Dane Giraud against The Post

The Post published an article on November 8, 2024, headlined A glimpse of life in Lebanon, and what more should NZ do.

This was an opinion piece in which the author set out a brief history of Israeli incursions into Lebanon as well as recent air and ground attacks to destroy Hezbollah forces responsible for firing rockets into Israel. The columnist expressed concern at the scale of attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure which had killed many thousands of people in Lebanon and Gaza and he urged the New Zealand Government to do more to distance itself from Israel. He also asked whether New Zealand was doing enough to heed the International Court of Justice decision saying that all states were under an obligation “not to render aid and assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

Dane Giraud took issue with the potted history in the article, which was written from a Palestinian perspective, and argued it was a misleading anti-Israeli narrative.

“The author is entitled to his view, but his omissions slant the story so severely that it is rendered a fiction”.

Mr Giraud set out an alternative narrative from an Israeli perspective and said the thrust of the “piece is that Israel’s true mission is to simply murder and terrorize civilians. This is a wild claim demanding serious evidence which he does not and cannot provide.”

He said it omitted the fact that Hezbollah’s rockets targeted residential areas, did not attempt to find any balance and threw away facts to arrive at false conclusions.

The Post defended the article saying Mr Giraud’s concerns primarily came down to counter arguments and other points that he thought should have been included in his article.

It said there was no obligation on an opinion writer to provide a balanced perspective.  “It is unreasonable to argue that an article such as this should provide the sort of detail and countering perspective that you are advocating, given that this is, after all, an opinion article seeking to progress an opinion, with a tight restriction on word count.”

The Post invited Mr Giraud to write a letter to the editor but this was not taken up.

The Media Council does not believe the complainant has made a case to show a breach of Principle (1) Accuracy, Fairness and Balance. A complaint under that principle might have been appropriate if this was a news article or feature.

However, this was an opinion piece, and the relevant principle is Principle (5) Columns, Blogs, Opinion and Letters. This gives writers the latitude to express themselves more freely. The requirement for such articles is that they must clearly be marked as opinion and that it is understood to be largely the writer’s own opinion.  There is also requirement for the opinions to have a foundation of facts, but balance is not essential.

While Mr Giraud disputes statements made in the article and challenges the author’s perspective, he has not provided evidence to show there were factual errors or evidence to support his claim that readers were misled. 

This was an opinion piece on a long-running conflict where narratives are hotly contested by all the protagonists and their supporters.  Developments in the war have been widely reported since the Hamas attack on Israel was launched in October 2023 and the Media Council has not seen evidence that news coverage has been inaccurate, unfair or unbalanced. The Israeli view has certainly been reported frequently and we assume that this will continue. That is as it should be in articles where a fair voice is expected to be given to all sides.

However, the Media Council’s preamble says that freedom of expression gives publication the right to take a forthright stance or advocate on any issue. The selection of opinion writers and the content of their columns is entirely over to editors, and it is beyond the Council’s remit to suggest what opinions should be represented. The Council notes Mr Giraud was offered the opportunity to write a letter to the editor and he did not take that up.

Decision:  No grounds to proceed.