Journalists based in Canberra are a compromised lot, something that was glaringly evident by their performance – or more accurately the lack of it – during an address to the National Press Club by the new Israeli Ambassador, Dr Hillel Newman, on Tuesday (March 31).
Though many of the questions started out promisingly, they were not prosecuted to any satisfactory conclusion, allowing Dr Newman, a seasoned PR practitioner who has served as consul-general in Los Angeles and ambassador in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to override the queries with statements that were mostly half-truths.
For example, Matthew Knott, defence and national security reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald, started off the Q&A by asking Dr Newman about the new law passed by the Knesset which can impose the death penalty on Palestinians who are found guilty of terrorism offences that threaten the security of Israel.
Knott is one of two journalists from the SMH who wrote a report on 7 March 2023 claiming that China was set to launch a war to retake Taiwan within the next three years. Both he and his collaborator in this report, Peter Hartcher, the international editor of the SMH, have kept a low profile when the bogus report was raised this month. Continue reading “Israeli envoy takes clueless Australian journos for a nice ride”