Posted on 10/10/24
| News Source: FOX News
CBS News reportedly ordered its staff not to say Israel's capital city of Jerusalem is in Israel.
The Free Press reported Wednesday that Mark Memmott, CBS News' senior director of standards and practices, had emailed all employees in late August telling them to "be careful with some terms when we talk or write about the news" regarding the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
Included on his list of controversial terms was "Jerusalem."
"Do not refer to it as being in Israel," Memmott wrote, according to The Free Press.
"Yes, the U.S. embassy is there and the Trump administration recognized it as being Israel’s capital. But its status is disputed," Memmott continued. "The status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel regards Jerusalem as its ‘eternal and undivided’ capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem—occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war—as the capital of a future state."
CBS News' Jerusalem guidance was panned by critics on social media.
"Standards desks are now *instructing* journalists to deny reality," Free Press contributing editor Adam Rubenstein reacted.
"Jerusalem is not only in Israel, it is the capital of Israel. What on earth is happening at CBS?" Fox News contributor Guy Benson asked.
"Then we can stop referring to CBS employees as journalists," Washington Examiner senior writer David Harsanyi wrote.