Helping the NY Times Become ‘Truth Vigilantes’
Last week, Arthur Brisbane — the public editor of the New York Times – asked: “Should the Times be a Truth Vigilante?”
Apparently many of the Times‘ readers count on the paper to cast a skeptical eye on dubious claims of politicians. (Based on Brisbane’s examples, the word “politicians” should be modified with “Republican.”) In response to an email, Brisbane sets out the problems he needs to resolve:
This message was typical of mail from some readers who, fed up with the distortions and evasions that are common in public life, look to The Times to set the record straight. They worry less about reporters imposing their judgment on what is false and what is true.
Is that the prevailing view? And if so, how can The Times do this in a way that is objective and fair? Is it possible to be objective and fair when the reporter is choosing to correct one fact over another? Are there other problems that The Times would face that I haven’t mentioned here?
Brisbane’s column got me thinking: could being a “truth vigilante” actually improve the New York Times? I believe so.
I don’t pretend to be an expert in everything published in the Times, but I am pretty familiar with its coverage of the Middle East. So if Brisbane would like examples of how his employer could “set the record straight” in a way that is “objective and fair,” here are examples related to news stories that appeared in the Times is 2011.
On January 1, 2011, Isabel Kershner reported “Tear Gas Kills a Palestinian Protester”:
A Palestinian woman died Saturday after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli forces a day earlier at a protest against Israel’s separation barrier in a West Bank village.
A hospital director, Dr. Muhammad Aideh, said the woman had arrived on Friday suffering from tear-gas asphyxiation and died despite hours of treatment.
Kershner followed up a few days later with “Israeli Military Officials Challenge Account of Palestinian Woman’s Death”:
The army routinely fires CS tear gas against the protesters to keep them away from the barrier and to disperse stone-throwing youths. The gas is toxic and can be lethal in closed environments but is considered nonlethal in the open air. Israeli military officials said the gas used on Friday was exactly the same as that used every week.
Pro-Israel advocates quickly pounced on the Israeli military official’s anonymous conjectures, accusing the Palestinians of fabricating the story of death from tear gas for propaganda purposes. The Palestinians riposted, saying the Israelis were making an underhanded attempt to discredit them and cover up army actions. The Palestinian government’s media center called the Israeli arguments “reprehensible,” describing them as “half truths,” “misinformation” and “lies.”
You see Brisbane’s dilemma: How does the reporter know which claim to challenge and which to let stand? So by presenting both, Kershner demonstrated balance. And shouldn’t balance be the goal of any newspaper? Well, in this case there’s an objective truth that undermines the claims of one side. A “truth vigilante” paragraph in either article would have read:
There are no documented cases of people dying from tear gas inhalation in open spaces as alleged by the Palestinian witnesses to the death of Jawaher Abu Rahma. This casts doubt on the veracity of their testimony that was reported uncritically.
In general, when the Times reports on Israeli violence against Palestinians, it seems that any charge made by the Palestinians is worth reporting without skepticism. Similarly, the Times accepts nearly every claim made by Palestinian leadership at face value.
In March, following the slaughter of the Fogel family, Kershner reported “Abbas Condemns Killing of Jewish Family”:
The new focus on incitement against Israel, together with Israeli dissatisfaction over the Palestinian response to the brutal attack, seemed to pose a question about the Israeli government’s readiness to deal with Mr. Abbas as a serious peace partner — even though Mr. Abbas and Mr. Fayyad are widely considered moderates who have repeatedly said they would never resort to violence.
Mr. Abbas rejected the claims about incitement in mosques, telling Israel Radio that the Palestinian Authority mosques have adopted a unified text for sermons, written by the minister of religious affairs. He called for a joint Israeli-Palestinian-American working committee to investigate claims that Palestinian Authority school textbooks incited violence.
Two paragraphs of “truth vigilantism” would have stated:
Despite his carefully cultivated image as a moderate, incitement in the official Palestinian Authority media remains prevalent under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas himself has been documented publicly extolling terrorists and offering aid to their families.
