{"id":11922,"date":"2014-04-19T09:38:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-19T13:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=11922"},"modified":"2014-04-19T09:38:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-19T13:38:09","slug":"the-nyt-israels-gag-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/the-nyt-israels-gag-order\/","title":{"rendered":"The NYT & Israel’s Gag Order"},"content":{"rendered":"

via The Electronic Intifada<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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The New York Times agrees to be gagged by Israel<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Fri, 04\/18\/2014 – 15:17<\/div>\n
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Majd Kayyal was arrested and held incommunicado by Israel\u2019s Shin Bet.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Margaret Sullivan,\u00a0The New York Times\u2019<\/em>\u00a0public editor, has written a\u00a0thoughtful and important piece<\/a>\u00a0criticizing the way the newspaper complied with an Israeli-imposed gag order on the case of\u00a0Majd Kayyal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it leaves some important questions unanswered about the\u00a0Times\u2019<\/em>\u00a0apparent eagerness to let Israeli censors set its news agenda.<\/p>\n

Kayyal, a 23-year old journalist and activist and a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was detained incommunicado for five days by Israel\u2019s Shin Bet secret police without access to a lawyer, following a return from a professional trip to Lebanon.<\/p>\n

While the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0and other major media remained silent, The Electronic Intifada\u00a0exclusively published<\/a>\u00a0the classified court transcript ratifying his detention and silencing the media.<\/p>\n

After the gag order was lifted yesterday,\u00a0following an appeal by the legal advocacy group Adalah<\/a>,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0finally published\u00a0an article on Kayyal<\/a>, which links to The Electronic Intifada\u2019s coverage.<\/p>\n

Gagged<\/h4>\n

Sullivan\u2019s piece makes a number of important points. First,\u00a0Jodi Rudoren<\/a>, theTimes\u2019<\/em>\u00a0Jerusalem bureau chief, considers herself to be bound by Israeli gag orders:<\/p>\n

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The Times is \u201cindeed, bound by gag orders,\u201d Ms. Rudoren said. She said that the situation is analogous to abiding by traffic rules or any other laws of the land, and that two of her predecessors in the bureau chief position affirmed to her this week that The Times has been subject to gag orders in the past. (An earlier version of this post said that The Times agrees to abide by gag orders as a prerequisite for press credentials, but Ms. Rudoren told me today that that is not the case, although it was her initial understanding.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Rudoren\u2019s confusion and her willingness to obey authority without asking questions are disturbing. And Sullivan\u2019s piece also points out other contradictions which undermine Rudoren\u2019s categorical claim that she must comply with government censorship. Sullivan writes:<\/p>\n

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I asked The Times\u2019s newsroom lawyer, David McCraw, about the situation. He told me that he was consulted by Times journalists this week as they considered publishing an article about Mr. Kayyal\u2019s arrest. Although the situation is somewhat murky, he said, \u201cthe general understanding among legal counsel in other countries is that local law would apply to foreign media.\u201d Similar issues arise when America news media organizations cover the British courts, he said. But the restriction in Israel has not been tested, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen us actually challenge it,\u201d Mr. McCraw said, because no situation has arisen that would force the issue.<\/p>\n

Two ranking editors at The Times \u2013 the managing editor, Dean Baquet, and an assistant managing editor, Susan Chira (who was the foreign editor for eight years) \u2013 told me\u00a0that they were unaware of The Times ever agreeing to abide by gag orders in Israel.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Transparency<\/h4>\n

Sullivan also points to The Electronic Intifada\u2019s coverage of Kayyal\u2019s case and cites criticism from me and\u00a0Yousef Munayyer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Ali Abunimah, said in an email that \u201creaders have a right to know when NYT is complying with government-imposed censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund and the Palestine Center, wrote to me that this seems to go against journalistic principles: \u201cIt would seem to me that a story that a state specifically wants to prevent from seeing the light of day is something that should make a journalist\u2019s mouth water. That\u2019s what journalism is all about, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sullivan largely agrees with our points:<\/p>\n

