The NYT’s “public editor” takes the predictable approach when dealing with the complaints about bias. Both sides are criticizing us, that means that we must be right. Well yes, one side has promised to destroy the other and the other is defending itself, so being balanced is exactly the way to handle their coverage.
Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, responded last week on the newspaper’s Web site to similar complaints. She said the paper is scrupulously careful to describe the motives, histories, politics and perspectives of everyone in the conflict, allowing readers to decide who is right or wrong. “I see a backwards vote of confidence in The Times’s reporting, given that every identifiable faction in this fractured collision of peoples and injustices believes so firmly that we are taking a side — someone else’s,” Abramson said.
It can be risky for editors and reporters to think that if everyone in a dispute is angry with them, then they must be doing something right. Sometimes they are so wrong the anger is justified. But in the case of the complex, intractable struggle between Israel and the Palestinians, even the best, most evenhanded reporting will not satisfy those passionately on one side or the other.
Here are some of the particulars.
Bert Distelburger of New City, N.Y., said he suspected that a front-page picture last Monday of a dead Palestinian girl being carried on a stretcher in a Gaza City hospital was a faked “propaganda photo” because, “A doctor does not examine a person face down.” Patrick Witty, the photo editor who recommended the picture, showed me how he blew it up on a large computer screen and scanned it carefully for any signs of digital doctoring. “This is a real photograph,” he said. He also showed me obvious propaganda photos from both sides that he said he would never put in the newspaper — posed pictures of Palestinians looking at bodies or Israel’s prime minister visiting a smiling soldier in a hospital.
I don’t think that Mr. Distelburger was claiming that the photo was faked, but that it was staged. These are obviously both forms of fauxtography, but showing that it wasn’t one form doesn’t prove that it wasn’t a different form.
And then there’s this:
Witty and his colleagues are frustrated because Israel has barred journalists from entering Gaza, and although The Times has two photographers in the region ready to go, it must rely on pictures taken by Palestinian photographers. “When I can’t have my own person there, I have to question every picture that comes in — to an obsessive degree,” he said. Last summer, Witty unmasked as a fake a photo of an Iranian missile test that ran on many other front pages.
OK, Mr. Hoyt, your job is to correct mistakes not perpetuate them. I understand, some of what you do could be called “subjective.” But Mr. Witty did not unmask the fake photo. Maybe Mr. Witty was the person who noticed it in house, after the Times had already published it, LGF discovered the fraud regardless of what the Lede wrote. Newsbusters has the details.
Hoyt, admits that the Times does publish more photos of Palestinian suffering than of Israeli suffering.
My assistant, Michael McElroy, did such a count, from the start of the latest fighting through Friday, and found that online and in the newspaper, there were almost three photos from Gaza showing the impact of the war for every photo from Israel. There were 28 photos, some quite graphic, of dead and wounded Palestinians, five of Israelis. Such a ratio offends supporters of Israel, who argue that Hamas uses civilians as human shields and that the pictures inflame people against Israel.
Now that’s weaselly. Hamas does use civilians as human shields. It’s been shown and even the NYT has reported it. More to the point the Times does not sufficiently lay out that Hamas’s tactic of storing munitions, hiding fighters and building headquarters in civilian areas are all war crimes. Maybe it would be defensible to leave out the context of international law, except Hoyt claims in this very same column paraphrases editor Jill Abramson,
She said the paper is scrupulously careful to describe the motives, histories, politics and perspectives of everyone in the conflict, allowing readers to decide who is right or wrong.
Readers cannot draw conclusions if they don’t have all the facts. The Times by not mentioning that Hamas’s activities violate international law is not giving their readers adequate information to make the proper judgment. Rather it is holding back information that condemns Hamas by its actions.
Compounding this, is the way the use of the term “occupation” in the NYT’s reporting from the region. By describing the presence of Israelis living in Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem as living in “occupied territory,” the NYT is accepting a questionable interpretation at odds with historical usage, but compatible with the Palesitnian narrative. How can the Times claim use a dubious interpretation of international law when it comes time to question Israel, but ignore an obvious application of international when it would condemn Hamas? Is a democratic country allowed at least the same presumption of innocence as a terrorist group?
Hoyt also discusses casualties.
The newspaper ran a correction last Monday, saying that for the first three days of the conflict, it should have said more than 60 civilians were killed, not “some 60.†United Nations officials had counted 62 dead women and children but had no count of civilian men, because it is hard to tell them from Hamas fighters who do not wear uniforms.
If reporting is supposed to give us a sufficient background to make judgments, why does Hoyt consider UN officials as credible arbiters of casualties. The UNRWA has a long shameful history of anti-Israel activities, if not outright cooperation with Hamas. And it’s not like its record has been any better in the past couple of weeks.
Of course there’s something else disturbing about the above paragraph, where Hoyt observes nonchalantly what every pro-truth critic of the Times emphasizes: that Hamas “fighters” don’t wear uniforms. That observation sets off no alarm bells for Hoyt, the astute defender of the NYT’s credibility. If you need any other proof that Hamas, not only is dedicated to Israel’s destruction, that targets civilians, that it wishes to impose Shari’a, but that it operates in violation of international law that’s it. And it’s cited by UN officials who are apparently trying to maximize the outrage the world is supposed to feel towards Israel. Of course it’s hard to separate the civilians from the terrorists when the terrorists don’t observe the conventions of war.
One last observation about Hoyt. A few months ago those of us who oppose terrorism were outraged when the NYT gave op-ed space to Ahmed Yousef a spokesterrorist for Hamas. Hoyt dishonestly argued that there was a need to present Hamas’s view, because there’s a danger of one-sided debate.
How does he explain this past Thursday when the Times oped page was graced with four anti-Israel opinion pieces.
Why would that be, there weren’t any pro-Israel writers willing to contribute their thoughts? Or is the Times only concerned when terrorists don’t get their voices heard?
Hoyt had a chance to explain how the Times makes its decisions in its coverage of the Middle East. Instead he relied on platitudes, gave credit to his paper that it didn’t deserve, and confirmed that he shares the same biases that the papers reporters and editors have.
But this isn’t 1979, 1989 or even 1999. It’s 2009 when the reading public has access to resources and critical thinking abilities to challenge dishonestly presented news reports. Hoyt is pretending that reports in the NYT are the undisputed truth. They are but the first draft of propaganda and there are many people out there who are capable of challenging them effectively.
Finally, a piece of free advice for Mr. Hoyt. Hell hath no fury like a blogger scorned. If you’re going to ignore an amateur pajama-clad blogger that caught an error that your layers of professional editors missed, do so at your own peril. You will only earn much deserved scorn.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
