Sophie, Israel & A Lyons Share of Spleen

Bet that makes her happy!

The ABC's overtly leftist and unashamedly biased-against-Israel Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill has found a champion in the form of The Australian newspaper's Israel-bashing John Lyons. 

To quote the Guardian Down Under , in "his Middle East memoir Balcony Over Jerusalem" Lyons claims  

'he was subjected to consistent pressure from the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) while based in Jerusalem for the Australian for six years, as were the ABC’s Sophie McNeill and the veteran ABC correspondent Peter Cave....

In 2015, AIJAC sent a file on McNeill to Jewish members of the ABC board, including the then chairman James Spigelman, and this file claimed among other things that she was unsuitable because she had said “one of the saddest things I’ve seen in my whole life is spending time filming in a children’s cancer ward in Gaza”.

The then ABC managing director Mark Scott ordered a detailed response from corporate affairs, which he took to the board.

“I will not cower to the AIJAC,” Scott said, according to Lyons.

Scott was also forced to defend McNeill from attacks at Senate estimates after the dossier was sent to key parliamentarians.

“Before this reporter set foot in the Middle East, there was a campaign against her personally taking up that role,” he said in response to a question from senator Eric Abetz.

“I am saying that she is a highly recognised and acclaimed reporter … she deserved that appointment and she needs to be judged on her work.”

In a letter to the board, Scott wrote: “The article [by AIJAC] demonstrates to Sophie McNeill and the ABC that her every word will be watched closely by AIJAC and she starts on the ground with this key interest group sceptical. We are all aware she will be under even closer scrutiny now. As they seek to influence our coverage, this is a pre-emptive ‘shot across the bows" .....'

Taking aim at Australia's steady pro-Israel foreign policy ("illogical and unhealthy") and at AIJAC and its director Dr Colin Rubenstein, Lyons asserts

“For more than 20 years, Australians have read and heard pro-Israel positions from journalists, editors, politicians, trade union leaders, academics and students who have returned from the all-expenses-paid Israel lobby trips. In my opinion, no editors, journalist or others should take those trips: they grotesquely distort the reality and are dangerous in the sense that they allow people with a very small amount of knowledge to pollute Australian public opinion.”

(What his opinion is of trips sponsored by APAN, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, is not reported.)

Inter alia, Dr Rubenstein has told the Guardian:

“We did put together a public document explaining why we thought Sophie McNeill … was an inappropriate choice for Middle East correspondent for the taxpayer funded ABC, with its statutory obligations of impartiality.

Everything we do – critiquing media stories; contacting editors, politicians and journalists and explaining our point of view to them; writing our our letters and op/eds; making complaints – are absolutely normal elements of deliberation and debate in a democratic society.

I would call on those who oppose our views, including Mr Lyons, to engage with different views in a democratic, tolerant and constructive spirit, rather than demand, as he appears to be doing, that those who disagree with him be silenced or suppressed.”

He's  absolutely right, of course.

The ABC is Australia's equivalent to the BBC: a national broadcaster upon which objective reporting is incombent in return for public funding, in the ABC's case not out of a licence fee but out of taxes.  But, again like the BBC, it is in the grip of the arrogant repulsive Left, and it promotes its leftwing agenda at will, thumbing its nose at critics and packing the panel and the audience to "flagship" programs such as Q&A (its version of the BBC's Question Time) with a surfeit of leftists.  In fact, if anything, its current affairs output and what it chooses to report and comment on is more brazenly leftist than the BBC's.

Sophie McNeill came to journalism and the ABC from a background of political activism and a determination to continue to pursue that activism.  This is how, six years ago,  she described her view of a journalist's role:

"If you just try to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are really suffering in a situation, be it in Lebanon, if you re hanging out in a Palestinian refugee camp, [or] in Gaza you re hanging out, you know, at the children’s cancer ward. One of the saddest things I’ve seen in my whole life is spending some time filming in a children’s cancer ward in Gaza. I just think if you just – if you look at a situation and you just – yeah, I guess just try to spend time with the people who are – who really don t have any power and it is hard, you know, for them to have a voice. Then that’s, yeah, that’s the kind of journalism I want to do.... Everyone knew what was happening in Gaza ... you saw all the horrific videos ... a lot of people died ... there are no excuses any more..."

