(The following op-ed piece appeared on HonestReporting.com.)
For
the past three years, I have been writing a decidedly non-political
blog called “This Normal Life.” My goal has been to present slices of
what passes for “normal” life in today's troubled
I have very deliberately avoided presenting any
particular religious or political point of view and have turned down a
number of offers for interviews with the international media, always
afraid that my neutral stance as an author would be compromised;
detracting from the broad appeal this blog hol
So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I agreed to be profiled in an article in this Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle.
The reporter actually found me through this blog and said he was
writing a series of articles about the real people behind the headlines
living their normal lives in the
With a pick up line like that, how could I say no?
Imagine then my shock when I read the headline of
the article about me that appeared in the Sunday July 24 issue of the
SF Chronicle: “Settler Hopes for Peace to Take R
The last time I checked, we residents of western Jerusalem were not considered "settlers." Which got me seriously wondering: had the Chronicle come to consider all of Israel a controversial "settlement?"
Now, as a writer and a reporter myself, I know what happens in the editing process, and I know that the reporter who interviewed me, Matt Stannard, was not responsible for the headline. Indeed he sent me an apologetic email shortly after the article came out expressing his outrage and how he feels "terrible" and "sabotaged" by whoever made what he said was a "last minute overnight change" without his approval.
Still, it highlights a general problem with “balance” when it comes to media reporting in this part of the world.
When I first started writing “This Normal Life” in 2002, I approached the very same Chronicle, as my hometown paper, and suggested that they print my blog as a weekly column. The editor I spoke with at the time said the only way they could do that is if they gave equal time and space to a contrasting Palestinian viewpoint.
I argued, to no avail, that my writing was not political; it was just charming little stories about daily life from an expatriate San Franciscan.
So when I see a headline describing me as a
"settler," I can't help ask – was that the result of a complete lack of
awareness by the headline writer as to what the term “settler”
connotes? A deliberate attempt to spice up the story – to say “l
Or something even worse: a not-so-hidden political agenda?
Any way you look at it, someone had to have given some thought to the matter, since there had been a perfectly acceptable headline that was consciously changed.
In the end, though, does it really matter? Whatever the intention, the wor
After the article appeared, Stanndard intervened and ensured that the headline was changed - several times in fact.
Within hours of its original appearance on the web, "Settler" changed to “Resident”...
...then switched to “Man from
"The headline on a Sunday Story about Israel's disengagement from parts of the occupied territories misidentified the subject of the story as a settler. He is a resident of Jerusalem, as the story states."
Click here to view the cover of the SF Chronicle.
Click here to read the article itself in the Chronicle.
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