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Waiting a day or two until the gag order was lifted may have done no great harm. Still, I find it troubling that The Times is in the position of waiting for government clearance before deciding to publish.<\/p>\n

If the law makes that situation unavoidable, a little transparency would go a long way. Either in a sentence within an article or a short editor\u2019s note, The Times can, and should, tell its readers what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And so does the foreign editor Joseph Kahn, who told Sullivan that \u201cin general he agreed with the idea of keeping Times readers informed in that way. \u2018It makes sense to do that,\u2019 he said.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unconvincing<\/h4>\n

Sullivan\u2019s article leaves a number of questions that still need answers:<\/p>\n

Why does Rudoren believe she is bound by gag orders when two senior editors said they were unaware of the newspaper ever agreeing to be bound by such gag orders?<\/p>\n

Contrary to the claim that Israeli gags have never been challenged, I found at least one instance where the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0does indeed appear to openly defy an Israeli gag order.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0May 2008 article by Alison Leigh Cowan<\/a>\u00a0about corruption investigations into then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert states: \u201cPolice have imposed a strict gag order that forbids publication of information about the case in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the article goes on to provide\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0readers with all the censored information, including the names of witnesses and suspects in the case that the gag order forbid media from naming.<\/p>\n

Not all gags are equal<\/h4>\n

Sullivan\u2019s piece mentions that the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0complies with gag orders imposed by British courts.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s an important difference: while one may debate their merits, the kinds of gag orders typically applied to criminal trials in British (and Canadian) courts are intended to protect the rights of a defendant by ensuring that sensational or partial media coverage does not taint a jury.<\/p>\n

One can argue plausibly that the public interest in impartial justice outweighs at least for the period of a trial the public\u2019s right to know certain facts.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0itself\u00a0strongly criticized<\/a>\u00a0such gag orders in Canada twenty years ago.<\/p>\n

But the Israeli gag order in the case of Majd Kayyal was intended to do the opposite: its purpose and effect was not to protect Kayyal, but rather to protect the Shin Bet\u2019s ability to deprive him of fundamental rights and to do so in near total darkness. Journalists should challenge, not meekly comply with such orders.<\/p>\n

Gagged in New York?<\/h4>\n

Even if it is true \u2013 as Rudoren says \u2013 that foreign correspondents based in occupied Jerusalem or present-day Israel must agree to abide by gags, there\u2019s no reason why someone in New York could not have written a report on the case.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0report on Kayyal contained no information that required a physical presence in Jerusalem (it included a phone interview with Kayyal \u2013 and there are telephones in New York).<\/p>\n

Indeed, last year, the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0blog\u00a0The Lede<\/em>\u00a0reported on Israel\u2019s so-called \u201cPrisoner X\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the Australian citizen Ben Zygier who died in Israeli custody \u2013 despite a strict Israeli gag order that forbade even mentioning that the gag existed.<\/p>\n

The Lede\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0report appears to have been published before the gag was partially lifted.<\/p>\n

(In an update to her post, Sullivan points out\u00a0another instance<\/a>\u00a0where the\u00a0Times<\/em>did something similar in order to evade a gag in 2010.)<\/p>\n

Unwilling to challenge<\/h4>\n

One must ask what would happen if\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0had challenged the Israeli gag in the Kayyal case. Would Israel be prepared to expel Rudoren? Would it shut down the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0Jerusalem bureau?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine an Israeli government \u2013 even one as extreme and intolerant as the present one \u2013 being prepared to absorb the embarrassment such an attack on the international press would entail.<\/p>\n

Still, the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0should be prepared to risk it and find out.<\/p>\n

But that would take a very different kind of\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0bureau \u2013 one prepared to challenge Israeli government actions rather than serve as Israel\u2019s chief explainer and apologist. I\u2019m not holding my breath.<\/p>\n

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via The Electronic Intifada: The New York Times agrees to be gagged by Israel Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Fri, 04\/18\/2014 – 15:17 Majd Kayyal was arrested and held incommunicado by Israel\u2019s Shin Bet....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,61,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-of-speech","category-journalism","category-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11922"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11931,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11922\/revisions\/11931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}