 See here

Two years ago AIJAC's Ahron Shapiro observed:

"Any reporting by an ABC employee, including McNeill, is required to follow the following standards:

4.1 Gather and present news and information with due impartiality.

 4.2 Present a diversity of perspectives so that, over time, no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented.

And also

 4.4 Do not misrepresent any perspective.

4.5 Do not unduly favour one perspective over another."

In a substantial article, he traced and analysed historic broadcasts by Ms McNeill that reveal her pattern of blatant partisanship in reportage concerning the Middle East.

He also drew attention to her pro-Palestinian activism.

For example:

'[I]n 2013, McNeill, along with prolific pro-Palestinian photographer Richard Wainwright were the only journalists presented to speak at the Human Rights in Palestine Conference at the ANU [Australian National University] ...

[W] hile living in Beirut in 2007, McNeill filed a story with the notorious anti-Israel website Electronic Intifada.

 Here, the content of the story she filed, which was about Lebanese mistreatment of Palestinians, was in itself not problematic. What is a problem, however, and what should have given ABC pause when choosing McNeill for her current job, is why McNeill chose to work with a website whose raison d’être is to increase popular support for the elimination of Israel and routinely publishes material justifying Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.

Finally, in 2009 ... and again in 2013, McNeill initiated online campaigns to raise money for her “dear friend” and Gaza fixer, Raed Al Athamneh. Raising money to help someone you work with through a crisis is not necessarily inappropriate. But for a journalist to adopt the Palestinian narrative in their pitch for donations most certainly is.

 For example, she wrote “most of Gaza’s residents are refugees who used to live inside Israel’s borders, but were forced out when the country was created in 1948″.

This revisionist historical narrative that Israel forced out all the refugees – language used by her mentor Pilger – represents an endorsement of the Palestinian narrative that Israel is entirely responsible for the refugee problem, ignores the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians fled and were not forced out and ignores the war that was launched against Israel by the Arab nations and Palestinians who rejected partition.

In this essay, she also made an allegation that Israel “collectively punished” the Palestinians of Gaza, describing the blockade of Gaza as a means of punishing the Strip’s residents who support Hamas. [Emphasis added]

She initiated a fundraising campaign for Raed again in 2013, according to her friend and Australian Gazan Patrick Abboud and an appeal she posted on ABC Triple J Hack’s Facebook page.'

He observed:

'Her reporting does not show a clear record of separating her media career from her activism..

 And there is little doubt that her activism continues and influences her reporting in terms of how she frames stories, particularly about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. ...

What makes this matter even more serious is the fact that the Jerusalem bureau is undergoing changes. While until now there were two ABC Middle East reporters (most recently Hayden Cooper and Matt Brown) as well as some support crew, the ABC says that it is making Jerusalem a Video Journalist bureau later this year. That move, it would appear, would give McNeill substantially more autonomy than previous Middle East correspondents have had.  

The onus now lies on O’Neill [sic] to demonstrate that ABC management was not irresponsible in making the appointment – given her self-described dedication to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are “really suffering” (in her lexicon, the Palestinians) – and whether she can possibly fulfil the statutory obligation of an ABC correspondent to present news with due impartiality and to be fair to all perspectives.'

 Is it any wonder, given her continuing partisanship, that advocates of fair and objective reporting were, and continue to be, dismayed by her appointment to the ABC?

When Jon Meets Sophie

Both the ABC's Jerusalem correspondent Sophie McNeill and the BBC's Australia (ex-Gaza) correspondent Jon Donnison are notorious for their anti-Israel bias.

They get away with their breaches of their employers' respective charters time and time and time again.

Lefty McNeill is an avowed activist and Lefty Donnison (with his numerous snide tweets about Aussie asylum policy as well as about Israel) behaves like one.

Here's the latest example of Jon and Sophie together.

One, if you'll pardon the expression, on top of the other.

Israel.  "Financial deals".  "Who would have thought it"

There wouldn't be a hint of leftist "rich man antisemitism" there, would there Jon?

"What is it with the Left and Jews? What is it with the Left and pandering to Islamists?" (includes videos)

Aussie Leftist media cartoon demonisation

As  the popular Aussie conservative columnist Andrew Bolt writes  in his syndicated column today regarding the Australian Labor Party (ALP):

 "The modern Left seems to have a Jew problem. The obsession with Jews even within Labor is extraordinary - and ominous.

