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US newspaper accused of anti-Semitism
Leader of campaign to drive advertisers away from Berkeley Daily Planet says editor 'addicted to anti-Israel expression just as an alcoholic is to drinking.' Editor in response: I have the old-fashioned basic liberal thing of believing that the remedy for speech you don’t like is more speech
A group of critics has accused The Berkeley Daily Planet's editor, Becky O’Malley, of publishing too many letters and other editorials critical of Israel, The New York Times reported Saturday.
According to the report, the accusations are the basis of a campaign to drive away the paper’s advertisers and a Web site that suggests The Planet and its editor are anti-Semitic.
“We think that Ms. O’Malley is addicted to anti-Israel expression just as an alcoholic is to drinking,” NYT quoted Jim Sinkinson, who has led the campaign to discourage advertisers, as saying in an e-mail message.
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NYT said the paper has published unpopular opinions on other subjects, but stressed that such pieces are in a section of the paper that clearly states they “do not necessarily reflect the views of the Daily Planet.”
In a letter to advertisers, Sinkinson likened the paper to a “publication that praises the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan.”
“In these tough economic times, is it really a good investment to continue advertising in a paper, one of whose main purposes seems to be the defamation of Jews and the state of Israel,” stated the letter, which included a cancellation notice advertisers could send to the paper.
O’Malley, the report said, denies any personal or editorial bias, and "bristles at the suggestion" that she should not publish letters about Israel in a city like Berkeley, California, which has a sizable Jewish community.
“I think that is unusual to say the least that anybody would think that they could dictate a whole area of the world that is simply off limits for discussion.” O’Malley was quoted by NYT as saying.
She told NYT that she has no intention of stopping the publication of submitted letters.
“I have the old-fashioned basic liberal thing of believing that the remedy for speech you don’t like is more speech,” O’Malley, 69, told NYT. “If somebody says something you don’t like, say what you think. And I felt it a privilege here in my middle age to be in a position to make that happen.”
'Divisive and hateful material'
The editor of dpwatchdog.com, a site that contains pages of what it calls anti-Semitic writings published in The Planet., says his goal is not to close the paper, but “reform” it.
“The object is not to attack the press,” John Gertz told NYT, “The object is to turn the press into something responsible.”
Gertz complained that The Planet does not fact-check reader submissions, but O’Malley said fact-checking reader submissions is well beyond the newspaper's resources.
“We make a serious effort to get most words spelled right in the headlines, which we don’t always achieve,” O’Malley told NYT. “And we of course never knowingly print something that we know to be untrue. But, frankly, there are things we don’t know.”
In 2006, the NYT report said, The Planet printed a letter from an Iranian student who suggested that the Jews had brought historical persecution — including that by the Nazis — on themselves.
According to NYT, the letter drew a sharp rebuke from local civic and Jewish leaders, and two weeks later, a published explanation from O’Malley, who wrote that the letter’s content was “very nasty” and amounted “to untrue racist generalizations of the worst sort.”
However, the editor added, “I still don’t think that keeping sentiments like this out of The Daily Planet will make him or people like him go away.”
NYT said local Jewish leaders seem "wary" of getting involved in the campaign against The Planet. According to the report, the Anti-Defamation League’s regional director in San Francisco, Jonathan Bernstein, said that while the paper had published some “divisive and hateful” material, Sinkinson’s and Gertz’s efforts were their own.
