NPR Protest (May 14) - Report from 22 Cities -- Join the Boycott Message Board

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Date Posted: 22:48:57 05/19/03 Mon
Author: JtB for CAMERA
Author Host/IP: adsl-64-160-15-53.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net / 64.160.15.53
Subject: NPR Protest (May 14) - Report from 22 Cities
In reply to: JtB for Standwithus 's message, "NPR Anti-Israel Bias Protest Demonstration - Wednesday, May 14" on 14:09:26 05/11/03 Sun

Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
www.camera.org

Please do not forward this to strangers or potential
anti-Israel activists. Forward only to people you personally know to be friends of Israel.

Shalom CAMERA E-Mail Team:

Many members have asked if we have heard
how the May 14 nationwide day of protest against NPR went.
The protest organizer, Diana Muir of BIAC (Boston-Israel
Action Committee), has shared the following reports from
people in 22 cities who participated in the nationwide day of protest against NPR's skewed reporting. (There were protests in other cities, but we only have these reports so far)

It's interesting to note that the amount and quality of media coverage did not necessarily correlate to the numbers
of protesters involved. For example, a protest of 4 in
Amherst, MA garnered more significant coverage than some
of the larger protests.

At the end of the reports are some suggestions from the
protest organizer, Diana Muir, regarding proposed future action against NPR's unfair reporting.

Kudos go to Diana and all of those who made the effort
to take a public stand against NPR's biased news!

Philadelphia

Our Philadelphia NPR protest went really well -- about 150 folks showed up (which is HUGE for Philadelphia), and then several of us met with the station management for an hour and a half. We'll have to wait and see whether we had any positive impact on the local public radio station, but it went as well as we could have hoped.

Washington, DC

We had a great rally here in Wash. About 100 people. The four speakers, Eric Rozenman, Rabbi Krimsky, Morrie Amitay and Dick Hellman were great. Plenty of signs. I had the people walk around the NPR building. People driving past took some of the literature about NPR as well as a NO Pledge card to mail in to NPR. Am trying to set up a meeting with NPR execs within a week or so.

San Francisco

Overall, about 60-70 people attended the protest. Most
were from the Russian community who know full well the
ultimate penalties paid by the public for unfair and
untruthful news reporting.

We are grateful to everyone who turned out especially
the speakers, Mr. Yatindra Bhatnagar representing the
Indian-Hindu community and Ms. Milada Belaya
representing the Russian community. Bill Kennedy Kedem
spoke about issues which concern a number of
communities impacted by NPR's unfair and inaccurate
reporting.

Several members of the news media were present. Photos
and articles will appear in local newspapers this
week.

Good news was received today just before the protest.
KQED, the largest local NPR affiliate (and the largest
NPR station in the U.S.) announced it will produce a
program/report next week concerning post WWII Jewish
refugees - JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East
and North Africa). This could be the first
program/report from an NPR affiliate regarding JIMENA.

Hartford

I am pleased to report that today's protest in Hartford achieved
what it set forth to accomplish. Halley Faust and Michael Snyder
gave great speeches that rallied a very passionate group of
40 people, Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe being one of them.

As a follow-up to today's campaign, Rabbi Yaffe suggested that a group of people call up the local affiliate of NPR during fundraising campaigns and say that they would love to donate, but cannot
because of NPR's biased reporting of Israel. A few hundred
calls would send a clear message to NPR and its supporters that it needs to provide honest reporting.

Fairfield

Fairfield ended up with a net of 13-15 protesters bedecked
in their "NO NPR -Tell the Truth" Tee shirts. We had photo and
press coverage from the Connecticut Post. Unlike other
demonstrations around the country, we had the Executive
Directors of the Eastern Fairfield County Federation and the
JCRC, as well as ace media monitors from the American Jewish Committee, all of whom came as grass roots activists to protest.

Linda Lembeck Connecticut Post reporter ... had a copy of an NPR news release that cited support from Bonnie Lipton, current
President of Hadassah who supported NPR!! I was asked what I thought about Lipton's position. I answered that the American Jewish community has some diverse views just like the wider society.

Portland:
Our protest was pretty much a success. We delivered a letter
to the President/CEO of Oregon Public Broadcasting; we
managed to get 32 protesters.......and would have had more, but
it began to rain and got pretty cold by the time of the march;
I was interviewed for 1/2 hour by the local ABC radio affiliate
(750 AM); and, we essentially put the NPR affiliate here on
notice that we intend to pursue our cause in the Oregon
legislature......a state assemblyman requested our materials,
and asked if I could come down for a meeting in Salem.
So now it's on to Stage 2. The hard part!