What is it with the Left and Jews? What is it with the Left and pandering to Islamists?" 

Mr Bolt quotes from a sobering piece on the subject by Sharri Markson in The Australian newspaper, showing the Left faction of the ALP is so saturated now in leftist/Islamist bias against Israel as to be aiding and abetting that old demon, slumbering since the Shoah and now belligerently wide awake: Jew-hatred.

Ms Markson wrote, inter alia:

'.... The NSW ALP international relations policy committee chairman Michael Forshaw told The Australian yesterday that 39 resolutions had been received concerning Israel and Palestine, compared with 17 resolutions dealing with other international issues, such as the Syrian war, the Myanmar junta, Paris terror bombings, China free trade and foreign aid.

There were none on Saudi Arabia or Iran.

There are moves to recognise Palestinian statehood and to boycott products from Israel that originate in settlement areas, and many concerning banning trips to Israel while Benjamin Netan­yahu is Prime Minister. The move by Labor is partly driven by political motivations to secure the vote from Muslim communities in marginal southwest Sydney seats.....'

 She cites the main offenders, and their thraldom to the Muslim vote.

She reminds the reader of the 'incendiary remarks' (Jewish advocacy groups are “cancerous” and “malicious” and try to “deny, misinform and scaremonger”) made by NSW Labor politician Shaoquett Moselmane, who felt comfortable enough broadcasting ... anti-semitic sentiment within the walls of the NSW Parliament' despite having ' ironically decried racism' in his maiden speech:

'He was not shouted-out of the high office he holds for racist commentary. On the contrary, Labor continues to support him and Moselmane is now a vocal advocate behind a push to ban Labor MPs from visiting Israel on trips funded by Jewish organisations…

The father of the anti-Israel movement is Bob Carr, whose speeches have on at least one occasion, in July last year, elicited anti-semitic commentary from the audience, with a remark made about “the Jews” and their “3000-year fundamentalist influence.”

And I remain deeply concerned by comments by [Tony] Burke ...  a Labor frontbencher which seemed to legitimise Islamist terrorism against Israel....'

In the videos below pro-Israel federal MP Michael Danby, from the ALP's right faction, which, happily, still includes supporters of Israel, is seen on Australia Day talking to The Shtick's Henry Greener about the menace of the ABC's Sophie McNeill and dishonest reporting about Israel.

This one (after a few opening bars of jazz) focuses more than the top one on Ms McNeill:

The BBC & the ABC's Sophie McNeill Have Themselves A Merry Little Christmas

It hasn't been half as blatant as this, when the BBC cribbed what its ideological stable mate wrote the year before

But it's Yuletide, and that gives the Corporation an opportunity as golden as the wise men's guiding star to have a go or five at Israel.  Just as its ideological stable mate The Guardian does each Christmas Eve too.

The Christmas story, with its cast of supporting characters, has again given the BBC (step forward Yolande Knell and Co.) the chance to spin some anti-Israel propaganda lite via a series of specially made videos with modern residents of Bethlehem standing in for those in the familiar narrative.

The people selected are no doubt good and worthy individuals, but it is the propagandistic use to which the BBC intentionally puts the interviews that sticks in the craw like a swallowed sixpence from a traditional Christmas pudding.

The propaganda shows this year in the interview with the "shepherd" and the "wise man" where the BBC has fun with its "Israel says" that comes up on screen.  It's as if to tell the audience: "Nudge, wink, well they would say that, but we don't believe them, do we?"

The interview with the shepherd is hardly balanced, with its male reporter saying: "Look how much injustice and grievance there has been on this land"...

It would be wrong to claim that the BBC never draws attention to the plight of persecuted Christians around the world.

But it seldom does so.

Yet, by contrast, it never misses an opportunity, at this time of the year, to air the grievances, real and imagined, of Christians in Bethlehem, because that provides as much fodder as Joseph's donkey could eat for a week in providing nourishment for the Israel-bashing cause.

Of course, the plight of Christians suffering from manifestations of Islamic supremacy in the West Bank and Gaza is never going to feature in these Yuletide messages by the BBC.

Strange, isn't it, how the leftist Al Beeb permits all sorts of blasphemy and scorn on its airwaves against Christians and Christianity, yet gets all teary-eyed and sanctimonious about Christians (in the Holy Land, that is) when 24 December rolls around?