Contrary to the assertion of the reporter, Israel’s current focus on incitement is not new. Prime Minister Netanyahu demanded an end to it during his first term as prime minister, as well.
Meaningless words. Well-crafted garbage is what the Times is. That’s why they’re failing: there aren’t enough deluded rich liberals to pay the bills of that enterprise.
You have a very strange idea of what it means to be a non biased reporter. Presenting both sides is what a journalist is required to do. Your altered paragraph removes the hospital directors conclusion. You are instead accepting what the Israeli military concludes as the entire truth while ignoring the Hospital director, who actually saw the woman. How are you not disgusted with yourself?
He merely pointed out what is true. There are no documented cases of CS gas killing anyone exposed to it in open air.
Palestinians lie like we breath, so ‘doctor’ or not, his account is more than a little suspect.
Like Kool-aid much?
Thank you, LaSuthenboy!
No, a journalist is required to determine what is the truth and present that. Presenting both sides is an abdication of that responsibility to the reader who does not have access to the information necessary to make an informed decision. That is what they read newspapers for!
To use a math example, imagine Bob said 2+2=6 and Jane said 2+2=4. Should the journalist print both and lead the reader to imply that 2+2=5, or use leading language to imply that 2+2=6 is the correct answer and 2+2=4 is only an opinion held by right-wing extremists?
You are ignoring the possibility that the hospital director had a gun to his face when he was told what to write in his report and what to say when journalists come to him in the future or else he and his family would be shot. Or had you not heard of the Palestinians?
You are ignoring the historical and scientific evidence that tear gas is extremely unlikely to kill a person in the manner described, whether they have asthma or not.
You are also ignoring the fact that the woman’s family said she was half a kilometer away from the tear gas before the Palestinians got to them and they changed their story. If you had heard of the tear gas story but had not heard of this, we’ve come back to Gerstman’s subject: journalists are not doing their jobs!
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/01/more-questions-about-abu-rahma.html
journalist who think that they must determine the truth are the very reason that newspaper circulation is doing so well these days
No. a journalist who ‘determines the truth’ will always do so through the prism of his own beliefs and ideology. Print the fact. just the facts.
Brian, that’s ridiculous. Reporters do not present “both sides” and there is no ethical requirement for them to do so.
Evidence? Look at some recent stories in the New York Times.
“Bird-Watchers Revel in Unusual Spike in Snowy Owl Sightings”
Any interviews with people who don’t give a rodent’s patootie about owl sightings? Any “Floyd Hennings, on the other hand, really didn’t care how many owls were seen”? Nope. One side only. Owls! Exciting! Yeah, Owls!
That’s how it’s usually done, in fact. In fact.. check out their story on the Supreme Court GPS decision… sometimes when the appear to present two sides, ir’s really only two different justifications for reaching the same conclusion.
Should the NT Times be “Truth Vigilantes”?
Well, it would be a big step up from their record as “Truth” Vigilantes.
You do not actually have a problem with any facts being wrong in the NY times, just the lack of bias toward your agenda. It is clear you have an agenda, and that you are upset the NY Times does not share your agenda. A news organization should present the facts, and let the reader form their own opinion. You want to alter the format of an article as to form the readers opinion for them. How can you not see that this is wrong?
I agree: a reporter should report the facts. This story should have said: “The Palestinians, who have repeatedly issued propaganda to support their agenda of genocide, today again blatantly lied about a woman who, they alleged against all known facts, was killed by Israeli tear gas, instead of the bullets, suicide vests, and Katyusha rockets that they use to indisputably kill innocent Israelis”.
What’s the big deal about saying a Palestinian died and they claim it was because of tear gas while the Israelis says that is very unlikely as it is widely known to be a crowd control weapon and not one meant to inflict permanent harm? Why get involved in a debate? Just present each side and go home.
BrianN—What is clear? Your agenda as a troll apologist for the NYT. Your position lacks the intellect necessary to present a convincing persuasive argument. Your palate for thought is as untested as that of your mouth, which in my estimation has never tasted the bitter of CS Gas.
