EU offers free trips to the West Bank for journalists

From the EU and Palestinians Facebook page:

If you are interested in participating, please send a short CV/bio with a special focus on any work you have done in the Middle East, no later than 30 September 2016.

If a European based journalist has written critically about the Palestinian Authority - its corruption, its misuse of international aid, its support for terror by paying salaries to murderers and making them into heroes - do you think he would get this free trip? Or will it only go to "journalists" who will write only positive things about the Palestinian Authority?

Do you even need to ask?

There are two ethics violations here. One is that the EU is manipulating the media for its own ends. OK, everyone tries to do that, but by creating a litmus test as to which journalists can take advantage of an all-expenses paid trip to the territories, this is a bit egregious.

On the journalist side, it is generally agreed that it is bad form to accept such a trip. The NYU Journalism Handbook for Students says "Most reputable news organizations prohibit contributors from participating in press junkets, which are trips offered to journalists that are paid for by the entities the reporters cover, i.e., movie studios, electronics companies, government agencies." The Columbia Journalism Review is a little more flexible but insists that journalists reveal that the trip was paid for along with other caveats.

It will be interesting to see what EU-based reports come out of this trip at the end of October. it will be a good opportunity to identify what EU journalists are willing to flout their ethical obligations to their readers.

(h/t Irene)

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