Meanwhile, the ABC's Sophie McNeill, a pro-Palestinian activist by background and inclination, joins in the festivities:

This excellent article by Michael Danby is what the lady's referring to; good onya, Mr Danby!

More current McNeillisms:

No wonder this woman, who, just like the BBC reporters, is bound by her employer's Charter to be objective but isn't, has her detractors!

Now that the ABC has named a successor to outgoing head honcho Mark Scott (defending her here)  Ms McNeill must no longer be able to get away with her outrageous bias.

The ABC's Sophie Softly Shilling Anti-Israel Propaganda

McNeill & Knell: birds of a feather?

As I've noted several times for the benefit of overseas readers, the publicly-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), like the BBC, is obligated to be impartial in its presentation of news and current affairs:  Section 4 of "Auntie's" Code of Practice runs:

"The ABC has a statutory duty to ensure that the gathering and presentation of news and information is impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism.

Aiming to equip audiences to make up their own minds is consistent with the public service character of the ABC. A democratic society depends on diverse sources of reliable information and contending opinions. A broadcaster operating under statute with public funds is legitimately expected to contribute in ways that may differ from commercial media, which are free to be partial to private interests."

Some readers might recall the very real concern in pro-Israel circles that greeted the appointment in March this year of Sophie McNeill as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC's) Jerusalem correspondent?

Ahron Shapiro of  the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) expressed the misgivings very well.  Inter alia, he wrote:

'Interviewed by her former professor Victoria Mason in 2011, McNeill said that the journalism she wanted to do was to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are "really suffering" in a situation. Both the examples she offered referred to Palestinians.

McNeill has acted on her self-proclaimed sympathy for the Palestinians by appearing on a panel at two pro-Palestinian events, including one sponsored by Palestinian groups and speaking alongside two other speakers who called for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the movement to sever all economic, educational and cultural ties with Israel. She has also written for Electronic Intifada, an extremist website that routinely publishes screeds calling for the destruction of Israel and justifying Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.

How could the ABC give such a candidly agenda-motivated journalist the exclusive job of Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent, with extensive autonomy?

It's a serious question that should be answered by the national broadcaster, which, according to its statutory mandate, must be free of even the appearance of bias in its news reporting, and must present all major perspectives on controversial issues fairly.

In late 2012, ABC Radio National Breakfast host Fran Kelly took back a statement she had made earlier that year to the Sydney Morning Herald defining herself first and foremost as an "activist", stressing later that "once you become a journalist you can't be an activist; you can't join protest movements".

Of course, Kelly was right. Activists who become journalists but remain loyal to a personal agenda don't earn the right to be seen as objective journalists. Instead, they are known as advocacy journalists who serve a non-objective viewpoint, usually for some social or political purpose.

Is Sophie McNeill an objective journalist, or an advocacy journalist? In a profile on McNeill in 2003, the ABC itself described McNeill as "a political activist and social campaigner" as well as a television documentary filmmaker. She told then-ABC employee George Negus, that part of wanting to be a journalist, "I wanted to try and make that connection that had happened with me wanting to do something and what was going on." [emphasis added]

McNeill credits John Pilger as her inspiration when she was 15 for becoming a journalist and has praised Victoria Mason, who is one of Australia's leading pro-Palestinian academics, for "opening the world to [her]" when McNeill took her class on the Middle East at Western Australia's Curtin University in 2003 ("what a difference it can make, the effect it can have on your learning and your vision of the world", McNeill said in 2009 about studying under Mason).

Similarly, she sings the praises of Robert Fisk for showing her the ropes during her time reporting from Beirut.

Her reporting does not show a clear record of separating her media career from her activism. And there is little doubt that her activism continues and influences her reporting in terms of how she frames stories, particularly about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.'

The misgivings seem justified.  AIJAC has referred several times to the less than objective reportage in which Ms McNeill has indulge since taking up her post: see, for example, here (two items, same page) and here. 

This evening, the ABC's 7.30 Report carried this item about Susiya (or Susya) by Ms McNeill.  Its only attempt at balance, and that a begrudging one, was an interview with Ari Briggs of Regavim ("He was born in Sydney" said our intrepid reporter archly).  Much of the item was taken up with an interviews with Moira O'Leary of Action Aid Australia, and with a chap named Abu Mohamad Nawaja:

'Village elder Abu Mohamad Nawaja was born and raised in Susiya village.

