Committee For Accuracy In Middle East Reporting In America

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is an American non-profit pro-Israel media-monitoring, research and membership organization. According to its website, CAMERA is "devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East." The group says it was founded in 1982 "to respond to ''The Washington Post''s coverage of Israel's Lebanon incursion", and to respond to what it considers the media's "general anti-Israel bias".

CAMERA is known for its media monitoring and advocacy. CAMERA releases reports to counter what it calls "frequently inaccurate and skewed characterizations of Israel and of events in the Middle East" that it believes may fuel anti-Israel and anti-Jewish prejudice. The group mobilizes protests against what it describes as unfair media coverage by issuing full-page ads in newspapers,U.S. newspapers catching flak for Mideast war coverage: Media caught in the cross fire as both sides complain of bias
blockquote>He said the network has been targeted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, which ran a full-page New York Times ad calling NPR's coverage "false" and "skewed" against Israel. The advertisement also urged NPR's financial backers to stop supporting the network. organizing demonstrations, and encouraging sponsors to withhold funds. CAMERA reports it has over 65,000 paying members and that 46 news outlets have issued corrections based on their work.

Critics of Camera claim that it is an ‘extreme Israel advocacy group’, aligned with hawkish rightwing viewpoints; that it pays stipended fellows to write anti-Palestinian articles; and that it employs smear and intimidation tactics, routinely targeting media and journalists critical of Israel and pro-Palestinian activists on campuses. Yves Engler,
'US student, Israel lobby groups behind McGill lawsuit,'
ondoweiss 9 August 2022.Ian Lustickbr> 'The Trump Administration is Using Accusations of Anti-Semitism to Silence Critics,'
The Forward 29 November 2019.Uri Blau
'Times of Israel Cofounder Gave $1.5 Million to Right-wing Media Watchdog That Routinely Goes After News Outlets,'
Haaretz 5 September 2016

History

CAMERA has chapters in major US cities and Israel, including New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, and in 1988 a Boston chapter and headquarters, founded and led by Andrea Levin; Charles Jacobs became deputy director of the Boston chapter.

In 1991, Levin succeeded Winifred Meiselman as executive director of CAMERA. According to the organization's website, CAMERA's membership grew from 1,000 in 1991 to 55,000 in 2007. The director of the Washington office of CAMERA is Eric Rozenman.

In 2002, ''The Jewish Daily Forward'' named CAMERA executive director and regular ''Jerusalem Post'' contributor Andrea Levin America's fifth most influential Jewish citizen, saying "Media-monitoring was the great proxy war of the last year, and its general is Andrea Levin."

In 2008 CAMERA launched a campaign to alter Wikipedia articles to support the Israeli side of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The campaign suggested that pro-Israeli editors should pretend to be interested in other topics until elected as administrators. Once administrators they were to misuse their administrative powers to suppress pro-Palestinian editors and support pro-Israel editors. Some members of this conspiracy were banned by Wikipedia administrators.

Structure, staff, and activities

On its official website, CAMERA describes itself as "a media-monitoring, research and membership organization devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East" which "fosters rigorous reporting, while educating news consumers about Middle East issues and the role of the media." CAMERA further describes itself as a "non-partisan organization" which "takes no position with regard to American or Israeli political issues or with regard to ultimate solutions to the Arab–Israeli conflict." CAMERA complained in 2008 that the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (of which it is a member) did not consult it before disinviting Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to an anti-Ahmadinejad rally. CAMERA has also criticized the Israeli non-governmental organization B'Tselem for some of its reporting on Israel.

When CAMERA perceives an inaccurate statement in the media, it says it gathers information, and sends findings asking for a printed or broadcast correction. CAMERA lists 46 news outlets which it says have issued corrections based on their work. orrections. http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=10 /ref> The organization also publishes monographs about topics relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict. A 2005 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs interview with the director of CAMERA Andrea Levin says CAMERA has 55,000 paying members and thousands of active letter writers.

CAMERA is a member of the Israel Campus Roundtable, which includes the Anti-Defamation League, The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership, and other pro-Israel organizations. As a member of this Campus Roundtable, CAMERA operates on college campuses to combat what it perceives as "propagandistic assaults on Israel ... creating harmful misperceptions of Israel" and is active on about 50 college campuses.

CAMERA runs a student-focused site containing specialized information available for countering misinformation. CAMERA also provides one-on-one assistance to students who encounter Middle East distortions in campus publications, flyers, rallies and classroom teaching. CAMERA has offered student representative positions which include compensation and training in Israel.

Criticism by CAMERA

Among the organizations and works that have been criticized by CAMERA are:

ABC News anchor Peter Jennings

"We've long considered him anti-Israel", CAMERA's founder Andrea Levin has commented of Peter Jennings, after an incident in which CAMERA, and eventually also the ''Columbia Journalism Review'', took issue with Jennings and ABC News for refusing to correct an alleged misquote of Benjamin Netanyahu.

