The American Jewish Congress announced today that it registered a complaint with the National News Council accusing CBS News, and in particular its “60 Minutes” program, with “excessive, inaccurate and distorted representations” of the condition of Syrian Jewry and with an obdurate refusal to rectify the picture. The AJCongress also attacked CBS News for presenting an “inaccurate and undocumented assertion” that the devastation of Kuneitra, a city located in the Golan Heights, occurred “not by shell fire and war but by bulldozer and dynamite” as the Israelis vacated it following the 1974 disengagement agreement.
The AJCongress requested the Council to investigate its complaint against CBS News and to approve its suggestion that, as a resolution to the “inaccuracies” in the “60 Minutes” program, Mike Wallace, the program’s host, interview a former Syrian Jew now living in the United States, one who, having recently existed under substantial terror in Syria could “speak openly and present an accurate account of the conditions in the country and thus present an alternative insight” into the problems of Syrian Jews. The Council agreed to investigate the complaint.
Speaking at a press conference today, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, AJCongress president, emphasized that “in absolutely no way do we ask for any restrictive measures on the news media; we are only interested in establishing that the actual and unprejudiced situation is presented to the public.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
