Donate Us

Help us keep this free site alive with a small contribution from you. Select an amount below.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The SodaStream story brings up an interesting point about journalism itself.

So far, since last year, we have seen four different media outlets interview workers at the SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumin.

First, JTA last February:

“Everyone works together: Palestinians, Russians, Jews,” a Palestinian employee named Rasim at the Maale Adumim site told JTA. Rasim has worked at the plant for four months and asked that his last name not be published. “Everything is OK. I always work with Jews. Everyone works together, so of course we’re friends.”
This was followed by the Electronic Intifada hate site, referring to the video that Sodastream put out about its Arab workers:
“I feel humiliated and I am also disgraced as a Palestinian, as the claims in this video are all lies. We Palestinian workers in this factory always feel like we are enslaved,” M. said.

...When asked if there was discrimination between black and white Jews, M. replied, “Yes, for sure. You will not [find] white Jews wearing yarmulke [a skull cap] doing the hard work or ‘hand work.’ The supervisors who run the factory are mainly Russian and they are managed mainly by the white Jews, and we are ‘Palestinians,’ only workers.”
Then came the article from The Forward that I referred to previously:
During discussions between a Forward reporter and about a half-dozen of these Palestinian employees, conducted out of earshot of Israeli managers, none complained of labor abuses, or of receiving pay below the Israeli minimum wage. Asked about the calls by anti-occupation activists to boycott SodaStream, one spoke about the dearth of jobs in the Palestinian Authority economy.
That was followed by a new Reuters piece written by Noah Browning:
One mid-level Palestinian employee who spoke to Reuters outside the plant, away from the bosses, painted a far less perfect picture, however.

"There's a lot of racism here," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Most of the managers are Israeli, and West Bank employees feel they can't ask for pay rises or more benefits because they can be fired and easily replaced."
I have pointed out in the past that Noah Browning is a very poor reporter with a definite anti-Israel bias.

So we have a case study here. Four reports, two contradicting the other two. Which is accurate?

Obviously, Electronic Intifada has no journalistic integrity whatsoever. It is literally impossible to believe that their reporter would ever admit that some Arab employees are happy. If she interviewed ten workers and only one was critical, that would be the one quoted.

I've shown that Noah Browning is biased. I would not be surprised if he called up EI and asked for the name of the person they interviewed last year to save himself some effort of finding a disgruntled employee himself.

JTA and the Forward are both Jewish publications. But both are very left wing and anti-settlement. They are both highly critical of the Israel igovernment The Forward just published an op-ed from Peace Now advocating boycotting SodaStream. It would be difficult to say that they are biased towards finding workers who would sing the praises of SodaStream. Yet - that's who they found.

So who is more credible? The answer is obvious.

If SodaStream was treating its workers like slaves, they would be leaving and finding other jobs. That does not seem to be the case here.

I'm not saying that the person (or people) interviewed by Browning and EI is lying. Every company has disgruntled employees. Any reporter can, and often does, play the game of finding just the right person to support the reporter's pre-existing bias. This is how journalists can lie with facts.

And this is almost certainly what we are seeing here from Reuters and Electronic Intifada.

--
Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/29/2014 05:02:00 PM

0 comments:

Post a Comment

EoZTV Podcast

Powered by Blogger.

follow me

search eoz

Recent posts from other blogs

subscribe via email

comments

Contact

translate

E-Book

source materials

reference sites

multimedia

source materials for Jewish learning

great places to give money

media watch

humor

.

Source materials

Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts Ever

follow me

Followers


pages

Random Posts

Pages - Menu

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون

Donate!

Tweets

Compliments

Monthly subscription:
Subscription options

One time donation:

Interesting Blogs

Categories

Best posts of 2016

Blog Archive

compliments

Algemeiner: "Fiercely intelligent and erudite"

Omri: "Elder is one of the best established and most respected members of the jblogosphere..."
Atheist Jew:"Elder of Ziyon probably had the greatest impression on me..."
Soccer Dad: "He undertakes the important task of making sure that his readers learn from history."
AbbaGav: "A truly exceptional blog..."
Judeopundit: "[A] venerable blog-pioneer and beloved patriarchal figure...his blog is indispensable."
Oleh Musings: "The most comprehensive Zionist blog I have seen."
Carl in Jerusalem: "...probably the most under-recognized blog in the JBlogsphere as far as I am concerned."
Aussie Dave: "King of the auto-translation."
The Israel Situation:The Elder manages to write so many great, investigative posts that I am often looking to him for important news on the PalArab (his term for Palestinian Arab) side of things."
Tikun Olam: "Either you are carelessly ignorant or a willful liar and distorter of the truth. Either way, it makes you one mean SOB."
Mondoweiss commenter: "For virulent pro-Zionism (and plain straightforward lies of course) there is nothing much to beat it."
Didi Remez: "Leading wingnut"