Dear Friend,
Please take a look at this article, “Young Palestinians Suffer Bone-Shattering Experience” which is on the front page of today’s Washington Post, and was sent to us by many of you.
If you agree that the article is biased in the way we have pointed out, please send this letter at the email address below. Or better yet, compose your own letter.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting.com
To the Editor of the Washington Post:
Your November 28 article, “Young Palestinians Suffer Bone-Shattering Experience” by Keith B. Richburg is biased, one-sided and completely misleading.
In general, you quote five Palestinians and not a single Israeli. You do have a general statement from Israel, but that is quickly dismissed in the next paragraph.
Your article contains testimony from two doctors who claim that the Israelis are targeting individuals. These are political, not medical, opinions. A bullet wound cannot in any way give evidence of the intent or aim of the one who fired it. But you make it sound like they are making medical claims.
You have no response from Israel to any of these outrageous claims. How can you print unsubstantiated claims without giving the other side a chance to rebut them? This is completely and utterly imbalanced reporting.
The first paragraph, which sets the tone for the whole article, is particularly misleading:
“Iyad was shot because he ran too fast.”
This is said as a statement of fact, yet the only evidence given in the article is his own testimony. How can you state something that is clearly a subjective opinion, as if it were fact?
“Nshat was shot because he missed his ride.”
This is completely untrue. Nshat was shot, by his own testimony, because he threw stones at soldiers. Had he not missed his ride, he would not have been shot — but missing his ride was not in any way the cause of his being shot. This is incorrect and misleading.
“Ronny was shot for throwing a stone.”
Ronny, again by his own testimony was “throwing rocks and stones” at police cars for half an hour. The Washington Post again misleads its readers by trivializing a sustained attack by calling what he did “throwing a stone.”
This is pure sensationalism, with no regard for fair unbiased standards of reporting. The Washington Post should withdraw this article forthwith.
