January 15 'Media Critique': "Media 'War Crimes'

HR gets back to some of it's old tricks in just plain old fabrication.

Human Rights Watch has condemned Israel for allegedly using white phosphorus weapons unlawfully in the conflict ......media including The Guardian, Times of London, Christian Science Monitor and CNN have repeated HRW's claims

What, the media has reported claims!! The nerve of them. Will HR demand that they also stop reported the claims of IDF spokesmen?

However, this charge has been disputed by the International Red Cross, which stated that it had no evidence to suggest that white phosphorus is being used improperly or illegally by Israel.

They then provide an excerpt from an AP story quoting an ICRC expert. But they leave out an important point he made,

However, Herby said evidence is still limited because of the difficulties of gaining access to Gaza........

And the BBC,

Yet again, journalistic professionalism is thrown out of the window in the BBC's desperate attempts to attack and sully Israel

How?

The article states that "BBC journalists in Gaza and Israel have compiled detailed accounts of the claims." Who are these BBC journalists in Gaza? On the basis that foreign press have not been allowed access to Gaza, one can only assume that these supposedly neutral observers are, in fact, Palestinians

OMG! The BBC actually takes the word of Palestinian journalists and reports the views of Palestinian eyewitnesses. Don't they know that all Arabs are liars?

Don't you just love the smell of bigotry in the air in the morning?

Which takes us back to the white phosphorous story. HR continued by noting a Ynet news story claiming that one Hamas mortar that landed in Israel contained white phosphorous. The story quoted a 'security chief' from a regional council. Though HR hasn't the slightest doubt about the word of "this supposedly neutral observer" who is, in fact, Israeli [cue: audible intake of breath].

January 13 'Media Critique': "Media Gives Platform to Radical Doctor "

HR are having a fit over Mads Gilbert, a doctor currently working in Gaza. He's given quite a few interviews, prompting HR to screech,

Why does the media continue to quote propagandist Mads Gilbert?

Probably because he's witnessing the scenes that Israel is blocking the media from seeing for themselves.

And "propagandist" - oh, HR mean that he says things that HR doesn't like.

Having no basis to criticise what he actually says, HR go for the personal attack from, can you believe it, Melanie Phillips,

He is a political activist and member of the Norwegian Maoist 'Red' party.

And HR, ever the unintentional practitioners of extreme irony, tell us about their online petition,

The petition stated, "I call on the media to provide balanced, objective coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict and not rely on information from Hamas - a terrorist organization - as a source of news. I demand that the use of images and headlines that misrepresent current events to the detriment of the State of Israel be stopped immediately."

It's hilarious to see a stridently partisan and dishonest mob like HR demanding "balanced" and "objective coverage" - the very last thing that they actually want, evidenced by the attack on Mads Gilbert.

As HR consistently demonstrate, any thing that is to "the detriment of the State of Israel " is, by definition, a misrepresentation. The logic of this statement suggests that HR would be quite OK with anything that might "misrepresent the current situation" to the benefit of Israel, ie Israeli propaganda. I'm sure they didn't mean to suggest this, but it is obviously true, as they show with every 'Media Critique'.

Naturally, while Hamas is not a valid source of information, HR will continue to take the word of IDF spokesmen as the word of God.

January 11 Media Critique: "Israel at War - Day 15 "

Unlike the rest of the international media, The Jerusalem Post reports that the IDF has denied firing on a UN aid truck on Thursday

That's right, the rest of the world got it wrong, only that paragon of fearless reporting, The JPost, got it right.

A pity that HR don't tell us where JPost got their truth from.. Let me - its hot tip came from an unnamed MDA source who said that an Israeli soldier told him.

OK.

Media outlets, while distinguishing between Israeli civilian and military casualties have failed to do the same on the Palestinian side

For which HR gives not a single exmaple. And that would be becuase there aren't any.

More of the usual rubbish from HR, yet again reminding us that they will complain about anything that is less than 100% in agreement with their strident pro-Israel position.

January 5 'Media Critique': "Coming Soon? Hamas' Media Massacre"

"When will Hamas and the media create a new libel?"

Another compelling media critique from HR.

As abysmal as this is, HR manage to make it worse with their comments on this rather sensible BBC piece.