"Allow me to say thank you to the Australian Government, thanks to the Australian Action Aid," he told the ABC's 7.30 program.

But it may all be for nothing after Israeli authorities determined that planning permission was never given for the village to be built, and have granted a demolition order for the whole of Susiya.

"They will confiscate this land for the settlers, so they can expand their settlements and live comfortably," Abu Mohamad said.

"They want to destroy us, our lives and our kids' lives."'

Could he, by any chance, be related to the Nasser Nawaja who features in recent reports about the identical topic by the BBC Jerusalem Bureau's Yolande Knell, but as BBC Watch notes without any hint of his connections with B'tselem?

As for Action Aid, it has no apparent love for Israel.  In her latest report Ms McNeill was effectively giving publicity to an organisation whose Australian wing's Sydney-based Campaigns Mirector, a leftist "human rights" activist called Rachel Colbourne-Hoffman, authored this squalid piece of anti-Israel propaganda about one of Judaism's holiest cities (does she even know its status?), complete with some very unfortunate phraseology and canards apparently blithely accepted at face value:

'I was shocked stepping into Hebron Old City – wire was everywhere. As I passed by boarded-up shop fronts, wire was overhead; as I walked through industrial turn styles, there was spiralled barbed wire atop chain-link fences followed by large cement walls cutting off streets, decorated in more barbed wire than there is tinsel on a Christmas tree.

Just like a parasitic vine that strangles its host, the state of Israel is using these wire tendrils to try and suffocate the life out of this city.

Looking up you can see there are more residences built literally on top of the Palestinian shops and houses, covered with the flag of Israel – these are Israeli settlements. According to International Humanitarian Law they are illegal but it doesn’t take international law to tell you their presence is unjust and wrong.

As I walked through the market place of Old Hebron City, horrified by the prison of wire, I asked my colleague what was the point of the cage overhead. He said very matter of fact, that the Palestinians had actually installed it to catch any rubbish that the Israelis threw on their heads. So not only were these people living in this city illegally they were physically abusing its inhabitants purely because of their race.

There is nothing subtle about the way Palestinians are being pushed out of their own city.

Before this trip to the West Bank, my view of the conflict between Israel and Palestine was one where it was unclear which group was being oppressed and I wanted to have an open mind about the conflict. However, what I saw was a story of David and Goliath being played out in real life, but roles were reversed. This time Israel is Goliath, and they are winning by breaking International Humanitarian Laws being backed by powerful international actors, while Palestine as David is being tied up with barbed wire, enclosed by 8 meter walls, while watching their houses being demolished and on top of it all, being given the bill for the demolition.   I left with thoughts of inequality andcity.'

But back to Ms McNeill.  As Ahron Shapiro pointed out, in the article referred to above: 

"Any reporting by an ABC employee, including McNeill, is required to follow the following standards:

4.1 Gather and present news and information with due impartiality.

4.2 Present a diversity of perspectives so that, over time, no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented.

And also

4.4 Do not misrepresent any perspective.

4.5 Do not unduly favour one perspective over another."

It is an ongoing disgrace that Sophie McNeill flouts these rules and gets away with doing so time and time and time again.

Sophie's Choice: "I Wanted To Be A Journalist ... To Make The World A Better Place ... You Knew What Was Happening In Gaza ... There Are No Excuses Any More"

Bibi's Victory: The BBC's Bowen reacts

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia's counterpart to the BBC, and is similarly obliged to adhere to a code of practice prohibiting bias, that code declaring, inter alia:

 "The ABC has a statutory duty to ensure that the gathering and presentation of news and information is impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism.

 Aiming to equip audiences to make up their own minds is consistent with the public service character of the ABC. A democratic society depends on diverse sources of reliable information and contending opinions. A broadcaster operating under statute with public funds is legitimately expected to contribute in ways that may differ from commercial media, which are free to be partial to private interests."

But, just like its British equivalent, Australia's public broadcaster exhibits a shameless left-liberal bias.

And, disturbingly, the ABC has recently appointed as its Middle East correspondent, based in Jerusalem, Sophie McNeill, a young woman with a, disturbing history of naive and leftwing pro-Palestinian bias, a young woman who is on record as expressing her admiration for John Pilger (it was reading his Hidden Histories which inspired her to enter journalism) for Robert Fisk.