Trolls always give themselves away when they reveal to know what resides in the heads of others.
The Times is well known for reporting factual content incorrectly. That and a lack of technical understanding of the few facts they do get right means that any opinions they derive from this are utterly uninformed nonsense. That is my problem with their reporting.
I’ll grant that they can present anything they want to with all sorts of contextual assumptions. However, to be honest with themselves and the public, the least they can do is to make sure that there is some shred of validity backing up the context they assume. To do that, they need to be well educated enough to place the facts they do understand in some coherent fashion. Since they can’t even seem to get their facts right, I don’t see much hope that they can change.
We might as well ask an idiot to write a paper on quantum physics.
The NYT is anti America ,anti Israel and anti truth. If they want to recover
from the lack of readers they should continue their format and just start printing the paper in Arabic only.
People interested in NYT bias and the role of its public editor should read “Gray Lady Down” by William McGowan. AMAZING!
Remember when Obama said he wanted a national security force? Not the National Guard, but a civilian one that has not sworn to uphold the Constitution? On July 2, 2008 in a speech in Colorado Springs, Barack Obama called for a police state. Obama just got his private army!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htw7shWR3oU
No, he didn’t. He may want one, but he hasn’t got it.
When you hear Ford Pinto you think of exploding gas tanks
When someone mentions Nixon you think Impeachment
When I hear NY Times I think of Liberal Bias
You will not change perception until the objectivity is addressed and a great deal of time goes by
This is Ron Paul’s famous Predictions speech from April 24, 2002. This is the original video compiling recent images and video to give his speech a chilling effect.
“I have no timetable for these predictions, but just in case, keep them around and look at them in 5-10 years. Let’s hope and pray that I’m wrong on all accounts. If so, I will be very pleased.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGDisyWkIBM&fe…
I’m glad that someone referenced “Gray Lady Down”. Not to pick on Mr. Gerstman, but I am often disappointed at the seeming knowledge lacunes demonstrated by editorialists. Tim Groseclose in “Left Turn” points out that bias in the news media is rarely in the form of outright lies. Rather, they engage in selective reporting of facts, which he discusses under the term “bias theory”. There is nothing inconsistent with the NY Times’ contention that they are factually accurate and their also being biased.
thanks for mentioning “Left Turn”–this is a book everyone who cares about media bias should read. the NYT often does a crappy job of fact checking, but the real bias, as Groseclose says, is in the way they choose to present the bits they choose to report on at all.
the NYT’s supposed straight reporting has been pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel for awhile now. and if you didn’t pick it up from that, you could just read a column by Tommy Friedman, Roger Cohen, Paul Krugman, or one of the other Israel-lasters the Times lovingly employs.
I will miss what the Times used to be when it finally folds. good job, Sulzberger family! you’ve managed to ground down the Gray Lady once and for all.
Most needed new blog:”What the NYT Won’t Print Today.”
Absolutely true. Let’s include the Associated Press as well, since this is the most common source for national and international news for local newspapers. I’ve found a combination of Drudge, Townhall, WSJ, and Fox do a pretty good job of filling in the gaps. I’ve noticed an increasing number of breaking news stories that Fox has exclusively.
I believe it’s called Palestinian Media Watch.
I’ve been in a newspaper story or two, and known a fair bit about the subjects of other stories. No newspaper has ever gotten things right. When you send a bunch of strangely-educated reporters out in the field to report on things they know little about, how else could it be?
So the New York Times is talking out of its hat? It’s an occupational disease of all papers. What bothers me is the way they’re always talking out of the same hat. They’ll never be “truth vigilantes” because they don’t want the truth, whatever it is.
The New York Times is a peculiar institution, now doing news in a high tech white minstrel show format, reflecting its roots and insular elite values nurtured in those cutting edge exclusive gated communities and cloistered universities. Apparently Jews can only achieve justice when they’re no longer Jews running the world, or running their country. Meanwhile, a Mexican national was at least nine times more likely to be killed in Chihuahua Mexico last year than in Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Record. I wonder if those Obama administration off the books smuggled guns had anything to do with that death toll south of the border? Watching Obama, it’s a hell of a minstrel show in black face.
