ACT ONE
Guerrila sends email: SUBJECT: fucking fuckers
I have no other way to express myself – unless of course I missed The Washington Post's coverage of the rally on Tuesday to support palestine and lebanon..
please, please someone say I missed it !
ACT TWO
Second Guerrilla sends email: posting the article title (below) and an email for the paper's ombudsman@washpost.com
Speakers, Backers Portray Conflict In Mideast as Part of Terror War
I did not know what ombudsman meant either.
ACT THREE
Being Guerrilla One…I wrote the letter (below).
(scene) Guerrilla two posts his letter as a comment to this post.
ACT FOUR
Guerrilla Two recevied back the following from The Washington Post,
Thank you for writing. Could you tell me who were the sponsors of the rally that wasn't covered? I want to follow this up. Deborah
Guerrilla One Letter….
To Whom It May Concern:
I noticed in today's paper and this morning on your website a story about a demonstration in support of Israeli that took place on Wednesday.
However, I saw no corresponding coverage for a demonstration in front of the White House on TUESDAY in support of and in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon.
I felt compelled to express my outrage at this complete lack of balance in the Washington Post's coverage. The numbers were relatively the same and yet, the Washington Post chose not to cover American voices raising objections to the terrorizing of Lebanese and Palestinian men, women and children by the Israeli government largely ARMED by the U.S. Military. Our tax dollars are killing innocent people and some of us felt strongly enough to take it to the streets, but our own media felt it was not worthy of coverage.
It's interesting because U.S. support of Israel is OLD news. What is NEWS is the growing U.S. support and solidarity with Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqi's and Arab's across the Middle East who are suffering at the hands of U.S. foreign policy.
The Administration is moving suspiciously slow to stop the killing of hundreds of Lebanese CIVILIANS, not to mention the slow evacuation of Americans stuck in Lebanon. I am experiencing a sense of de ja vu, about our government's slow response to the citizens of New Orleans after Katrina. As an American citizen I have never felt less safe or abandoned by my government. Now I am feeling abandoned by my city's newspaper too.
Why is the Washington Post not making local and global connections?
A blatant disregard for journalistic integrity?
A desire not to have the U.S. Congress pass a resolution scolding your paper?
I'm disgusted and disappointed in the Washington Post.
Regards-
WP Subscriber rethinking their subscription
Washington, DC Resident
Letter from Guerrilla #2 (Shahid):
Michelle Boorstein's article in today's Washington Post, "Speakers, Backers Portray Conflict In Mideast as Part of Terror War," is a travesty indicative of the media's abdication of any semblance of journalistic integrity. She reports on a pro-invasion rally held the day after a pro-peace rally outside the White House that received no analogous coverage.
American support for the systematic murder of Lebanese civilians and total destruction of an entire nation's infrastructure is yet the latest example of our nation's sustained pattern of willful ignorance. The annihilation of southern Lebanon is murderous, reprehensible, inimical to the profound U.S. interest in regional stability, and possible only because of military support from the U.S. government. Your publication's complicity in the effort to skew public opinion in favor of fascist aggression is both disappointing and thoroughly disgusting.
Incidentally, the enormous economic benefits of invasion to Israel (given that Lebanon used to be an competitor for agricultural exports) have been completely ignored by the mainstream press. Even were your publication to offer equal coverage to domestic advocates — which it has emphatically refused this week — it will remain a testament to the Fourth Estate's decline without a complete and thorough accounting of the various religious, political and economic interests at stake.
With sincere hopes that you (and the Post's editors) take your job seriously,
Shahid
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