Of course, by impartial and professional, they mean not showing bias against any of the palestinian terror organizations. Bias against Israel is fine.
Journalists lamented the balkanization of Palestinian media at a symposium in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Sunday.
A panel titled “The Role of Journalism in Enhancing Civil Society” was held on Sunday at the Shepherd Hotel in Bethlehem. The panel was organized by the Peace Alliance Foundation.
The Director of the Peace Alliance Foundation, Nidal Fuqaha, opened the panel by asserting the important, but dangerous role journalism currently serves in Palestine. He argued that impartiality and professionalism are the way to approach the current crisis.
Ma’an’s Chief Editor, Nasser Lahham also addressed the panel, recommending that Palestinian media employ journalists with diverse affiliations.
“As long as Hamas media employs only Hamas-affiliated journalists, Fatah media employs only Fatah-affiliated journalists, and communist factions’ media employ only communist journalists, the inevitable outcome will be partial journalism far from the professionalism and impartiality that should be strived for,” Lahham explained.
He added that most Palestinian media outlets failed during the inter-Palestinian fighting because each reported according to its affiliation and factional attitudes. Thus, he advised that from now on, we should focus on professionalism rather than political affiliation in our reporting.
Lahham gave an example of Ma’an News Agency which employs journalists with different political affiliations in order to create balance and diversity. In its four years of existence, Ma’an has achieved the highest degree of impartiality, he added.
Which isn’t saying much.