But why does the BBC's Paul Reynolds consider the Israeli message to be
"propaganda?" And why does he treat IDF video sources with such skepticism

Why?? Ah, let me count the reasons, 1, 2,.....etc etc

It's a measure of HRs fierce commitment to fighting bias that it is shocked that the official pronouncements of the IDF could be described as "propaganda". Don't these stupid journalists realise that only the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth passes from the pure lips of IDF spokesmen?

January 1 'Media Critique': "Israel at War - Day 6"

HonestReporting make much of their professed goal to fight bias and keep the media honest.

And I'm all for impartiality and fairness.

But could you take advice regarding bias and impartiality from an organisation that, without the slightest hint of irony, sends out the following as part of its 'media critique'.

As rocket attacks escalate on Israel, so does the media war

There's a 'media war'?

Apparently so, and HR sees itself as one of protagonists marshaling its on-line troops.

HonestReporting and HR UK will be combining to bring you regular Special Alerts............and how to get involved in the online battle.

Then, eschewing even the faintest pretense of subtlety,

HELP US WIN

December 29 'Media Critique': "Israel at War: A Primer"

Well that was quick, though it isn’t a 'Media Critique’, but rather a pre-emptive strike. The faithful need to be inculcated on the received truth so they recognise evil media bias when they see it.

There’s a huge selection to choose from but I’ll just pick out a few of the most glaring.

Israel left Gaza in 2005, giving Palestinians the chance to run their own lives. Despite this, more than 6300 rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel since then.

Just forget the fact that post-withdrawl the Palestinians announced a one month cessation of all rocket fire, in which to lift the blockade on Gaza. Israel responded by tightening the blockade. The Palestinians chance to run their lives in Gaza does not extend to control of its borders, coast or air-space, all of which are controlled by Israel.

The deterioration in the situation is the direct result of Hamas policy. It violated the calm, is firing against and attacking Israeli citizens, and is investing all its resources in arming itself and gathering power

Nevermind that during the "ceasfire" dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israel in Gaza.

If Hamas would renounce the path of terror, there would be no need for the Israeli action. Quiet will be answered with quiet, but terror will elicit a response.

Don’t expect anyone to suggest that Israel renounce the path of violence, or withdraw its illegal settlements from Palestinian territory.

The goal of the Israeli military action is to strike the growing infrastructure of terror and ability of Hamas and its allied organizations to launch missiles and mortars at Israeli citizens and carry out terror attacks

That’s why so many of the dead are police officers. One strike killed a dozen traffic police. No more parking tickets of mass destruction.

Hamas has demonstrated its increased threat as the Ashdod area was hit by rockets, marking the northernmost point where Hamas rockets have reached, more than 40km north of Gaza.

Which where launched on Dec 28, the day after Israel killed over 200 in Gaza to prevent rocket launches. Gotta love that prevention.

The terrorist organizations work out of the Palestinian population centers and cynically exploit them, so the responsibility for Palestinian civilians getting hurt rests on their shoulders. Israel, for its part directs its activity at terrorist elements and does its utmost to refrain from harming the innocent.

This is the lamest of apologetics and is in direct contravention to the Geneva Conventions. Even id these claims are true they do not absolve Israel of its responsibilities. And hasn’t anybody told HR? – the whole of Gaza is a "population centre", a very dense one and the dropping of large bombs in such areas will kill innocent civilians.

There’s much more along the same vein. I’d imagine that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been busy providing propaganda hasbara a list of talking-points to counter the natural reaction Israels spectacle in the Gaza Strip will provoke amongst normal people.

December 24 `Media Critique’: "BBC's Christmas Odyssey"

It’s time for HonestReporting’s yearly attempt at the evil-media-using-Christmas-to-attack-Israel story.

It’s a very poor effort, but at least it’s a change from this regular routine .

This is the moderately interesting BBC story from Aleem Maqbool.

The gist of HRs complaint is this,

Unfortunately, he over-romanticizes the Palestinians while portraying the IDF in a sinister light, exerting a strong but subtle bias.

Which means that he spoke to real live Palestinians and heard their stories in their own words.

Maqbool was also guilty of conspiring with "extremist[s]", a certain George Rishmawi who is a co-founder of the ISM. He’s apparently an extremist because the ISM volunteers have,

placed themselves in front of Israeli Army vehicles, removed concrete boundaries from roads

That would make Gandhi an extremist too.

