Coalition for Israel Action

Media Committee

Chair (S): Diane Burstein, Adele Itzkowitz

Steering Committee Liaison: Susan Davis-Stemp

Members:
Josh Abramowitz

Purpose:
To react to media bias against Israel and to media with anti-Semitic content.  To educate and involve membership in ways to respond. To amplify response as widely as possible. 

Recent Accomplishments:
1. Creation of the ACT NOW button on the website which is updated daily.  This button informs visitors about actions they can/should take immediately in the realm of political or media response.  This site is intended for wider use than just our shul.
2. Launched several very successful responses to media abuses that resulted in specific adjustments by the media involved
3. Members of committee attended panel discussion for media professionals on “Israel and the News Media: Fair Shake or Back of the Hand?”
4. Brought in Irwin Mandsdorf of the Israel Citizens’ Information Council to speak to and educate the group about dealing with media bias

Current Activities:
1. Creating a “press pack” with maps, pictures, and succinct synopses of relevant and accurate information about the Middle East.  If we make it easy for reporters to “get it right,” we hope this will lessen the misinformation and poor reporting that abounds
2. Promoting subscriptions to the New York Sun
3. Target NPR in conjunction with CAMERA and the Political Action Committee to request congressional hearings to revoke NPR’s public funding.
4. Immediate Response:  Set up a network of people who will place telephone calls in a time critical fashion, expressing outrage at specific instances of media abuse
5. Develop an understanding of the inner workings of editorial and publication processes by meeting with professionals in the media.  Develop personal relationships with reporters and editors
6. War on Words.  Develop “canned” rebuttals to objectionable, misleading words (“occupied territories,” “gunmen,” etc..) and send them consistently, en masse, to major publications until they change their terminology
7. Understand the history of the various UN resolutions involving Israel so that we may respond intelligently when they are misrepresented and misinterpreted.  Include this information in press packs and distribute to members of the shul.
8. Correct the misinformation on CNN’s website re Israel’s history.