For any fellow Brits out there who have a vague feeling that CAMERA may be something to do with real ale be aware they have launched a 'British Project' aimed at the 'problematic Middle East coverage' of the BBC and aiming to 'deal' with targeted media like The Guardian* and the Tndependent.

* Ian Mayes. president of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen, commenting on complaints against The Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent, Rory McCarthy, concluded that 'to question him further would be to collude in the harassment of a journalist trying to report accurately in a very difficult situation.'
from The readers' editor on ... a ruling in favour of freedom of expression


CAMERA have already accused Israel's leading newspaper, Haaretz, of distortions and falsehoods about Israel and 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 against NPR, and demanded the firing of NPR's foreign editor, Loren Jenkins it has lobbied NPR's supporters to withhold funds.

The Boston-based public radio station WBUR, which relies on private donations, corporate sponsorship and some government funding for its operating budget, reports losing one million dollars so far in cancelled funding since the campaign began — seven per cent of its annual financial support.

Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler, who like others with his title, is charged with assessing the fairness and accuracy of his newspaper's coverage posed the question

"Is it possible that so many major American news organisations are getting this story wrong — that some sort of national media conspiracy is at work here?
That, of course, is not the case, and news organisations will persevere in reporting this story in an unflinching, unintimidated fashion that reports the news in the most accurate way possible for their entire readership," he wrote.

One prominent detractor, Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the San Francisco-based Tikkun magazine, who was accused by CAMERA of "being guilty of "demonstrably false and baseless defaming of Israel, wildly distorted out of context accusations against Israel." said the pressure campaigns are a form of "McCarthyism that is attempting to prevent the American media from telling any part of the story from the perspective of what is happening to Palestinians."

"In the long run this will produce more anti-Semitism and less security for Jews," Lerner said. "This is counterproductive."