Lees
08-10-2001, 09:54 AM
This just came to my attention. What does this community think?
THE TIMES TRIES TO REWRITE HISTORY.
Times Bomb
by Robert Satloff
Post date 08.02.01 | Issue date 08.13.01
Imagine The New York Times covering the sinking of the Titanic with only a passing reference to the iceberg. Absurd? Not really. On July 26 the nation's newspaper of record devoted 5,681 words to a retrospective by Jerusalem bureau chief Deborah Sontag titled "Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why It Failed" and mentioned the word "intifada" just once. While virtually ignoring the Palestinian uprising that has brought the Middle East to the brink of war, the story pushes two arguments. First, that the peace process included "missteps and successes by Israelis, Palestinians and Americans alike." Second, that, in the months following Camp David, the parties were much closer to a final deal than was previously thought. But a close look at Sontag's story reveals lazy reporting, errors of omission, questionable shading, and an indifference to the basic fact that the Palestinian decision to wed diplomacy with violence, not American and Israeli miscues, damned the search for peace.
[edited down to an excerpt by staff for copyright reasons.]
THE TIMES TRIES TO REWRITE HISTORY.
Times Bomb
by Robert Satloff
Post date 08.02.01 | Issue date 08.13.01
Imagine The New York Times covering the sinking of the Titanic with only a passing reference to the iceberg. Absurd? Not really. On July 26 the nation's newspaper of record devoted 5,681 words to a retrospective by Jerusalem bureau chief Deborah Sontag titled "Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why It Failed" and mentioned the word "intifada" just once. While virtually ignoring the Palestinian uprising that has brought the Middle East to the brink of war, the story pushes two arguments. First, that the peace process included "missteps and successes by Israelis, Palestinians and Americans alike." Second, that, in the months following Camp David, the parties were much closer to a final deal than was previously thought. But a close look at Sontag's story reveals lazy reporting, errors of omission, questionable shading, and an indifference to the basic fact that the Palestinian decision to wed diplomacy with violence, not American and Israeli miscues, damned the search for peace.
[edited down to an excerpt by staff for copyright reasons.]