Recently, many Jewish groups and media watchdog organizations, such as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA) have accused news organizations of being biased against Israel. This topic was explored at "Media Coverage of Israel: Balanced or Biased?" a lecture given by Linda Scherzer '82, a former CNN and Israeli Television correspondent.Approximately 60 students, professors and alumni attended the event on Thursday. It was sponsored by the Office of Alumni Relations.

Scherzer began the lecture by explaining she now works as a "proud advocate for the Jewish community," combating negative images of Israel through her public relations firm. She said she is far from objective about the Middle East conflict, but wanted to explain the role of the press based on her former experience as a foreign correspondent.

"The European press is absolutely biased against Israel," Scherzer said. But, she added, "There is no giant conspiracy on the part of the foreign press to try to stick it to Israel."

Scherzer said the press often faces ethical dilemmas in these days of live, round-the-clock television coverage. She gave an example from when she was working at CNN, where Israelis refused CNN cameras access to a funeral of a terrorist attack victim. Then, a truck came along and several Israeli "thugs" beat up Arab workers on the way home to the West Bank, in retaliation.

CNN had live footage of this attack, but not of the grieving Israeli relatives mourning over the event that provoked the beatings. The producers and reporters wondered, "Is it ethical for us to put this story on the air?" since it seemed one-sided, but decided to in the end. "TV doesn't always distort the truth, but it doesn't have the capacity to show all the truth," Scherzer said, in response to this incident.

Scherzer said the editing process also makes achieving balanced reporting difficult. Five hours of truth are often whittled into a 90 second report for the evening news, and deadline and competitive pressure from other news sources does not help, according to Scherzer.

She said more education is needed before reporters are placed in the field in the Middle East. She suggested an eight month training and research period before allowing reporters new to the story on the air. "The press in this country is largely ignorant of what this story is about," Scherzer said. "These people know virtually nothing."

Despite the fact that Scherzer now considers herself more conservative and prefers Fox News to CNN, she said she defends the practices of her former employer. "I do not buy into the automatic assumption that CNN is biased," she said. "How could we Jews be unbiased, neutral observers of the Arab-Israeli conflict? We are far too involved."

Scherzer added, "All you care about on the front line is getting the story to the best of your ability" under deadline pressure. "There is no intentional bias. It is not deliberate," she said. "We are flawed human beings."

She also said the journalism industry tends to attract liberals, "people who are out to expose the sins of the world," who often sympathize with the perceived underdogs. In the Middle East example, she said, those are the Palestinian people.

Scherzer added that if the viewing public feels a news organization is biased, it is best to collect data for a six month period and then present the evidence to the news agency, rather than making unsupported claims of one-sided reporting.

Audience members said they were impressed by her lecture, and many asked questions following Scherzer's talk. "I thought she is a wonderful, articulate speaker who gave an impassioned and very balanced view of the situation in the Middle East and the dilemma of newscasters," Lilian Sober Ain '69 said.

Others appreciated Scherzer's candid admission of her own biases. "I think she has enormous legitimacy and she was honest," Professor Michael Socolow (AMST), also a former CNN employee, said. "Right at the beginning, she said 'I'm an advocate now,' so she wasn't trying to mislead anybody in the audience."

"I also thought that it was wonderful the way she shared some of her personal transformation while separating it off from her professional obligations," Sober Ain said. "I was impressed by her notion of collecting and reporting the truth as a reporter, even if it is unpalatable.