The scoop on Katharine Viner, Editor-in-Chief of the Guardian-UK

Now here’s the kicker about Katharine Viner who co-authored “My Name is Rachel Corrie” with Alan Rickman: she’s been a journalist for the Guardian-UK since 1997 & Editor-in-Chief since June 2015. Her Wikipedia entry says she has a “particular interest” in the Middle East & during her 20s spent most of her vacations in “Lebanon, Syria, Israel, the West Bank, & other locations.”

In a 2005 Guardian piece she wrote about writing the play, Viner treats Rachel Corrie as dramatis personae & makes no reference to the political context of Corrie’s activism, i.e., Israeli apartheid & Palestinian self-determination–except to make a demeaning comment that Corrie “became a martyr to the Palestinians” & to mention that Corrie’s memorial service in Gaza was shot at by the Israeli army.

This is a kicker because there is no discernible difference in the Guardian’s coverage of Palestinians & Israel since Viner took over &, if anything, a noticeable decline in the probative character of it’s reporting is more evident.