Seattle

We had about 26-28 people at KUOW yesterday. The street was closed so there was only foot traffic. A KUOW reporter and Jewish Transcript reporter came. The KUOW reporter interviewed people for quite some time. Although I sent press releases to all local TV, newspapers, some radio, that was it on media.

Chicago

Weather conspired against us -- it was a cold & rainy lunch hour. Nevertheless, about 25 people were there and stood in the cold and wet holding signs and passing out "no-pledge" flyers.

Minneapolis

About 45 people - considering that it really was last minute, not bad.

Indianapolis

Things went quite well in Indianapolis. There were 22 people
with signs and posters. The WFYI office is on the main street leading from downtown to the suburbs, so there were a lot of cars passing by. We were demonstrating there from 5:30 till 6:30. A lot of motorists were honking and showing thumbs up.

St. Louis

The NPR affiliate in St. Louis is at the Univ. of Missouri.
They had been alerted to the protest by NPR and had 5
campus police cars waiting for us! Because we didn't have
a permit, we were politely asked to protest in front of the
school entrance, instead of by the radio station, which is in
the middle of the campus. The new location actually put us
alongside a busy road during rush hour, so our signs got more exposure. :-)

Our signs included, "NPR: Not Fair, Not Balanced",
"NPR Demonizes Israel",
"National Palestine Radio",
"NPR Is Unfair to Israel",
"NPR Ignores Roots of Terror"
"NPR Skews the News"

The station responded by inviting NPR critics to
meet with NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin next week.
We were few in number but obviously made an impact
on station management!

Des Moines:
There were thunderstorms all around when we first got there
and for the first half-hour, so when the reporters
got there, they assumed that was the cause of the low turnout.
So we thank G-d for the rainy weather. The wind eventually
died down and the signs stayed up. We lined them up on
both sides of the road. Lastly, two papers came out with
reporter and cameras - the Des Moines Register and the Ames Tribune. The Register reporter spoke to us for 30 minutes
and seemed very interested and friendly. We will see what
the article says tomorrow. The Ames reporter got out quick.
Finally, a man walked up and said he was from the NPR
station inside. He said he saw the signs and asked his
co-workers what was going on. When nobody knew, he said,
"Maybe we should find out," and came to question/interview
us with a little recorder and a big mike. Afterward he insisted
that NPR executives come out and see what we were trying
to say. So we had a great time eating pizza and cokes
in the pouring rain and watching people slow down to read
all the signs in a row. May G-d be glorified by our puny efforts
and His huge successes.

Los Angeles

About 60 of us demonstrated in front of KCRW this morning,
letting NPR know our dissatisfaction with their reporting. The
rally was orderly and dignified; we carried signs and flags.
Quite a few people tooted their horns in support of our group.

San Diego
We had 12 people. A reporter from Fox TV News channel 6
came and photographed us and interviewed me.

Pittsburgh
I just wanted to let you know that we held a very positive and
spirited protest rally in Pittsburgh today, with over 20 people
holding posters and chanting. Thanks so much for doing this,
for your constant updates, for the last-minute posters, for alerting
us to this in the first place. I think I've established a good connection with the Jewish community here, so the next time we need to
organize something (and somehow I have a feeling there WILL
be a next time), it should go much smoother and we
should be able to get many more people.

Columbus
We had a turnout of around 75 people. Unfortunately it was not well covered by the local media. We did get a mention prior to the protest from the Columbus Dispatch. I did a radio program on 610 WTVN.
It was an hour show and reached most of Ohio. That was a success !! WOSU was there of course and they did interviews with me and some of my partners. All in all I think that with only a couple of days of really active work on this we did quite well. I think one of the most important things that came out of this was the local stations programming director came out and had a long discussion with us.

Denver

35 people picketed in front of KCFR, the local NPR
affiliate today in Denver Colorado. Picketers chanted
"No More Lies" and other slogans, and sang songs. The crowd
was multi-ethnic and almost half Christian. Spirits and
enthusiasm for Israel was high.
The featured speaker at the event was Cheryl Morrison
of Faith Bible Chapel, a large local church that has staunchly
supported Israel. She urged Christians to fight both anti-Zionism
and anti-Semitism. Jewish community leaders Neil Dobro
of Americans Against Terrorism, and Joan Baronberg of
Action Israel also spoke.
Dobro urged people to withhold pledges from NPR, and to
remain so vocal that Americans associate NPR corporate sponsorships with being anti-Zionist. Baronberg urged
people to buy Israeli products, starting with a "Shop Israel" Fair
planned by her group for this Sunday.
Across the street 5 people waved Palestinian flags and
shouted "racists" to the pro-Israel side. Around the corner,
a row of police cars waited in case of trouble. Last week the
same group, had called for a "Palestinian style Day of Rage
in Denver," when 25 of them held a protest in front
of a local synagogue hosting a pro-Israel conference. When
they arrived at that conference, they were surprised to find a
group of 150 Jews and Christians in Israeli T-shirts lining the
sidewalk they had planned to occupy. An intelligence report
said that after that, they couldn't muster much enthusiasm for
their intervention at NPR.

