Our political erosion might not be so bad if it wasn’t seconded (and sometimes led) by what passes for journalism these days. Forbes calls it the Media Intifada:
“*** The arithmetic of civilian casualties in Gaza is one of the principal media crimes in this war. It became obvious weeks ago that major Western journalists routinely swallowed the huge civilian-casualty figures dished out to them by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, a bureaucratic arm of a terrorist group that was shown to have lied about such figures in past wars. In some cases, reporters cite numbers instead from the United Nations, which gets its numbers from—surprise—the Hamas ministry, a dubious source of information, akin to relying on the Reich Health Office for German civilian-casualty statistics during World War II. On many occasions, major American news outlets haven’t bothered to even attribute the numbers to either the ministry or the UN—simply reporting as fact that ‘most,’ or ‘the majority’ or the ‘vast majority’ of casualties in Gaza are civilians.”
And there’s much, much more. No wonder there are so many anti-Israel protesters and growing anti-Semitism. Relying on American and British newspapers and television they see the wicked Jews bombing Gaza while the pitiful Palestinians fight back with inaccurate rockets and the occasional precision mortar, never even realizing that the Palestinians started it all in the first place, just like they always do.
Thanks New York Times, The Washington Compost, CNN, BBC, and all the lazy little media sheep that follow them around saying ba, ba, ba.
Via Simply Jews.
UPDATE: Matti Friedman, a former Associated Press reporter/editor in Jerusalem tells all. The news media gets the story wrong because they intend to get it wrong. It’s their narrative: Israel bad, Palestinians good.
“Many of the people deciding what you will read and see from [Israel] view their role not as explanatory but as political,” Friedman writes. “Coverage is a weapon to be placed at the disposal of the side they like.”
Reminds me of an editor I once worked for who visited Israel not so long ago. He didn’t spend much time in Israel proper. He spent most of it in Ramallah, as a guest of the side he likes.
You can be sure Friedman’s former colleagues and their bosses will deny it all, but as a recovering journalist I can assure you her his analysis of the way the biz works is impeccable: The bigs decide what’s news, reporters follow orders to the letter or are replaced with ones who will. Easy-peasy.
MORE: Meanwhile, in Utah, a white teen is shot to death by a black cop. Ferguson in different colors. Rioting? MSNBC, CNN, DOJ, Rev. Al converge? NYTimes editorializes? The president speaks? None of that. And you’re not one bit surprised, are you?
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 