Soccer Dad

Reporters blogger behaving badly?

In the little town of Candor in the last year of my youth
I learned the final lesson of the levels to the truth - Harry Chapin - The Mayor of Candor lied

Last week I posted about a media event in which a number of Israel based journalists participated, including Steven Erlanger of the NY Times. Most of my post consisted of quoting from other bloggers who were critical of the media performance. I concluded by citing an example demonstrating the media bias.

I would have stopped there but someone who claimed to be at the event left a comment claiming that the bias I condemned was not in evidence at the event and I was wrong for depending on an inaccurate account.

I wasn't sure how to proceed, but concluded that I would have to check out the source. So I contacted the editor(s) of The Media Line sponsors of the event. I received an e-mail in response from Felice Friedson one of the founders of the Media Line who wrote that she was very disappointed with the Ynet article I had blogged about and felt that the Jerusalem Post and espcecially Ha'aretz had done a better job of covering the event.

Here are the 3 accounts:
Ynet - Journalists blame Israel for war coverage
Jerusalem Post - Reporters tackle their own war coverage
Ha'aretz - 'Can the public ever get the real story?'

Though it would appear that the worst part of the Ynet article was the title "Journalists blame Israel for war coverage" there were enough issues with the article the Steven Erlanger felt the need to respond to several points. Ynet gave him the opportunity in Setting the record straight. Unfortunately, Mr. Erlanger's responses pretty much confirm - in my opinion - the attitude that was attributed to him by the Ynet article.

Let's take his responses one by one.

First, I did not lament the lack of proportionality in the war. I said that the charge of disproportionate use of force came from a variety of serious people, and that I was surprised that Israel and Israelis did not take the accusation more seriously. I said I was puzzled why the issue was not more debated in the Israeli press, and said that a least one columnist in Haaretz wondered the same. I did not utter a personal judgment about the proportionality of the war.

Except as NRO's Media Blog noted

You really must read the whole thing to appreciate the mindset of the people like the NYT's Steven Erlanger and the AP's Ravi Nessman who reported on this war for U.S. newspapers. I'll give you a hint, though: The word "proportionality" comes up a lot.

Bringing up the question of proportionality implicitly does reveal the questioner's motivation. Sure he was mentioning the views of others, but he could have also presented the view of most Israelis that six years of Hezbollah violations - not just the kidnapping of 2 soldiers - justified the response and ask why most of the world didn't accept that narrative. His choice of question is telling.

The Ynet reporter - Yaakov Lappin - who appears to be a media critic - responded

When Mr. Erlanger discussed what he described as a "big issue here, the issue of proportionality," mentioning "first the death toll, second, the visibility of destruction, the asymmetry of the war," and later adding that Israelis were "not interested in whether 1000 Lebanese civilians needed to die," it became apparent to me that a stance on the war's proportionality was on display. I was surprised by Mr. Erlanger's denial of putting forward a judgment on the war. Ultimately, it is up to readers to decide on the motivation of Mr. Erlanger's questions and comments on the war.

To be sure that's Mr. Lappin's judgment, but it hardly seems to be unfounded.

Second, I did not express surprise that Israel's view of the war was different from that of its critics. I did express surprise that the views of international critics of the war were not debated seriously and that no serious effort was made by the Israeli government or army to counter them.

See my response to the fourth item.

Third, and most egregiously, I did not maintain that the only threat faced by my own colleagues in Lebanon was posed by Israeli missiles. The response was about Gaza, not Lebanon at all, and is taken completely out of context.

Here Mr. Lappin acknowedges his mistake, though he still finds something to criticize here:

I accept Mr. Erlanger's correction regarding his comments on dangers posed by his colleagues – he was in fact referring to his colleagues in Gaza, not Lebanon. Mr. Erlanger said that Israeli missiles were the source of danger for his colleagues in the Gaza, a curious comment in light of the recent kidnapping at gunpoint of two Fox journalists in Gaza.

