Honest Reporting is a website and mailing list that attempts to uncover bias against Israel in the mainstream media around the world.

On September 30 2000, the day the current Palestinian Intifada started, The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets and newswires published a photo of a young man, bloodied and battered, crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman. The caption identified him as a Palestinian victim of the recent riots, with the clear implication that the Israeli soldier is the one who beat him.

The victim's true identity was revealed when Dr. Aaron Grossman of Chicago sent the following letter to the Times:

Regarding your picture on page A5 of the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian on the Temple Mount -- that Palestinian is actually my son, Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago. He, and two of his friends, were pulled from their taxicab while traveling in Jerusalem, by a mob of Palestinian Arabs, and were severely beaten and stabbed.

That picture could not have been taken on the Temple Mount because there are no gas stations on the Temple Mount and certainly none with Hebrew lettering, like the one clearly seen behind the Israeli soldier attempting to protect my son from the mob.

In response, the New York Times published a half-hearted correction which identified Tuvia Grossman as "an American student in Israel" -- not as a Jew who was beaten by Arabs. The "correction" also noted that "Mr. Grossman was wounded" in "Jerusalem's Old City" -- although the beating actually occurred in the Arab neighborhood of Wadi al Joz, not in the Old City. In response to public outrage at the original error and the inadequate correction, The New York Times reprinted Tuvia Grossman's picture -- this time with the proper caption -- along with a full article detailing his near-lynching at the hands of Palestinians rioters.

Since then, Honest Reporting has campaigned to ensure that Israel is treated fairly in the media - not that Israel is immune to criticism, but that it isn't criticised above and beyond other countries, and that cases like the one above aren't completely misrepresented. Don't necessarily trust all you read or hear even in the mainstream press.

Their website is http://www.honestreporting.com.

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