Then there is more on his "subtle bias",

Maqbool doesn't directly attack Israel. He doesn't have to. The bias in his diary is much more subtle

HR says "Israelis are portrayed as malevolent:", citing this example,

From al-Badhan, the "Journey of Death" trail started. It is called that, not just for its long, steep, rocky climbs, or the fact that Israeli snipers frequently use the mountain tops ...

HR don’t dispute the fact of the statement. Is it true? Yes, it certainly is. So it’s HR who designate the Israeli snipers as "malevolent". I won’t disagree.

And on and on it goes in the same tortured fashion.


I’d like to think that this is last time this year that I’ll have to wade through the sewer that is HR, but given the events of yesterday, I’m sure there’s at least one more malodorous ‘Media Critique’ on the way before 2009.

Round Up

Here’s a quick review of what I’ve ignored over the past month.

On November 30 we were treated to Honest Reportings take on the Mumbai terrorist attack. It was a long- winded diatribe on one of HRs favourite subjects – demanding that the media use the ‘t’ word. ‘Militants’ and ‘gunmen’ aren’t good enough for HR.

Their stance is rather undermined by the fact that just back in October they were complaining about the media describing Israeli settlers as ‘militants’ for their politically motivated violence against Palestinians. Did it demand the 't' word? HR, being ever fair and principled in these matters, advised that they were just "young hooligans".


And on December 15 a further reprise of the monumentally underwhelming issue of the Iranian Press TV. Now it has extended its broadcasts through Sky TV.

But the real issue in this ‘Media Critique’ was a subsequent section titled "Gaza: More 'Blame Israel' ". This is quintessential HR in all its dishonest glory.

HR start with this,

While the suffering of Gaza's Palestinians is not in dispute…

And immediately demonstrate their sincerity in the very next sentence,

There have been many stories published concerning alleged shortages in Gaza….

And then,

many Gazans have become addicted to readily available prescription drugs to help them through difficult times. Is this the same Gaza that has been 'denied' medical supplies?

Not to mention the previous claims that power cuts in Gaza are actually due to Hamas conducting a media campaign.

So, to summarise, HR don’t deny that Palestinians in Gaza are suffering….........from an abundance of goods from Egypt, addiction to prescribed medications and over zealous PR.

Nov 24 ‘Media Critique’: “Alibhai-Brown's Media Outrage”

HonestReporting are in a spin over this in The Independent. An accurate if somewhat mild take on the situation , which of course outrages HR into a fit of spinning.

Contrary to Alibhai-Brown's accusations, food aid and medical supplies have been allowed into Gaza

‘Have’ being the operative word. For the edification of the reader, HR direct them to a impartial observer for clarification of Alibhai-Brown's calumny – an Israeli Govt website.
Here’s the story – Israel refused all crossings from Nov 5 to Nov 16. Some trucks were allowed through on the 17 th, then closed again till “As recently as today (Nov. 24), the Gaza crossings have been reopened for supplies.” But unfortunately, as recently as the day after (25th) they closed again.

But it’s all the Palestinians fault anyway,

crossing points have only been shut due to persistent Palestinian rocket attacks

See, they fired rockets on the 5th, so Israel had no choice. Nevermind the why of it. Oh heck, I’ll tell you anyway. On the 4th the IDF invaded Gaza and killed a few Palestinians. Minor detail. Anyway, I’m sure you can see that then cuting off food and medical supplies to 1.5 million people, of about which 800,00 are children, for 11 days is quite a reasonable response. It’s not like that would be collective punishment against a civilian population, which would be a breach of international humanitarian law or a war crime.

And they let the trucks in, 33 of them on the 17th. That’s a lot. Never mind that the UN says 15 trucks are needed everyday to maintain a miniumum supply of humanitarian aid.
Let’s see, the crossings were closed for11 days up to the 17th, 11 days x 15 is...........you know, 33 is a lot of trucks.

And,

Contrary to Alibhai-Brown's charge regarding power cuts, even the Palestinian Authority has accused Hamas of staging the latest blackouts in the Gaza Strip

Contrary to HR’s unsupported assertions, Israels restrictions on fuel imports results in power outages. From Nov 9, following Israels cutting of fuel deliveries since the 5th, almost half of Gaza was without any electricity for 2 days. And in Gaza, no electricity means no water.

