On Friday, April 19, at 3PM in ECTR 116, award winning journalist and media critic Alison Weir will discuss what American news media are not revealing about Israel-Palestine. The press is arguably the most powerful institution in the United States; it provides the kinds of information that Americans use to form their conclusions about issues and candidates seeking election. Weir will detail the media’s filtering that prevents the public from receiving the full facts on Israel-Palestine; she will also discuss the systemic and structural causes of the situation.
Veteran journalist Alison Weir is the Executive Director of “If Americans Knew,” a non-profit organization that specializes in statistical and factual information on Israel-Palestine and the media’s coverage of the region. Weir is also President of the Council for the National Interest, a group founded 19 years ago by congressmen and ambassadors to work for foreign policies not dominated by special interests. Weir’s speeches have included briefings on Capitol Hill and to the National Press Club and presentations at the Asia Media Summit in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. She has lectured at several universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley and the Naval Postgraduate Institute. Weir is generally considered the foremost analyst on media coverage of Israel-Palestine. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, CounterPunch, The New Intifada, Censored 2005, and the Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. She narrated the award-winning documentary Occupation 101.
Alison Weir’s appearance is co-sponsored by the College of Charleston’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the Office of Institutional Diversity, and Charleston Peace One Day. The lecture will be followed by an informal reception.