In the following must-watch (or listen to) video, dating to 2011, Ms McNeill tells her interviewer, inter alia:

"If you just try to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are really suffering in a situation, be it in Lebanon, if you re hanging out in a Palestinian refugee camp, [or] in Gaza you re hanging out, you know, at the children’s cancer ward. One of the saddest things I’ve seen in my whole life is spending some time filming in a children’s cancer ward in Gaza. I just think if you just – if you look at a situation and you just – yeah, I guess just try to spend time with the people who are – who really don t have any power and it is hard, you know, for them to have a voice. Then that’s, yeah, that’s the kind of journalism I want to do.... Everyone knew what was happening in Gaza ... you saw all the horrific videos ... a lot of people died ... there are no excuses any more..."

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISS_Qy1cWm4)

Ahron Shapiro of  the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) points out (hat tip: Ian):

"Any reporting by an ABC employee, including McNeill, is required to follow the following standards:

4.1 Gather and present news and information with due impartiality.

4.2 Present a diversity of perspectives so that, over time, no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented.

 And also

4.4 Do not misrepresent any perspective.

4.5 Do not unduly favour one perspective over another."

In a substantial article, Shapiro traces and analyses historic broadcast after broadcast by Ms McNeill that reveal her pattern of blatant partisanship in reportage concerning the Middle East.

He also draws attention to her apparent pro-Palestinian activism.

For example:

 '[I]n 2013, McNeill, along with prolific pro-Palestinian photographer Richard Wainwright were the only journalists presented to speak at the Human Rights in Palestine Conference at the ANU [Australian National University] ...

 [W] hile living in Beirut in 2007, McNeill filed a story with the notorious anti-Israel website Electronic Intifada.

Here, the content of the story she filed, which was about Lebanese mistreatment of Palestinians, was in itself not problematic. What is a problem, however, and what should have given ABC pause when choosing McNeill for her current job, is why McNeill chose to work with a website whose raison d’être is to increase popular support for the elimination of Israel and routinely publishes material justifying Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.

Finally, in 2009 (see here and here) and again in 2013, McNeill initiated online campaigns to raise money for her “dear friend” and Gaza fixer, Raed Al Athamneh. Raising money to help someone you work with through a crisis is not necessarily inappropriate. But for a journalist to adopt the Palestinian narrative in their pitch for donations most certainly is.

For example, she wrote “most of Gaza’s residents are refugees who used to live inside Israel’s borders, but were forced out when the country was created in 1948″.

This revisionist historical narrative that Israel forced out all the refugees – language used by her mentor Pilger – represents an endorsement of the Palestinian narrative that Israel is entirely responsible for the refugee problem, ignores the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians fled and were not forced out and ignores the war that was launched against Israel by the Arab nations and Palestinians who rejected partition.

In this essay, she also made an allegation that Israel “collectively punished” the Palestinians of Gaza, describing the blockade of Gaza as a means of punishing the Strip’s residents who support Hamas. [Emphasis added]

She initiated a fundraising campaign for Raed again in 2013, according to her friend and Australian Gazan Patrick Abboud and an appeal she posted on ABC Triple J Hack’s Facebook page.'

He observes:

"Her reporting does not show a clear record of separating her media career from her activism..

And there is little doubt that her activism continues and influences her reporting in terms of how she frames stories, particularly about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. ...

 What makes this matter even more serious is the fact that the Jerusalem bureau is undergoing changes. While until now there were two ABC Middle East reporters (most recently Hayden Cooper and Matt Brown) as well as some support crew, the ABC says that it is making Jerusalem a Video Journalist bureau later this year. That move, it would appear, would give McNeill substantially more autonomy than previous Middle East correspondents have had.

The onus now lies on O’Neill [sic] to demonstrate that ABC management was not irresponsible in making the appointment – given her self-described dedication to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are “really suffering” (in her lexicon, the Palestinians) – and whether she can possibly fulfil the statutory obligation of an ABC correspondent to present news with due impartiality and to be fair to all perspectives.'

Read Shapiro's entire detailed piece here

And brilliant Aussie columnist Andrew Bolt's characteristically astute piece here

(Hat tip: The amazing bloodhound Ian)

Sophie McNeill will certainly have to be closely watched.

And any episodes of bias robustly protested.

But is it not outrageous that a person with this level of bias came to be appointed by the ABC in the first place?