Back to Erlanger ...

Fourth, I did turn down an offer by the IDF to watch their desk that was supposed to be coordinating humanitarian aid. The Jerusalem Post had already run that precise story, and I used it as an example of the army's sometimes clumsy efforts at spin.

I don't understand how this meshes with Erlanger's second response. There he wrote that the IDF and government weren't making a serious response to counter Israel's critics. The problem is that he was given an opportunity to report on such an effort. He dismissed the effort as clumsy and claimed that there was no need to write about it because the Jerusalem Post had already reported the effort.

Why not report on something just because Jerusalem Post already did? It didn't stop Erlanger from reporting on Qana just because other news agencies had. (Although to his credit he noted that the number of dead was subject to some dipute, instead of accepting the toll of 56 uncritically.)

Ha'aretz, reported the following:

Erlanger said that he erred in taking the head of Military Intelligence too seriously and in not taking Lebanese politics seriously enough. He also regretted publishing a picture focusing on a damaged section of Beirut without showing the larger context of the city.

I believe Amos Yadlin to be serious. Not taking him seriously enough is, I think, problematic. But when Erlanger's citing his faults in covering the recent war, and mentions that he didn't provide the proper context in showing the destruction in Beirut. His most important failing hurt Israel.

I got into blogging in part out of frustration with the way the MSM reported on Israel. When I read the article in Ynet and the bloggers commenting on it, it confirmed my worst suspicions about the prejudices that reporters bring to their job. Perhaps I should have been suspicious with Ynet's over the top title "Journalists blame Israel for war coverage." But I don't find that outside of the title and Lappin's one clear mistake that the article misrepresented the views of the Erlanger. Perhaps other details will emerge from the recording that will show Lappin's approach to be excessively negative.

I'd have to agree, failing any further information, with NRO's Media Blog who concluded

Having read all three, it seems to me that Ynet just chose to emphasize different comments. Without the audio or video, it's hard to say which account comes closest to accurately describing the panel discussion.

Mere Rhetoric based on the same information isn't as generous to Ynet and ends his commentary with a bit of irony.

15 seconds of Googling this morning was enough to confirm that past Lappin articles about the international media have a very marked editorial tone. That's obviously not a reason not to trust him when he says that a fact is a fact, but it's retroactive confirmation that something may be amiss. Even in the worst case for him, there's nothing in this article that could get a journalist fired. But the number and kind of the tricks that he used (stringing together quotes, excluding context, etc) make things confusing enough that we feel uncomfortable basing a post on his quotes. What we might have is a biased reporter being dishonest in order to undermine a panel of media figures convened for the purpose of explaining media dishonesty. Very elegant.

It's worth Ynet's mistake is significant. In Context noticed that the section reporting that Erlanger had claimed that his colleagues in Lebanon were more at risk from Israeli rockets than from Hezbollah had been removed. That was because Erlanger's comments were about Gaza not Lebanon.

But there should have been a mention in the original article that the claim was wrong and that's why it was removed. If not that, then at least reporter Lappin should have mentioned explicitly that the section was deleted from the original article. Simply removing a mistake without acknowledging it is not right.

Hopefully the Media Line will post the audio as it has said and we'll get to hear how biased or not the journalists were at the symposium for ourselves. But until then I have to conclude that the Ynet article was guilty of little more than emphasizing the negative.

Thanks to fellow bloggers In Context, Mere Rhetoric and NRO's Media Blog for their input, encouragement and work on this story. And thank you to the Media Line for responding promptly to my inquiry. I'm sorry that I don't find the new information as exculpatory as they do. Erlanger''s response to Lappin made me less sympathetic than I otherwise would have been. I really don't think that his views were misrepresented as he more or less confirmed them.

Technorati tags: The Media Line, Steven Erlanger, Media Bias, Israel.

Posted by SoccerDad at September 3, 2006 10:31 AM