New York Times Redefines the Word Journalist
November 26, 2012 14:49 by Alex Margolin
After years of working for the newspaper of record in the US, you’d think veteran newsman David Carr would know the difference between a journalist and a propagandist.
Apparently not, judging by his impassioned defense of journalists “targeted” in last week’s conflict between Israel and Gaza.
Carr attended an event sponsored by the Committee to Protect Journalists last week, which put out a report claiming that a third of the journalists who were killed on the job last year were killed by government actions.
Carr then added a few more names to the list – Palestinians killed during the week of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
On the same day as the Waldorf event, three employees of news organizations were killed in Gaza by Israeli missiles. Rather than suggesting it was a mistake, or denying responsibility, an Israeli Defense Forces spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, told The Associated Press, “The targets are people who have relevance to terror activity.”
So it has come to this: killing members of the news media can be justified by a phrase as amorphous as “relevance to terror activity.”
And who were these “members of the news media” Carr alludes to? “Mahmoud al-Kumi and Hussam Salama worked as cameramen for Al-Aqsa TV, which is run by Hamas and whose reporting frequently reflects that affiliation,” Carr writes.
To refer to Al-Aqsa TV as a “news organization” that “frequently” reflects the position of Hamas is to dangerously blur the distinction between legitimate news and intentional disinformation.
Al-Aqsa TV is not a source of legitimate news. It belongs to Hamas and serves as its mouthpiece. Those who make up the “news team” are Hamas shills working to advance its terrorist agenda – which included more than a thousand attacks on Israeli civilians over little more than a week.
Of course, Carr wasn’t the only one to raise his voice against Israel’s actions. Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders objected as well.
Those organizations, of course, have a long history of knee-jerk condemnations of Israel. But one would have hoped Carr would know better. After so many years in the news business, you’d think he’d recognize the difference between a journalist and a phony trying to exploit what little credibility the field has left to advance a terrorist aim.
Of course, it’s possible Carr had no idea about the real aims and operations of Al-Aqsa TV. Either way, he’s contributing to turning the words “news media” into a meaningless and amorphous phrase.
Send your considered comments to the New York Times – letters@nytimes.com – Remember that letters for publication should be no longer than 150 words and must include the writer’s address and phone numbers.
UPDATE
The Jerusalem Post reports that the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), a Brussels-based organization, is asking for an international inquiry into what it calls the deliberate targeting of journalists in Gaza.
The IFJ has previous form when it comes to Israel. In 2006, six Israeli reporters renounced their membership in response to the IFJ censuring Israeli strikes on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV. According to Haaretz:
IFJ members in Israel demanded that the censure be lifted immediately and asked why the IFJ did not condemn Hezbollah for firing rockets at Israeli journalists.
If the IFJ considered Hezbollah’s propaganda organ to be a credible member of the community of journalists, it is hardly surprising that Hamas’s terror television is also treated with the same reverence.
Members of the IFJ should hang their heads in shame at the stance of their organization.
MARTIN BROSCHOWITZ
7:55 pm
Nov 26, 2012
Journalism, as is currently practiced by
the TIMES, has lost it’s meaning.
Objectivity is gone when Israel is part
of the story. The editors and reporters
just lose control and reason, if they
can possibly spin a story to vilify the
Israeli state, or better yet Jews in
particular, that is what they live for.
Martin Broschowitz, Delray Beach FL
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Stephen
8:38 pm
Nov 26, 2012
Wait a second! During the war with Iraq, didn’t the US go after TV stations, radio stations, and had arrest warrants for Bagdad Bob (Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf), the TV talking head minister of information?
We didn’t hear much from the world press (and the NY Times) complaining about all that, now did we?
The NY Times keeps showing more and more its one sided view of things, and how far it has sunk as a reputable news source. Maybe it should stick with what it now does best: fashion, social pages, celebrities, gossip, sports, and the like.
If this were WWII, which side would it be on?
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Lumiere
10:52 pm
Nov 26, 2012
Let us recall that NATO bombed Serbia’s state television station. Clare Short (!), the international development secretary, at the time, said: “This is a war, this is a serious conflict, untold horrors are being done. The propaganda machine is prolonging the war and it’s a legitimate target.” In addition,
Air Commodore David Wilby, described RTS, the Serbian state broadcasting station, as a ‘”legitimate target which filled the airways with hate and with lies over the years”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/apr/24/balkans3
NATO set the precedent, folks.
And let’s be clear- the NYT has a double standard when reporting on Israel.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Thlayli
5:09 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Indded, Carter did bomb civilian targets in Serbia.
A passanger train crossing a bridge….
A lousy comparison, though. Israel is much more justified in what it does than what USA did in Serbia.
NB Creating an artificial Kosovo state for nonexistent Kosovars, is akin to trying to create a Palestinian state for nonexistent Palestinians…
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New York Times Redefines the Word Journalist | Blogs about Israel aggregation
4:29 pm
Nov 27, 2012
[...] article can be viewed at New York Times Redefines the Word Journalist on [...]