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My second cousin’s third wife on his brother’s side makes a similar wage but wears red pantyhose and is often seen waiting for buses where there are none.
Thanks for making my day
Perhaps the greatest myth the Times should get up to speed on is the idea that interested Islamic countries and entities are in any way really happy with the idea of a two-state solution.
One doesn’t have to be a journalist to see this and if the Times would start with this premise they would have a lot better handle on what motivates Hamas, those who live in the West Bank, Gaza, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
All Islamic entities want an end to Israel and not peace with Israel. If the Times can source me a single Muslim of any importance who is enthusiastic about the idea of a Palestinian state even if it had pre-1967 borders I’d like to see it. The Times is consistently writing based on a faulty and ignorant premise: that of Islamic compromise. Israel is not armed to the teeth and with a barrier around the West Bank because they are surrounded by those willing to bury the hatchet, accept fate and reality and compromise.
Saile Furman: ” … based on a faulty and ignorant premise … ” Really? More like a ‘biased and antisemitic premise.’
The NY Times isn’t going to be influenced by any perceived need for change in its reporting, or reporters, coming from outside the confines of its main building….proforma comments from its staff (Arthur Brisbane) notwithstanding.
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I loved this, ……”Last week, Arthur Brisbane — the public editor of the New York Times ….”, and so can’t resist asking what is a “public editor”? Do they have a “private” editor for preferred subscribers?….or preferred staff?
Geezzzz…only in Noo Yawk.
The NYT fair and balanced? Not until they’ve sunk to the level of a twice-weekly advertiser available only in Manhattan news stands.
When I was in college (about 45 yeaers ago) Newsweek used to advertise that it separated fact from opinion. Now, the LSM, and in particular, the leftist NYT (as per Mr. Radosh’s appellation) can’t tell the difference.
The NYT is dead. The reporters have stopped reporting deep, fourth and fifth tier information facts and data and have instead pushed a cultural remake agenda which is self defeating. No more Pentagon Papers, we have yellow journalism, whitewashing and attempted behavior modification thru propaganda spewed by ignorants who call themselves reporters.
I canceled my print sub 3 years ago. I hardly read it anymore – 2 days behind Twitter anyway. The NY Times is basically worthless in today’s world of instant media. Good riddance!
The NYT has their agenda and they’re going to pursuit it – into the ground
To see how the NYT (and WaPo) misreport economic news, go to:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/
John Q – The NYT and the WaCompost are not only entitled to their opinions, they are entitled to their facts. After all, they’re the good guys.:)
BTW The NYT not only did not mention anything about exchange rates, they did not mention anything about the environmental laws and occupational safety laws they pushed that have made manufacturing here more and more uncompetitive with east Asia.
Waste of time to fisk the NYT (Pravda west)or much of the msm.
But for a moment there my heart fluttered in a long lost hope -that mankind should dare to seek the truth -and hold it sacred. Why dream for such in a society inebriated on biased opinion an emotions in place of rational thought (another victim of post-modern, post Judeo-Christian civilization.)
G.K. Chesterton warned us at the beginning of the 20th century that we would “destroy” ourselves my interpretation) by accepting emotions as the criterion for action and behavior. Just look at political correctness and how we fear to expose it because of its emotional baggage.
How else could an inexperienced Marxist have conned America into selling its historic constitutionally based freedom for the cheap thrill of feeling good by voting for a man that did nothing more than show his skin color and pose as a faux messiah.
Who would have believed that Nature’s God gave mankind a brain in order to allow it to become atrophied as we debate right and wrong with bumper sticker debates.
Regardless of which side one is on, it is a good thing to keep in mind the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect:
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
― Michael Crichton
Watch Herman Cain deliver the Tea Party State of the Union at http://www.TeaPartyExpress.org ! The live stream starts on Tuesday, January 24th at 10:30 EST/7:30 PST.
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