14 December 2006

After a two-month investigation, Arab Media Watch expresses its grave concern at the persistent failure and refusal of the Associated Press to explain how it came up with its curiously low Lebanese death toll from this summer's Israeli invasion.

14 August 2006

On 7 August 2006, BBC Newsnight broadcast an item about the alleged doctoring of pictures by a Reuters photographer, in which Richard North, introduced simply as a "blogger", was interviewed.

Having claimed to be following this issue for several days, he was interviewed with Arab Media Watch chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi on Newstalk 106FM a day later. Prior to the interview, AMW found North’s blog "EU Referendum", which revealed a deeply Islamophobic and Arabophobic agenda that colours his often dubious claims.

7 July 2006

Arab Media Watch expresses its concern at the amount of coverage given to Israel's killing yesterday of almost two dozen Palestinians, including civilians, compared with the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier on 25 June, as well as the continued portrayal of the current crisis as being triggered by the kidnapping.

Comparing the initial report of each incident in the British national dailies, the Daily Mail, the Guardian and the Sun devoted more words to the kidnapped soldier than the Palestinian deaths, with the Times devoting around the same amount of coverage. The Daily Express and Daily Star report nothing today on yesterday's deaths.

29 June 2006

On 27 June, Arab Media Watch issued a press release criticising the highly selective portrayal by Paul Callan in the Daily Express of British soldier Orde Wingate, praised in the newspaper but whose actions in pre-1948 Palestine, documented by Jewish and Israeli sources, would today amount to war crimes. We also asked three institutions honouring him this week to respond to our findings.

None of the institutions have responded, even though the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Woman assured us they would do so by the next day.

Though the Express and Callan received our press release, the response, far from addressing our concerns, was to publish on 28 June another article praising Wingate entitled "Tribute to Israel's 'Friend'."

6 June 2006

Arab Media Watch expresses its concern at the lack of any reporting in the Sun, the Daily Express and the Daily Star of the massacres by US Marines of Iraqi civilians in Haditha and Ishaqi. The events themselves, as well as subsequent developments, have made major headlines elsewhere in the national British media for over a week.

AMW contacted all three tabloids for a response. The only one to do so was someone who claimed (incorrectly it turns out) to be the Express news editor, saying: "Why should we tell you? It is not a forum for discussion, it is not a debating society, it is a newspaper."

Furthermore, while the Sun and Express have reported on Iraq during this period (primarily violence by Iraqis), they have failed to cover other reported abuses by coalition forces.