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In Policy Review, January 1983, pp. 11-66
http://www.unz.org/Pub/PolicyRev-1983q1-00011?View=PDF

I t might be said, in extenuation of this headline, that the Leba-
nese government is more honest than most, but the problem with
this and with a vast outpouring of subsequent information attrib-
uted to Lebanese state television, radio, and police sources was
that the areas of fighting and bombardment were by definition
P L O areas (with occasional exception), and in these areas the
Lebanese government had no authority, no official presence. The
effect of this was explained by the New York Times late in July:
“ T h e P.E.O. press agency. . .ha s now become a primary source
of information both for Western reporters and for the Lebanese
state radio and television.” (July 26, p. A6) This was not re-
ported in the Post.

р.42
The networks might also have given their viewers a better ac-
count of P L O “censorship.” P L O censorship of course was not
formal-no one had to submit scripts. But there were things the
P L O didn’t want shown, its gun positions for example, whether
operational or already destroyed by enemy fire. This may have
been for reasons of military security, but the Israelis already knew
the locations of P L O gun positions both from intelligence reports
and because they received fire from those guns. Another reason
why the P L O may not have wanted its guns shown is that it was
working assiduously to create the impression that the Israelis were
hitting only civilians. Whatever the reason, the P L O method was
straightforward. When cameras were aimed at something the P L O
didn’t want photographed, armed men would wave the cameras
away. This is effective and it is has the additional benefit that it
tends not to be reported because it touches upon the journalistic
ethic that holds it unmanly to make much complaint about intimi-
dation. During the months of the war and siege in Lebanon, there
were three references on the T V news to this P L O practice, and
all were in passing.
O n July 9, CBS reported: “ P L O fighters have moved to the
center [of Beirut], storing guns and storing ammunition, though
they won’t let that be photographed.”
O n July 12, CBS reported from Beirut’s embassy row: “Palestin-
ian gunners patrolled the area constantly, though the P L O denied
there are military targets here. A cameraman who tried to photo-
graph one gun position right next to an embassy was waved away.”
The same night, ABC reported: “The P LO does not permit pic-
tures of military installations hit, but destruction to civilian and
official [ P LO? ] property reflected the ferocity of the [Israeli] artil-
lery onslaught. ’ ’

р.45
There were also occasions when CBS was guilty of simple inac-
curacies or omissions of relevant facts. O n June 4, the first day of
Israeli air strikes, CBS reported, with accompanying fuotage, “The
capital’s sports stadium was hit and there were casualties. ” CBS
gave not a hint of what every reporter in Beirut must have known:
this was a principal PkO military position-no sports had been
played there for years. Almost every other media outlet reported
that fact at once, such as NBC which said on the same night, “Pal-
estinians stored weapons and ammunition here. The football field
was a training camp for guerrillas.”

р. 61
Israeli shells may have landed places where there were no mili-
tary targets, but neither of the other networks nor the major print
media reported on this happening with nearly the frequency nor
the certainty of M r . Mallory and his colleagues. A problem with
this kind of report is how the correspondent, who arrives on the
scene after the attack, can know with any certainty what the target
may have been. The Israelis bombed buildings, innocent on the
outside, where their intelligence told them that P L O offices were
hidden. Their intelligence also told them of the huge network of
underground P L O storage facilities for arms and munitions that
was later uncovered by the Lebanese Army. No doubt the Israelis
dropped some bombs hoping to penetrate those facilities and deto-
nate the dumps. The P L O had both artillery and anti-aircraft that
were truck mounted. These would fire at the Israelis and then
move. Surely Israeli shells sometimes aimed at and missed these
trucks, leaving damage but no visible PLO position. Moreover,
reporters can make poor judgements, as when M r . Mallory called
the southern coastal highway or the airport not military positions,
or when M r . Reynolds cited too readily the denials of PLO posi-
tions in the area of the embassies. Israel soon released reconnais-
sance photos showing the embassy area honeycombed with tanks,
mortars, heavy machine guns, and anti-aircraft positions.

р. 63
Why was the prevailing opinion in the news media so critical of
Israel, even despite the large number ofJews in the media? Surely
many reasons contributed. O n e was the tremendous propaganda
resources employed against Israel. These encompassed both the
resources of the Communist world and those of Arab oil and its
capitalist allies, resources larger but, in this context, less cele-
brated than those of the “Jewish lobby.”
Anti-Semitism also probably played some role, but it is hard to
gauge the relative weight of those who were influenced by preju-
dice against the Jewish state compared with that of those who feel
a special sympathy for Israel.

р. 65
But if Vietnam served to hone the critical
sense with which the press scrutinized the rest of the world, it
seemed to have the inverse effect on the news media’s powers of
self-examination. When the press’ own performance is at issue,
too often critical scrutiny seems to give way to complacency and
aversion to admitting error.
So it is with the coverage of Lebanon. The press corrected very
few of its own inaccuracies, and most of its exercises in self-evalu-
ation yielded positive judgment. The Wmhington Post ran two guest
columns neatly boxed together criticizing its coverage of Leba-
non. O n e accused the Post of a pro-PLO bias and the other ac-
66
cused it of anti-Arab bias. The Post’s message was clear: if it was
being criticized by both sides, it must be on target. Never mind
that the former column contained a list of particulars, while the
latter was all vagueness. The Columbia Journalism Review, that
watchdog of the press, commissioned a report on the coverage of
Lebanon that found it to be fair, accurate, and balanced. “For
performance under fire, readers and viewers could have asked for
little more,” it said. (Zbid, p. 33)
Time devoted a half-page box to weighing charges that press
coverage was slanted against Israel, and it concluded with charac-
teristic editorial straightforwardness: “Israel’s real problem was
neither the bias of correspondents nor poor propaganda packag-
ing, but something far more serious: the lack of a readily convinc-
ing justification for the onslaught on West Beirut.” (Aug. 2 3 ,
In this self-exculpation, Time explained more than it realized.
The press did indeed fail to find convincing justification for
Israel’s action in Lebanon. And this was the message that it con-
veyed to its audience not only in editorials, but over and again in
the way it reported the news. Israel’s lack of justification was the
“big picture” that much of the press strove to capture in Leb-
anon, and too often standards of accuracy, balance, and objectiv-
ity were discarded in its favor