Guardian dumps Joshua Treviño

Ali Abunimah Media Watch 24 August 2012

Citing his failure to disclose a major conflict of interest, The Guardian has dumped Joshua Treviño, nine days after it announced it had hired him as a columnist.

The announcement came as outrage from Guardian readers continued to grow over his history of incitement and hate speech directed against Palestinian solidarity activists, Muslims and others.

In a joint statement with Treviño, The Guardian said:

Joshua Treviño wrote a piece for the Guardian on February 28, 2011 titled “Peter King has hearings, but is he listening?” The Guardian recently learned that shortly before writing this article the author was a consultant for an agency that had Malaysian business interests and that he ran a website called Malaysia Matters. In keeping with the Guardian’s editorial code this should have been disclosed.

“Under our guidelines, the relationship between Joshua and the agency should have been disclosed before the piece was published in order to give full clarity to our readers,” said Janine Gibson, editor-in-chief, Guardian US.”

I vigorously affirm that nothing unethical was done and I have been open with the Guardian in this matter. Nevertheless, the Guardian’s guidelines are necessarily broad, and I agree that they must be respected as such,” said Joshua Treviño.

We have therefore mutually agreed to go our separate ways and wish each other the best of luck.

I had raised the issue of Treviño’s conflicts of interest in my 18 August Al Jazeera article “What’s gone wrong at The Guardian:

According to The Guardian’s own editorial code, journalists and commentators must disclose outside work and organisational affiliations that could pose a conflict of interest. Treviño, as has been disclosed, works as a paid consultant to Republican candidates for elected office. But there’s much more readers deserve to know.

In July 2011, Treviño was caught in a curious controversy where a website in Malaysia accused him and another US blogger of running a website named Malaysia Matters, allegedly secretly paid for by Malaysia’s prime minister and another politician in order to improve their image. Treviño told reporter Ben Smith, then of Politico, that the story was “completely false”. But Smith stated that Treviño “misdirected” him.

While Smith was unable to get to the bottom of the murky financial arrangements behind Malaysia Matters, he revealed that, in 2008, Treviño had approached a number of prominent US bloggers, “offering them a free ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ Malaysian junket, paid for, he [Treviño] said in an email at the time, by business interests associated with Malaysian politics.”

When challenged on this rather odd activity for a journalist, Treviño wrote to Smith: “I also offer people paid trips to Israel” - as if that were the most normal thing in the world for a blogger to do.

Do Treviño’s new bosses at The Guardian know this? Do they know on whose behalf Treviño - a former member of the advisory board of Act for Israel - is writing? And more importantly, are they planning to tell their readers?

There is more information from Sarawak Report whose investigations were key to revealing Treviño’s Malaysian connections.

The Guardian has done the right thing. It may have cited the conflict of interest in order to save face, but that reason was certainly enough to call into question the decision to hire Treviño. Treviño’s dishonesty was also on display in his mendacious “clarification” of his tweets calling for violence and gloating over the deaths of unarmed civilians, which The Guardian has yet to correct. That is pending business.

But everyone who contacted The Guardian to express their views on its disastrous judgment should be pleased with this outcome. The Guardian should reflect deeply on this debacle and work to rebuild readers’ trust.

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Comments

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Ian replied on

Excellent sleuthing, Ali. I am sure your good work was the reason he went, The Guardian clearly didn't know about it. We need goo journalists like you, in fact so does The Guardian, so I hope you get the call. LOL

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Ansel replied on

Score one for the honest and compassionate side of humanity. Good work!

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Dena Bugel-Shunra replied on

Once again you demonstrate that holding media accountable has real effects in the world. I was afraid even to hope that they'd listen - thank you for your empowering, inspiring example.

Onward, to a free Palestine, in a world where civility and respect are a prevailing reality.

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Matthew Graber replied on

A wonderful precedent for accountability set by the Electronic Intifada! Spectacular work, Ali, and the many, many others who worked together to get the word out!

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Marcia replied on

Thanks for all the real journalisting that you do. It's rare enough.

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raymonddelauney replied on

Marvellous news. Keep up the good work in exposing these keyboard colonels and guttersnipe chancers.

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Elias Palestine replied on

Barak Allah feek ya Ali. Wallah 3afarem 3alek. Jazak Allah kher wa alf el shokor 3ala johdak.

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Frances Everett replied on

Yes, excellent work Ali. The joint statement "soft-soaped" the situation, but at least the job got done. These things need to be pounced on, stuck with like a dog with a bone, and there needs to be a public outcry in numbers such that the powers that be are shaken up. This is what happened here! Bravo to all the people who participated in demanding justice here!
With respect, from Canada

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Larry White replied on

Well done Ali.

One for the good guys.

Regards from Ireland.

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eGuard replied on

What, The Guardian does not apologise to me?

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Tony Greenstein replied on

A hearty congratulations that your campaign paid off. A conflict of interest indeed! What did they expect? It's like Richard Nixon - threatened with impeachment for having lied about a minor break-in at Watergate rather than killing over a million people in Cambodia and Laos.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Tony Greenstein
http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2...

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Dr Brian Robinson replied on

@WellDone! "We need goo journalists like you, in fact so does The Guardian, so I hope you get the call. LOL"

Actually a very good idea. The G now needs another columnist. They could really help restore their good name -- I think they should make the offer.

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Abigail replied on

Well, what can I add to all the applause? Let's be realistic. Trevino is in the dumpster because of pressure after some good journalist did his homework (which the Guardian had put under the carpet, sneaky and eerie given the background of Trevino and his Republican and Aipac like clique, and the Guardian being a British quasi liberal newspaper). And of course because some others became furious enough to react. Thank Heaven. And by no means I am trying to belittle Ali Abunimah. Quite the contrary. I wish there were more Abunimahs in this world.

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AK replied on

I think this is the first time I've seen us, Palestinians, able to get a bigot removed from media for the hatred they spew. Good job! Now it is time to work on US Mainstream!!!

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.