There was more, but it made less and less sense as it went on,

Alibhai-Brown aptly demonstrates this demonization in her concluding paragraph, where a parable with the horror of the Nazi Holocaust is impossible to ignore:

‘Parable with’? This was Alibhai-Browns ‘parable’,

Evil happens when the world says and does nothing. That a Jewish state expects no condemnation of the evil it perpetrates shows that nothing is learnt from history.

Cue: mock outrage.

Nov 18 ‘Media Critique: “CNN: One Year Analysis”

There seems to be a bottom less pit of stoopid at HonestReporting.

We have yet more banal allegations of media 'bias'. Not that we should expect anything less. Some dopey sod is throwing cash at this venture, so they have no choice but to keep churning out the claims.

CNNs turn today.

I'd like to give a rational and logical rebuttal of HRs methodology, but, as usual, they don't provide one. The best we can do is to infer.

HR have looked at "hundreds of videos" from CNN, and selected 53. We don't know which ones they viewed and have little idea of the basis for choosing those selected. And HR certainly don't provide the list of those they claimed to have analysed.

They do however give a highly technical description of their video analysis. Videos are assessed as "favouring" one perspective over another. Alas, HR fail to provide a definition. HR correct for this by the careful application of very precise numbers. Hence, 67 mins of CNNs video coverage 'favours' Palestinians compared to only 31 for Israel.
This figure is arrived at via the highly sophisticated ‘stop watch’ test. In the complete absence of real bias, or any interest in doing the necessary intellectual work to do a real analysis, HR time the videos. If there's a second more footage of Palestinians than Israelis, it's biased. This is stupid in just so many ways. Remember this is TV. Visual content is priority No1. Scenes of death and destruction are visually interesting. HR are unhappy that there was more time spent on the scenes of destruction than on Israeli Govt talking heads. Balance isn't a crude measure of equal time, but about fairly and accurately presenting the various perspectives on an issue.

If I may be so cynical, can I suggest that anything HR perceives as 'favouring' Palestinians or reflecting “negatively on Israel”, is simply a failure to adhere to the 100% Israel right or wrong prejudices of HR. In which case, 70% of CNN video footage failing to meet the HR standard of compliance is probably a tad conservative.

And of course there are the usual factual errors and misrepresentations.
HR complains about the raw video CNN uses,

The viewer, however, has no way of knowing that these so-called "non-violent" Palestinian demonstrations are anything but. As we have documented, the goal of the protestors is often to use enough violence to provoke the Israeli soldiers into a response while the cameras are rolling.

Unfortunately for HRs argument, the “documented” case they link to is in their highly respected Backspin section. One example they give is a Palestinian youth who says something (yes, he said something) to an IDF soldier, who brutually assaults him and throws him in the back of a jeep. The journalist , in front of whom this occurs, speculates the youth might not have done this without him present. That is the kind of "violence" these nasty Palestinian protesters use to “provoke” the peace loving IDF soldiers. Oh the bias!

And,

an ‘expert’ falsely claims that Israel controls all of Gaza borders. In fact, Israel today has no presence on Gaza's border with Egypt. Yet the viewer would not know this from the report. Once again, Mark Regev voices Israel's position but is immediately contradicted by the "expert's" false statement.

Yes, Israel has no soldiers on the Rafah border, but it does indeed control it. Under the agreement with Egypt, Israel has overall control of crossing points. If Israel says no, Egypt does not allow border crossings.

HR need to get something into their thick skulls - news coverage doesn’t exist to satisfy the petulant demands of partisans, but to provide information that will allow better understanding by the public of the issues at hand.

Nov 11 ‘Media Critique’: “AFP's Staged Photo?”

HR pines for the glory days of digitally enhanced images, circa the Lebanon War, but can only manage todays lame effort.

It's become quite an obsession, with the result that they are suffering from over reach – seeing what they desperately want to see.

Hint to HR - stop trying so hard, something might burst. Like your credibility. Actually that's not possible. HR has none.

Here's the photo,



For a change I'll also link to the ‘Back Spin' article itself. This is so funny, I wouldn't want anyone to miss out.

