JOURNAL ENTRY
Wright, Andrea
JOURNAL ENTRY Andrea Wright Newsroom Outcast Though I am a journalist, I was not aware of the imbalance in American media coverage of the Middle East until I made an independent tour of Egypt in...
...a personal judgment that you are a confrontational person...
...reaction to them...
...But the fact is that substantial pressure is exerted in this country against journalists (and others) who publicly criticize the government of Israel and its policies...
...We only want you to give us equal treatment and consideration...
...some produced lengthy articles in rebuttal...
...Nothing I wrote was slanderous...
...My sample clippings aroused enough interest for me to be invited in for an interview, and the interview resulted in an offer of a three-day try-out...
...Now I do...
...The result was a series of op-ed commentaries published in the mid-1980s in The San Antonio Light...
...Everything was backed up by documentation...
...We don't want you to be pro-Arab," he said, "we just want you to be fair...
...My work as a "propagandist" was even compared to that of Josef Goebbels...
...Critics did not confine themselves to writing letters to the editor...
...The newspaper's management sent me a brief letter linking my rejection to the free-lance articles I had contributed to The Light—articles that dealt almost exclusively with the Middle East...
...It was clear that my point of view was what made me "confrontational"—the wrong "kind of person" for the newsroom...
...But so many other people I encountered in the Middle East made remarks similar to Amin's that I decided to research the matter when I returned to my home base in Texas...
...Quotes were accurate, and I identified my sources...
...JOURNAL ENTRY Andrea Wright Newsroom Outcast Though I am a journalist, I was not aware of the imbalance in American media coverage of the Middle East until I made an independent tour of Egypt in 1984...
...You just wouldn't fit in...
...Mustafa Amin, editor of the leading Arab daily, Al Akhbar, was the first to mention it to me...
...I wanted to give at least a segment of the American public a more equitable view of events in a critically important part of the world...
...As we sat in his crowded office in downtown Cairo, Amin went on to analyze the problem as one of a distorted image—an anti-Arab image—presented to American readers and viewers...
...I had been working near the Texas-Mexico border for another Hearst daily for more than three years when I applied for a job as a reporter on The Light...
...the paper's editors gave instructions that I was not to be considered...
...It is a judgment I have made based on a number of things...
...If someone had told me five years ago that First Amendment rights to freedom of expression are a dangerous thing to claim in the American newsroom, I would have scoffed at the notion...
...If someone had said that qualified reporters could lose their jobs—or be denied employment—because their opinions were in conflict with one of this nation's most powerful special-interest lobbies, I wouldn't have believed it...
...When I tried to pursue the subject, Rademaekers said, "I don't have to give you any reasons...
...Still, my efforts were not always appreciated...
...Though I had lived in Iran for many years, it is not an Arab nation, and as a reporter I had never dealt with the Israeli-Arab conflict...
...The pro-Israel lobby has been a major force for four decades—not only in the halls of Congress but in the media, academia, and big business...
...In a subsequent telephone conversation, one editor, Ed Rademaekers, told me what he would not have dared tell a Chicana, Andrea Wright is a free-lance writer who reports from the Texas-Mexico border...
...Though some readers expressed admiration for my articles, others were quick to accuse me of anti-Semitism...
...My focus was on Israeli government policies and official U.S...
...Had professional judgment rather than prejudice prevailed, Light management would have recognized the irrelevance of my op-ed writings to the question of how I would perform as a general-assignment reporter covering local affairs...
...My case, I suspect, is just one among dozens, perhaps hundreds, where Israel's supporters have chosen to further the cause to which they are committed by stifling the voices of the opposition...
...But the trial run never took place...
...Jew, or African-American: "You are not the kind of person we want in this newsroom," he said...
...Ultimately, I believe, they persuaded the newspaper that I should not be hired for a regular staff position...
...Only in the last few years have a few critical voices been raised—such writers as Robert I. Friedman, Noam Chomsky, and Edward Said...
Vol. 54 • August 1990 • No. 8
