The International Press Institute (IPI) today released “Flags and Barriers: Essays on Reporting from Israel and Palestine”, a new collection of essays by journalists on the challenges that local news media face covering the conflict there.
The publication, collecting essays from 2012*, is a companion piece to IPI’s widely-acclaimed “Use With Care: A Reporter’s Glossary of Loaded Language in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”.
Released last fall, that one-of-a-kind handbook offers invaluable guidance for journalists covering the region and the Mideast peace process on more than 75 words and phrases that may be regarded as biased or offensive, and which can slant news coverage.
“Flags and Barriers” gathers 20 essays by journalists from Palestine and Israel across four broad topics areas: “Skewed News”, “The Job of Journalists”, “Obstacles” and “Steps in the Right Direction”. Like “Use With Care”, it deals with the complex reality in which journalists in the region operate, where expressions regarded as incitement by one side are considered patriotic by the other, and vice-versa.
Naomi Hunt, IPI Senior Press Freedom Adviser for Africa and the Middle East and editor of the book, in the introduction to “Flags and Barriers”, noted: “The role of journalists is to provide accurate, fair coverage and context about events that matter. Their job is to uncover reality and hold political leaders on all sides to account. In short, they should serve the public. But in times of conflict, the question is: which public?”
To request a hard copy of either publication, please contact Silvia Morales atsmorales(at)freemedia.at or Christiane Klint at cklint(at)freemedia.at.