Jodi Rudoren becomes the NY Times’s new Jerusalem bureau chief in April, but her tweets are already coming under as much scrutiny as anything she wrote when she covered Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign.
After Rudoren replied to Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah and plugged Peter Beinart‘s book, Marc Tracy and Jeffrey Goldberg advised Rudoren to stop tweeting “for the love of God.”
Now Rudoren and Tracy followed up:
After I wrote the post, I received the following direct message from Rudoren over Twitter, which I take as her response and as confirmation of my view: “Hi Marc. Twitter’s a fleeting medium, and I’m still a novice w/it. Defly plan to Tweet & Retweet from all sides of conflict.”
Personally, I buy it. I see those tweets as evidence not of bias or slant but of somebody not understanding the power of this medium and the scrutiny she is now under.
Rudoren seems to be taking it all in stride. Welcome to the Jerusalem bureau — and lots of luck.
