[letter sent by email to the editors of Editor & Publisher]
Your capsule of the story on the ISB is, in my opinion, a classic example of a reporter hiding behind the skirts of the first amendment. In most things I am a free speech fanatic, but to preserve those rights we must be vigilant that editors do not allow bad journalists to use those rights as a screen for promoting an agenda in the press.
I've been tracking this suit for over a year. There is a reporter who started at the Herald and moved on to the local Fox affiliate who was part of an exposed cabal *coordinating* to defame the ISB and stop their effort to build the mosque. This "ad hoc group," as they called themselves, coordinated a media campaign to stop the ISB from building.
When a reporter has such bad ethics as to participate in such a campaign, and then bring the story to his editors as though he were following journalistic standards, should his editors -- and thereby the outlet for whom he is reporting -- be held liable?
That is the question your publication should be asking, not this pale whining about how reporters' rights were barely upheld.
Yes, the ISB dropped their suit -- and the David Project was in long and quiet negotiation with them to back down the dogs of war in the press and community in exchange. This is not a case where the journalistic community should be crying victory.
That the ISB embraced a low key and patient approach, using MLK-like non-violent tactics, and that a significant number of progressive Jews in our community joined to support them, might also be a better story.
We should be taking it as a caution that a house of worship, a religious community, was held hostage by a nonprofit and a few members of the press for several years while a half-finished building rotted, and that the journalistic equivalent of a police "thin blue line" made it nearly impossible for this story to get a fair hearing once the suit involving the Herald and Fox was brought in.
Really, I expect better investigation from your publication. I get paid to write a regular column on media criticism for Gather.com (http://iconoclasm.gather.com/) and frequently find myself on your pages, and had always assumed you would do at least the barest due diligence before you assumed it's *always* the reporter in the right.
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Shava Nerad, News and Opinion Correspondent:
Shava’s column, Iconoclasm, published several times a week to Gather Essentials: Newsis an examination of the provocative ideas emerging in media and world culture behind the news.
Shava Nerad has been working on the Internet for twenty-five years, at the boundaries of Internet and social issues. She is executive director of The Tor Project as her day job. She lives in Somerville, MA with her teenage son, her fiance (a professional magician and fundraising coach), and a corgi/dachshund mutt named George.
Opinions here have nothing to do with Tor.
You can find all of Shava's Iconoclasm columns at http://Iconoclasm.gather.com
Keep up with Shava’s other postings and Gather activity by joining her Gather network -- just click here and select the orange “Connect” button on the left-hand side of the page (colleage connections only please, unless you know me on the street!)
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