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MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David bar-Ilan, Eye on Media, Jlem Post
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-757572; FAX:  972-6-757554
DATE:       
RE:
REF:   Hutman, JP 1/30/94 pB4
CC:   David Bedein, Israel Resource, Bet Agron; 02-247803; 257303 
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The Jerusalem Post, maybe in a futile attempt to gain the respectof a politically amoral government under a Labour leadership thathas rarely led the requirements of democratic due processsuperceed opportunities for political advantage, has, unlike mostnewspapers, scrupulously refrained from imposing its editorialorientation on news items.  In principle such a policy will ensureobjective reporting; in practice, since, as Kant noted, fact uncoloured by interpretation is merely a stream of unpatterneddata, editorial agnosticism can be exploited by any news-writerwith a political agenda.

	Eg, Bill Hutman, writing in the JP 1/30/94, takes pains todrive home his point, tangentially related to the story, that theUSA IRS ought to re-consider granting tax-exempt status to fundraising groups that aim at re-establishing a religious Jewishpresence in Jewish biblical areas of the 2nd- and 1st-Temple OldCity of Jerusalem.  
	It's a bit hard to do something like that without buyingproperty in the area, so Hutman argues that this makes thoseprojects essentially profit-oriented real-estate speculation,rather than non-profit religious/educational projects.  It's athin argument, especially considering how extraordinarily highabove Fair Market Value purchase prices are apt to be to overcomepolitical pressure against selling; so Hutman buttresses his fewfacts and less law with techniques of emotive journalism; hinting,with a subtlty that might have graced Iago, that the governmentsof Israel and the USA are "indirectly supporting the settlementmovement", and taunting the USA IRS by quoting an sympathetic butanonymous offical as suggesting that the the USA IRS is "`notlooking too closely'" at such situations, and remarking, withminimally-veiled irony, that the recipient organizations are"officially [emph. added] religious institutions".

	Although the Post lost several of its best reporters (ie,Greeenberg & Goodman) with the 1989 change of management, it stillhas a reasonably good news staff.  But "with friends like that,who needs enemies."
	