About PRIMER

PRIMER-Massachusetts is a group of volunteers inspired by the well-established PRIMER-Connecticut, which has been monitoring Connecticut newspapers for bias and inaccuracies for many years. The volunteers in PRIMER-Massachusetts read newspapers in Massachusetts and alert each other when biased and misleading articles, editorials, commentaries and letters appear.

The primary goal of PRIMER-Massachusetts is to create an informal, democratic group of volunteers working together to promote more responsible reporting about the Arab-Israeli conflict and thus helping to maintain support for Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.

PRIMER-Massachusetts volunteers check newspapers for biased items, write letters as well as op-eds, develop relationships with newspaper editors and reporters and act as resources when newspaper professionals need to develop a greater understanding of the reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Join the Effort: Send an email to info@primerma.org or click on the Join PRIMER link and fill out the online membership form.

Help Promote PRIMER

You can help promote PRIMER by downloading our flyer and posting it where other supporters of responsible Middle East reporting will see it.

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Anti-Israel Resolutions from the Episcopal Church

The Episcopal Church has a disgraceful record of passing anti-Israel resolutions at its triennial conventions. Its 2018 convention made news when Bishop Gayle Harris, Bishop Suffragan of Massachusetts, blatantly lied to the delegates. Under pressure, she subsequently issued a sterile apology, but the anti-Israel record remains.

The anti-Israel resolutions have been examined by PRIMER and categorized. Of 31 relevant resolutions from the period 1976-2018 found, two dozen were anti-Israel (most of them strongly anti-Israel) and not a single resolution could be considered friendly to Israel.

View the texts of the resolutions and their individual categorizations by clicking here.

Correction Requested From The Boston Globe

Note: The latest correspondence was sent to The Boston Globe October 13.

A Boston Globe editorial published September 6, 2014 incorrectly referred to an "Israeli seizure of 1,000 acres." On September 15, The Boston Globe published three different responses to the editorial, two anti-Israel and one pro-Israel, all of which also incorrectly referred to an Israeli seizure of land.

The following request for a correction was sent to the editor of The Boston Globe on September 15, 2014. Copies were sent to Peter Canellos, editor of the editorial page; Dante Ramos, deputy managing editor of the editorial page; Matthew Bernstein, letters editor; and Lawrence Harmon, editorial writer.

Dear Mr. McGrory:

The September 6 editorial, "Israeli seizure of 1,000 acres is wrong move at wrong time," and three letters published today, September 15, all included the same, basic factual error: they all falsely stated that Israel had seized land in the disputed territories.

Israel did not seize any land. Rather, after appropriate investigation, Israel concluded the land in question was not privately owned. In keeping with its open and democratic nature, Israel did not keep that conclusion secret and is even providing the opportunity for anyone who believes its conclusion was incorrect to come forth with evidence.

The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists stipulates journalists should "acknowledge mistakes and correct them promptly and prominently. Explain corrections and clarifications carefully and clearly."

I request that you act in accordance with that code and issue an appropriate correction.

Sincerely,

Alan Stein, Ph.D.
a.stein@snet.net

Founder, PRIMER-Massachusetts
President Emeritus, PRIMER-Connecticut
Promoting Responsibility In Middle East Reporting

View Rest of Correspondence

Letter Writing Workshop
Israel Advocacy and Confronting Media Bias

Participants at PRIMER's letter writing workshop at Temple Israel of Natick.
Photo by Dubi Gordon.
PRIMER held a letter writing workshop on July 27, 2014 at Temple Israel of Natick.

This workshop was hosted by the Israel Action Committee of Temple Israel of Natick and used materials provided by CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.

Contact PRIMER to host a workshop at your organization. Materials are also available from CAMERA which groups can use to easily have their own letter writing workshops.

Is The Boston Globe's anti-Israel slant real or perceived?

Published in The Jewish Advocate, September 12, 2014

By Bram Samuel Berkowitz
Special to the Advocate

Although the violence in Israel has come to a halt, a topic of conversation at Shabbat dinners to kiddushes alike is still The Boston Globe's coverage of the situation in Israel. Many believe it reflects an anti- Israel bias.The Jewish Advocate set out to determine how the Globe handled its coverage of the Gaza war and if there was, in fact, bias in their analysis.

…

With the amount of pro-Israel letters published in the section, the Globe made an attempt to ensure opinions from all sides were being heard. And of course, it is hard to ignore Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe's op-ed columnist, who has written several articles this year that have undeniably supported Israel. Even while acknowledging the Globe's ability to present both sides of the issue, an overwhelming amount of evidence made the Globe's bias against Israel hard to ignore. First and foremost, there were others who had been analyzing the coverage. One in particular was Alan Stein, whose organization, PRIMER-Massachusetts (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting), tracks anti-Israel bias in local newspapers in Massachusetts.

Stein has been keeping track of the Globe's opinion articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for an entire year. He said that he has found that in support of Israel, 26 letters and four op-eds have been published. Opposing Israel, 19 letters, six editorials and seven op-eds have been published. As with the analysis for the last two months, Stein's longer-term survey found that most of the pro- Israeli talk was derived from short letters, while the work produced and written by the Globe staff took a decidedly anti-Israel slant.

Click to read the full article on The Jewish Advocate website

Grassroots group primed to fight the local media’s anti-Israel bias

Published in The Jewish Advocate, July 27, 2014

By Alexandra Lapkin
Advocate Staff

PRIMER Israel advocacy comes in many shapes and forms, but for Alan Stein, it is fighting anti-Israel bias in the local news media.

And when Stein set his sights on Massachusetts-based newspapers, he decided to engage Greater Boston’s Jewish community in this effort.

Click here to read the entire article

Resources

Many organizations have put together excellent resources that may be used to respond to the unfair attacks and biased reporting. PRIMER sees no need to duplicate these efforts. The following is a list of some of these excellent resources. This list will be slightly different each time it's viewed.