They're roped in some poor sucker, David Katz, to play the photographic 'expert' who sets about demonstrating that he doesn't have a clue. We're told that it's his "gut feeling" it's a fraud, but HR caution that there's "no smoking gun", which is otherwise known as 'evidence'. And that would be because it's just a straight photo. Our 'expert' tries the 'look at the light!' angle, but that just confirms the lack of evidence. The sun is high above, shining from the foreground and the right (as you look at the photo). Our ‘expert’ questions the lack of shadows on super-bunny, which is odd given presence of shadows on bunny on its left and underneath. I could go on, as there are so many stupid things said by our photographic expert, but I won’t bother, I’m sure you get the idea.

But really, what kind of fraud is this meant to be?? They have a photo of a guy standing on pile of rubble with his arm in the air and someone says 'hey I've got a great propaganda idea, let's photoshop a bright pink flying upside-down bunny in the middle of the photo'?

Huh?

Have a look here to see other photos from the same area that will demonstrate what a stunning propaganda coup the flying pink bunny is.

I don't know how stupid HR thinks people are, but this clearly demonstrates how stupid they are.



The inanity then continues with HR distress over “Occupied Jerusalem” and a few other storms in various teacups.

Nov 4 ‘Media Critique’: “LA Times Rehashes A Libel”

A Palestinian journalist claims to have been beaten up by IDF soldiers. Reporting this is a "libel" according to HonestReporting.

How?

By following the HR rules of media analysis - all Palestinians lie, and all IDF soldiers and Israel-firsters are honest.

From that, that the article is a "libel" is amply demonstrated by HR referring to the evidence - namely, 2 references to itself, another to the slightly more sophisticated CAMERA and finally a large quote from the far-right UN Watch.

Case closed.

October 30 Media Critique: “Descent Into Durban 2”

I’m not sure what the ‘media critique’ angle is here. There doesn’t seem to be one.

But, HR hate the UNs Conference on Racism, that much is clear.



“MORE HAMAS ABUSE OF HUMANITARIAN AID”

The Evil Hamas has abused Israels kindness in allowing some goods into Gaza by cunningly concealing items “under a surface” (?). The offending items were ”camouflage fatigues”. Also smuggled in were “coats, sweaters, hats”.

Without a hint of irony, the quote includes this from an unnamed Israeli “security official”

They choose to use the permits provided by Israel for the entry of humanitarian equipment for the organization's own needs

Indeed!

All right thinking people can see how deeply concerned Israel is for the Palestinian population by severely restricting the passage of goods to the 1.5 million people in Gaza, and how Hamas has a callous disregard for them by trying to get in more stuff than Israel will allow.

Disgraceful.

October 23 Media Critique: ” A Stabbing in Gilo”

This version of outrage is about the worlds media having the temerity to mention a simple fact – that Gilo in southern Jerusalem is an illegal settlement. Gilo is situated in East Jerusalem captured by Israel in the 1967 war and annexed to Israel in 1993. No country recognizes the legal validity of this annexation.

Not that such pesky facts stop HR from engaging in some bizarre contortions.

Gilo, despite being over the 1967 Green Line, is certainly not a "settlement," in the most used sense of the word…..

Yeah, it’s that less used sense of the word, the one where a settlement isn’t a settlement.

Naturally, that’s not all.

“MORE FAULTY TERMINOLOGY”

Hold onto your hats, this is a HR special.

HonestReporting has regularly criticized much of the media for referring to Palestinian terrorists who target innocent civilians through suicide bombings or other acts of violence as "militants."

This is obsession No.1 at HR. They are very paticular that the media should always use the term ‘terrorist’.

They’ve even quoted US law in the past to argue their point,

The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.

But now,

The Economist features the criminal and violent activities of some young Israeli settler extremists, referring to them as "Jewish settler-militants" and a "militant hardcore group."

HR is most upset.

Is The Economist unable to distinguish between young hooligans and real bona fide terrorists thus creating a false equivalence?

The Economist, being consistent, refers to them as militants.

And very interestingly HR,

call on the media to practice greater precision in their terminology and to use the word "terrorist" where appropriate.

What a fine idea. And going back to the definition HR were so keen on in the past, what should we call groups of Israeli settlers who, yet again this year like every year before, engage in premeditated acts of violence against Palestinian civilians to push their political message?

