Just the Facts, Ma’am

Shadow in the Valley of Temptation (Flora Fair)

It took me five years to get to Palestine. A friend went there to do humanitarian work, and my discussions with her were my first real exposure to the problems beyond my own country. I was amazed and horrified by her descriptions of life there — it was hard for me to picture it. But it began the germination of an idea in me, a feeling that I wanted to do something more with my life. I know this is a common impulse, but I was determined to follow through on it.

I was simultaneously undergoing a career shift. I had a copywriting and web editing career, cobbled together from a fairly frivolous liberal arts degree (I majored in poetry, if that’s any indication). But I got work as a freelance writer for a local magazine, which also led to a part-time job as a news editor for a local news website. I was growing more aware of local and national news, and more interested in journalism.

A few years later, I moved back to New York to pursue a journalism career. I enrolled in NYU’s graduate journalism program and began working for local papers. I met a fellow student who’d done a summer program in Palestine, and I realized this could be my perfect chance to go. I applied to the program, raised money with the help of friends, researched, and prepared myself as best I could.

The program included a volunteer component, and I was thrilled at the prospect of working with a Palestinian news outlet. I worked for Palestine News Network (PNN), putting together stories for the English-language website. Even though I couldn’t do much since I didn’t speak Arabic, I still felt my work helped in some small way. I would take the muddled translations from Google translator, make sense of the English and add details that would help a Western audience better understand the story. I admit that coming from the US, I had very little knowledge about life in Palestine. I wasn’t the experienced international journalist best equipped to report on such stories, but I was eager and wanted to do my best.

One day, after untangling and fleshing out a story about charitable contributions from people in the US to build Israeli settlements, I was pretty happy with the story I sent to the editor. It was admittedly long and complicated, but I felt like I’d really made the story sensible and interesting.

My editor, whom I’d never met (she was in another city and we communicated via instant messenger) began IMing me. She said that there were problems with the language I used in stories and the way I framed certain things. She told me that I was using pro-Israeli language, and that she already had problems with others who used what she called “the language of the colonizers.” She told me that the way I was framing things was pro-Israel.

I was shocked and I started shaking. I think I was angry. I couldn’t believe, after the effort I’d put into getting to Palestine, the effort I put into being a good journalist, that I was being accused of slanting stories in a pro-Israel way.

I went on the defensive. I couldn’t help but be offended. After 3 weeks working there, it seemed I was being blindsided by a criticism that should have been discussed much earlier. I told her my interest was not in showing any particular point of view, but in getting at the truth. I think she was taken aback by my response.

I couldn’t express to her in that moment all I had done to get there. It was one of those times when you have this ream of wonderful, insightful exposition about yourself inside you that might make the other person realize exactly where you’re coming from, and yet it’s almost impossible to unload it without sounding like a loon.

So instead, I addressed the present. I asked her to give me specific incidents. She seemed offended by my heated response, and she told me I was freaking out. She eventually started naming a few issues: that I would use Israel and Palestinians, instead of Israel and Palestine; that I always referred to Hamas as a political party considered a terrorist organization by several countries. I didn’t remember the Israel-Palestine wording, but I acknowledged that it was an unconscious mistake. As for Hamas, I said that I included that info for Western readers, and that it was considered a terrorist organization by the US and EU, among others. She told me I didn’t have to include the reference in every story. She mentioned one or two more issues, and then railed my grammar. She told me to stop writing U.S., and just use US. I felt like she was on a tear at this point. I told her I wrote according to AP style, but that I’d be glad to use whatever style guide PNN preferred, at which point she told me that AP was shit and I shouldn’t be using it.

And then, it happened. What I think was the root of the problem. When I told her I only wanted to tell the truth, provide context, and be as unbiased as possible, she finally said, “People say The New York Times sets the debate,” referring to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I looked at my screen. That was it. That was where some of the anger was coming from. She knew I worked for The New York Times — a paper many people in the region feel has a pro-Israeli slant. Because I worked for them, she assumed my politics were represented in what she perceived as the politics of the paper. I quickly typed, “Since I don’t write international stories for them, I can’t really speak to that.”

After all, I’m just a local reporter there. I don’t do international (or even national) work for them yet. I don’t get involved in editorial decisions or news debates. I just take notes and quotes, write my bits and send them in. That’s it. I have no strings to pull, but in her mind, I was part of a bigger machine that was making her job that much harder.

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