New York

The NY NPR protest fielded 62 people.

Rabbi Avi Weiss of AMCHA did an inspired job. He began
with the 120 Psalm, raising the spirit of the assembled. It was
evident from the start that even a crowd arriving fashionably
late on Jewish Time could not swell the number of assembled to anticipated levels. Still, Rabbi Weiss rallied the enthusiastic
men and women and delivered a strong message drawing
attention to the importance of the 'word.' Noting that NPR, which
prides itself on the importance of language, repeatedly sends
the wrong message with their words and exhorted NPR to
report the language of the Mosque, the Muslim Nursery school
and their schools in general, saying that though words are
separate from deeds, words lead to deeds. Then Rabbi Weiss
turned the group to face the NYC / NPR offices and lead them
in chants: NPR TELL THE TRUTH NPR TELL THE TRUTH

Amherst
Yesterday, I and 3 other guys from Hillel stood outside WFCR in Amherst with homemade signs and printed leaflets. I sent out
press releases to every daily in Western Mass and emails to
all the congregations on the list, but it was just the 4 of us.
We were met by a reporter from the Gazette, who also
interviewed me early yesterday morning by phone. He was
brutal but I think it went well, considering it was my first
non-musical interview. The reporter was much gentler in
person and with the younger guys. I made up a 20 page
"press kit" for him.

Houston

12 protestors showed up.

Providence

Approximately 10 folks waved our signs on either side of the
main street before the WRNI Union Station office. The local
Jewish paper covered the protest and took photos. We were
not great in number but made up for it in spirit. We were also encouraged by the many honks and cheers
of passing cars to our "NPR Lies with My Taxes" and the
"NPR Calls Them 'Activists'" poster featuring homicide-bombers.

Boston

Our protest outside WBUR drew 200 people, plus 20
self-hating Jews who stood with signs demanding more
coverage of Israel's "crimes against Palestinians. "

We had television crews, and a reporter from WBUR came
down to do interviews, but instead of a story on the
demonstrations, WBUR in the morning news mentioned the demonstrations, then ran a story about the difficulties of
covering Israel, featuring Tom Segev. Segev actually
said that Israeli journalism is flawed because the
Israeli press focuses on the suffering of Israeli victims of terror
rather than on Palestinian suffering.

Suggestions from Diana Muir, Protest Organizer
Diana is affiliated with BIAC (Boston-Israel Action Committee).

NEXT STEPS:

I. As I see it, one problem is that the Jewish community needs to
get more broadly behind this effort. To that end, I think that
we ought to encourage as many delegations of Jews as
possible to request meetings with their local NPR station
about Israel coverage. Every group from local chapters of
Hadassah, individual synagogues, to the JCRC ought to
meet with NPR representatives on the issue. This will
accomplish two things.

a) It will persuade the Jews that just talking to NPR is pointless

b) It will require NPR executives to spend time defending themselves.

2. We should form de-funding committees in every community
with the goal of getting individuals to stop donation
(distributing No-Pledge slips at Jewish events is an easy and
effective way to spread this message) and persuading
businesses and institutions to cease underwriting until NPR
begins to cover Israel fairly. [No-Pledge slips can be found
by going to: http://home.attbi.com/~jat.action/nopledge.htm

3. We might consider another demonstration, during the good
weather in the early fall. If we do that, there is an important
lesson about turnout that we can draw from this demonstration:
The largest crowds were in cities like Columbus and Boston
where synagogue communities backed the rallies strongly and individuals from those synagogues came because they knew that everyone in the congregation would be there too.

4. We ought to try to persuade Schools of Journalism or other
public forums to sponsor debates between NPR editors and representatives of CAMERA on the question NPR: Biased or Fair in Reporting on the Middle East?

Finally, I want to thank all of you for your hard work and
dedication. We are compiling an album of demonstration
photos and press clippings form around the country. Please
send both photos and news stories in as you get them.

Diana Muir

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