I agree with HR! The Economist should have called them ‘Jewish settler-terrorists’.

One of the mis-understood “young hooligan” settlers wanting to go and have a nice chat with the Palestinian farmers.

Round-Up

HonestReporting have been even more underwhelming than usual. The latest collection of limp offerings is testament to the absence of any real ‘anti-Israel media bias’.

On August 26 some obscure Canadian TV station ran a story about the on-going protests over the Seperation Wall. They mistakenly reported that 11 were killed, rather than injured. A scrolling caption was used to correct the error. This was “dismal” according to HR. Maybe a minutes nation-wide silence would have been appropriate?

Sadly, they followed this up on Sept 4 with a re-hash of that story, titled, “Just Not Good Enough”. Yawns all round.

Next, the dastardly Sky News used a file photo. Oh, the evil!

Then a really bizarre bit of self-indulgence – “HR Rejects Iranian Press TV Request” with the wonderfully pompous sub-headline – “No to cooperating with an Iranian propaganda tool.” Insight - zero.
I’m sure they were strutting around the office with their chests puffed out for a week after that.

And finally a pot-shot at a regular target, Johann Hari – “More Smears by Hari”.

Unlike the rubbish pedaled by HR, it’s a thoughtful piece, even though I’m not at all convinced by the ‘last chance’ argument.

In short – you’ve missed nothing.

August 13 Media Critique: “The Guardian: Promoting Online Terror”

Yes, “promoting”, no less. Though I think they meant ‘promoting terror online’., unless HonestReporting think that this website will lead to bombs exploding on the internet.

Become a Hamas terrorist today with The Guardian!

Sadly, the truth is far less interesting.

The Guardian, here, includes a link (WARNING! : the following link may cause your promotion to the status of terrorist) to here.

This is commonly known as ‘information’, a strange concept much encountered in ‘news’. Go figure.

HR are mortified,

We have not linked to this site (pictured below) as we do not wish to generate traffic to a terrorist organization.

But they did provide this link to The Guardian’s page where the Hamas link is. Of course, you know what everybody reading the HR report did after clicking on The Guardian link, don’t you?

HR – promoting terror, by proxy, online!!

August 5 ‘Media Critique’: “Media Falls for NGO's 'Halo Effect' "

Is there a writers strike?

The last few efforts from HonestReporting have been so dismal I’ve been unable to rouse myself to bother responding. First it was a rehash of the July 2 attack on the BCC. Then it was a call for the pro-Israel McCarthyism to be directed at local media.

Now,
"Why are an NGO's allegations against Israel accepted by an unquestioning media?”

The sheer stupidity makes me want to cry.

How does the media “accept" the allegations by NGO’s? By reporting them, apparently.

It’s back to Media Basics 101 for HR. Reporting is saying that "Person 1 said 'y is…..' ", as opposed to endorsing, which is “y is…..”.

When a media story provides an NGO statement/allegation as clearly coming from that organisation, that is reporting. Duh!

The problem really is that HR doesn’t want such perspectives aired in public.

And as always, HR are the complete hypocrites on the subject. Just a few weeks back HR was offering official IDF statements as reliable sources on incidents involving the IDF.

Independent NGOs are unreliable, but the IDF can be trusted……..only through the HonestReporting looking-glass where failure to be stridently pro-Israel is a sign of bias.

The substance of the story is that Physicians for Human Rights has alleged that the Israel security services are withholding medical services unless Palestinians collaborate. The only thing that would surprise me is if they weren’t. This is kind of what security services do. HRs 'critique' is mostly a lengthy excerpt from the mendacious NGO Monitor, whose long-winded waffle is best summed up as – ‘maybe it’s not true’.

That the Shin Bet use all sorts of nasty coercion to recruit informants in the Occupied Territories is way, way beyond contention.

July 16 ‘Media Critique’ : “The New York Times: A Year-Long Analysis”

Here we go again. My last review of this is still, unfortunately, relevant.

And a NYT journalists comment remains particularly apt,

They don’t want you to be balanced in your coverage; they want you to portray the morality of the war as they see it.

There are just a few things worth noting.