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martin
4:45 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Correction please. The vast majority of media journalists are propagandists without doubt. some for money, some to keep living, some to keep their job and some out of pure hate for Israel and/or Jews.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Thlayli
5:06 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Why does anybody care what NYT reports anymore?
All the news not fir to print…
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Mideast Media Sampler 11/27/12
5:06 pm
Nov 27, 2012
[...] Matzav, Honest Reporting and others have also critqued [...]
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Yisrael Medad
7:09 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Me, too.
http://blogs.jpost.com/content/all-fits-wastepaper-bin
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Asher
5:46 pm
Nov 27, 2012
If Journalists are defined by good writing, selecting pertinent facts, providing optional interpretations without moralizing, writing “history in the making”, without doing the Heisenberg thing, then David may be correct. i seem to remember a Journalist reporting from Gaza sometime in late 2007, but I’m not even sure if he got injured?
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Gary Aigen
6:03 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Wobbletwig
8:24 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Journalists or war correspondents accept the risk of getting killed. If they do not then they should be reporting for the social column. If they are card carrying members of a terrorist organization, they are ligit targets.
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aaron snyder
10:39 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Ok–but insofar as they were [merely] civilians, rather than journalists, there is no more reason to complain of their being “targeted” than there is to complain of every Hamas rocket.
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The Middle East Media Sampler 11/27/2012: Media Bias from New York Times and Washington Post | Blogs about Israel aggregation
6:05 pm
Nov 27, 2012
[...] Matzav, Honest Reporting and others have also critqued [...]
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Jose martinez
6:11 pm
Nov 27, 2012
I would suggest that Mr. Carr is proof that our schools of “Journalism” do not turn out Journalist but Propagandist, besides the NYT is irrelevant accept to Liberals and Leftist, it should have the grace to die quietly instead of screaming into the wind
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Jeremiah sparks
7:21 pm
Nov 27, 2012
In this case those Hamas reporters were transporting fighters in their TV labeled vehicles.
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Paul Tenenbaum
7:58 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Come o like one, any “journalist” gping for the “Scoop” is a soldier, dressses with helmet, so he /she hnows there is acombat zone. So do not cry. This embbeded thing is for the bombed.
Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg etc.
If the consider this a job,et them take the consequences. Most of the time they understand one side only.
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Paul Tenenbaum
8:00 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Come on like one, any “journalist” going for the “Scoop” is a soldier, dressses with helmet, so he /she hnows there is acombat zone. So do not cry. This embbeded thing is wrong. yoou have experience both sides for the war zone:.
Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg etc.
If they consider this a job,et them take the consequences. Most of the time they understand one side only.
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Kris Kristian
8:49 pm
Nov 27, 2012
Money talks.
The journalists are being well paid by the Arabs to give distorted reporting, and to denigrate Israel.
If a journalst enters a war zone, he/she must know that the possibility od being killed is there.
When will these people give true and accurate reporting?
If they did that, they may be “killed by accident” by their paymasters.
And then blame Israel for their deaths.
Those proagandists have lied so much to the world, that the world hates Israel.
The TV shows children killed in Syria as having been killed by Israelis.
They even showed a man carrying a baby who was killed. But they did not do their homework. The man had an Israel Hebrew T shirt.
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Asher
10:49 pm
Nov 27, 2012
If one innocent gets killed by rockets – that is too many.
Journalists seem to have more fun keeping score “200 palestinians, 20 Israelis” as it sells headlines. “And in other sporting news … ”
Leads to disproportionate use of force – would a proportionate use of force imply even numbers of casualties? If it doesn’t how do you measure it … Equivalent KG of TNT multiplied by probability of hitting target?
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Jeffrey
3:24 pm
Nov 28, 2012
Thank G-d more Israelis were not killed and let us not forget that all the Gazan casualty figures were supplied unchallenged by Hamas spokesmen. Historically, Hamas multiplies casualty figures by a factor of three. Also, let us not forget that about an eighth of Hamas rockets landed in Gaza, with no warning being given as to where they were going to fall. They probably caused a good third of the deaths.
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Asher
10:51 pm
Nov 27, 2012
HEADLINE
========
“Carr puts truth under Buss”
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steven L
1:11 am
Nov 28, 2012
The foreign journalists should learn Arabic so that they can read the leaflet send by the IDF before targeting the Hamas. Since they are dishonest, who cares if they get killed! That much less lies against IL.
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AnaMaría
4:03 am
Nov 28, 2012
These two are part of the toxic MSM and they are accomplices of this toxic administration. So they are Socialist, anti Capitalism and anti Israel. They are bias and nasty pro Hamas / Muslim Brotherhood as you all has seen…
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Jeffrey
3:38 pm
Nov 28, 2012
“Journalists” who specialise in telling lies to support the enemy are a legitimate military target. They should be universally reviled, not protected, in a country that relies on a free press that tells the truth. There is room for difference of opinion and for different interpretations of events, but it must be based on accurate information.
Journalists in a war zone cannot claim a priviliged position of safe passage if they put themselves in target areas. No army can be expected to abandon its military objectives because journalists get in the way, especially not when they do so deliberately.
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