National Public Radio

CAMERA's report, "A Record of Bias: National Public Radio's Coverage of the Arab–Israeli Conflict: September 26 – November 26, 2000" (2001) asserted that National Public Radio's "coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict has long been marred by a striking anti-Israel tilt, with severe bias, error and lack of balance commonplace." CAMERA supported a boycott of NPR, and demanded the firing of NPR's foreign editor, Loren Jenkins. CAMERA said that Jenkins had a long record of partisanship in favor of Palestinian views, and let his personal views tilt NPR's coverage. CAMERA also said Jenkins compared Israel to Nazi Germany in his writings, and referred to it as a "colonizer".

NPR's then-Ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, said in a 2002 interview that CAMERA used selective citations and subjective definitions of what it considers pro-Palestinian bias in formulating its findings, and that he felt CAMERA's campaign was "a kind of McCarthyism, frankly, that bashes us and causes people to question our commitment to doing this story fairly. And it exacerbates the legitimate anxieties of many in the Jewish community about the survival of Israel."

Encarta

In an article originally published in ''The Jerusalem Post'' and posted on the official website of CAMERA, Andrea Levin, the Executive Director of CAMERA, describes Microsoft's digital multimedia encyclopedia ''Encarta'' as "a troubling mix of solid information, bias and error." In particular, Levin points to the articles written by Shaul Cohen of the University of Oregon, which Levin says "blurs Arab aggression against the Jews from the Mandate period to the present, repeatedly equating the violence by the parties."

Steven Spielberg's film ''Munich''

In her film review of ''Munich'' (2005), posted on the official website of CAMERA, Andrea Levin states that the film (a collaboration of director Steven Spielberg and playwright–screenwriter Tony Kushner) promotes "its thesis of Israeli culpability" and that "Israel's action battling its adversaries is cast as aberrant, bloody and counterproductive." Levin continues: "indeed, it is stunning to watch ''Munich'' and realize that its director pielbergbrought ''Schindler's List'' to the world. Where that was artistry drawn from truth, ''Munich'' is cinematic manipulation rooted in lies."

Mearsheimer and Walt

CAMERA published Alex Safian's detailed critique of ''The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy'', a paper written by Harvard University professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer. Safian argued that the paper is "riddled with errors of fact, logic and omission, has inaccurate citations, displays extremely poor judgement regarding sources, and, contrary to basic scholarly standards, ignores previous serious work on the subject. The bottom line: virtually every word and argument is, or ought to be, in 'serious dispute.' In other words, a student who submitted such a paper would flunk."

''God's Warriors''

CAMERA published a critique of Christiane Amanpour's CNN documentary series ''God's Warriors'', calling it "one of the most grossly distorted programs to appear on mainstream American television", "false in its basic premise", and "a perfect illustration of classical propaganda techniques". Amanpour has responded that the documentary is not meant to compare religions, but rather to show "that each faith has their committed and fervent believers, and we're showing how each of those are active in the political sphere in today's world."

"Israel's Jewish Defamers"

In October 2007, CAMERA organized a conference entitled "Israel's Jewish Defamers," in which a panel of discussants accused Jewish critics of Israel, as well as one of Israel's leading newspapers, ''Haaretz'', of distortions and falsehoods about Israel. CAMERA director Andrea Levin described the Jewish critics—who included Princeton University's Richard Falk, writer Norman Finkelstein, ''New York Review of Books'' contributor Henry Siegman, former ''New York Times'' columnist Anthony Lewis, Trent University professor Michael Neumann, and '' Tikkun'' magazine publisher Michael Lerner—of being guilty of "demonstrably false and baseless defaming of Israel, wildly distorted out of context accusations against Israel." Among the panelists were writer Cynthia Ozick and Harvard psychiatrist Kenneth Levin, who likened the Jewish critics to chronically abused children.

In response, Anthony Lewis told the ''New York Sun'' that the conference was "about a nonexistent phenomenon," noting that Jewish criticism of Israeli policies was not necessarily defamatory. ''Haaretz''s editor-in-chief, David Landau, refused to comment on the conference, citing that "it was "a matter of policy and principle" not to respond to CAMERA, which Landau described as "McCarthyite." ''Tikkun'' editor Lerner also rejected the notion that he was anti-Israel.

2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict

In response to coverage of the 2008–2009 Gaza War, CAMERA criticized the reporting of the ''Los Angeles Times'', CNN, ''Haaretz'', NPR, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, and Norwegian doctors being funded by the Norwegian ministry who appeared on media outlets such as the BBC
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