In its six month ‘review’ HonestReporting complained that 60% of photos were “sympathetic” (according to HRs “objective”, but wonderfully unexplained, analysis). But now “Three quarters of these images evoke sympathy for the Palestinians”. For HR this is,

a clear case of bias

As I explained last time,

This is the hallmark of utterly vacuous faux-media analysis – that balance in reporting might be represented by the Golden Mean, a midpoint between 2 opposed positions. An objective reference point would be to look at casualties. Given that the ratio of deaths is about 4:1 in ‘favour’ of Palestinians, maybe an objective use of photos to portray reality would have 80% of photos evoking understanding of the Palestinian situation.

So maybe the NYT is becoming less biased, rather than more. (Note: I’m being rather generous given that the death ratio was more like 40:1 in 2007, rather than the 4:1 figure I used, which would equate to 98% of photos being sympathetic. An even more telling statistic might be how many dead Palestinians are never even mentioned in the news, compared to dead Israelis, the later figure being zero.)

HR then used a photo from Gaza showing a boy at a barbed wire fence to try to explain its point. They wrote,

The image is one portraying the depravation of the Palestinian people in Gaza

Hmmmm……surely that should’ve been “deprivation”. Crude error, or inherent prejudice showing through?

Update:

HR have amended the sentance, it now reads "The image is one portraying the deprivation of the Palestinian people in Gaza".

July 8 ‘Media Critique’: ”Humanizing the Murderer”

I should be completely inured to HonestReportings hypocrisy and stupidity by now, but this latest ‘Media Critique’ was another WTF! moment.

HR is concerned over some media's coverage that placed,

emphasis on the attacker's motives to humanize him and "explain" his actions

It’s just that favourite old canard that media examination of motivation in such incidents is actually legitimisation of them. Given that the attacker was human, it’s hard to see the problem with humanisation, unless HR is suggesting that de-humanisation is the right approach? And of course HR are careful to restrict their sampling (ie distort by omission) of the media to suit their own ends. Exactly the same kind of coverage appeared in the Israeli media, eg. in Ha'aretz , YnetNews, and even in the Jerusalem Post, from which HR quoted an excerpt of an article that is critical of other media for exploring motives! It’s comedy (or hypocrisy) central. But you can’t sell this as ‘anti-Israel media bias’ if the Israeli media is doing precisely the same thing, so HR carefully avoid mentioning this. The HR sheep may be quite dim, but it would be too much to expect even of them that their credulity could stretch so far as to swallow that.

But nothing HR say can be taken at face value. Outraged over attempts to “explain” murderous actions today, while yesterday it was a very different story………November 2002 and UNRWA employee, Iain Hook, is killed by the IDF in Jenin.

An innocent unarmed man is killed. Knowing how much HR detest “humanizing the murderer” or even any attempt to "explain" it, their ‘Media Critique’ of that day laments that “media outlets have failed to report the Israeli side of this story”.

And remember HRs whine just 6 days ago about the BBC headline?

the latest BBC headline "Bulldozer rampage hits Jerusalem", is also fundamentally flawed, failing to attribute the attack to the Palestinian individual who carried it out. Instead it refers to an inanimate machine as the instigator. Of course, the bulldozer did not carry out its actions of its own free will.

So, how did HR describe the murder of Iain Hook ?

United Nations worker Iain Hook was killed by an IDF bullet

Ah, that would be the bullet of free will.

According to HRs standards of 6 days ago this was “fundamentally flawed’, “shocking” and “despicable”.

July 2 ‘Media Critique’: “Caught: BBC's Shocking First Response to Terror Attack”

“We catch the BBC's despicable first headline before it gets changed”, shriek HonestReporting.

What was it?

Israel bulldozer driver shot dead

HR offer this weird explanation,

we were able to catch the BBC before it amended its headline, this example offers further evidence of the BBC's mindset - the initial instinct to portray Israel as an aggressor and a Palestinian as a victim even if that Palestinian was actively involved in a terrorist attack against innocent civilians.

“Shocking”, “despicable”……quick, someone get the smelling salts.

Where on earth they see “Israel as an aggressor” and “Palestinian as a victim” in that 5 word headline is anyone’s guess. Fevered imagination perhaps?

And of course they had the benefit of writing this ‘Media Critique’ many hours later when all the facts were known. And naturally, the updated BBC headline was also reason to complain. But, hey, that’s just what they do.