The NYT, NBC News, and Al Jazeera all called the same man to explain strife in Gaza: Hussein Owda. None revealed that he worked for the Hamas-controlled government.
No surprise here. The media lost the public's trust when it decided "everything is political" and felt that gave them more than the right, it gave them the mandate to tell it like they thought it ought to be. I'm mid-70s and I remember well over half a century ago spending pleasant Sunday mornings in bed with a lovely woman, my incredible coffee, breakfast, and the NYTimes. Still have a lovely woman, coffee's even better, breakfast is healthier, and the NYTimes I wouldn't even line a bird cage with.
"“I’m surprised that there is humans doing this force,” Hussein said of Israeli soldiers, in broken English. “How could human became this evil, killing others, imposing collective punishment on over two million people with no reason? What are they going to gain? Why they are doing this?”
Curious questions considering that the government he served "did use force", "killed others", "collectively punished" thousands of civilians, many of whom were peace activists so there was no reason to "punish" them", had nothing to gain (and lost everything in consequence). As to why Israelis are doing this, perhaps it's because the Hamas leadership promised (this is well documented) many more Oct 7. Perhaps the sight of mothers and one year old infants being dragged into captivity triggered the Israelis, who knows?
I think it is worth mentioning what turned me against the Times. For years and years I read the Times and the WSJ. I eventually was ambivalent about the Iraq War and didn't like the way they lied about Bush lying about weapons of mass destruction. He was wrong but it was the belief of the CIA which is why Hillary supported him in the war. Her husband and he had been told the same thing by the CIA and indeed Madeline Albright and Al Gore seemed to be preparing us that we might have to overthrow Hussein because of the danger of his warrior mentality and his developing weapons of mass destruction. I am sure that the editors at the New York Times knew it was the CIA that got it wrong but their hatred of neo-conservatives trumped their desire to tell the truth. They threw s**t at the wall and the Bush Lied lie seem to stick so they joined others in promulgating this lie
But this isn't why I stopped reading the Times. Paul Wolfowitz, a prominent neoconservative who actually had been particularly fond of Muslims. Long after he left his post in Indonesia he had this to say "Winning the war against terrorism and shaping a more peaceful world means "we must speak to the hundreds of millions of moderate and tolerant people in the Muslim world, regardless of where they live," he said. "We need to recognize that the terrorists target not only the West, but they also target their fellow Muslims, upon whom they would impose a medieval, intolerant and tyrannical way of life. Those hundreds of millions of Muslims who aspire to freedom and prosperity are, in many cases, on the frontlines of the struggle against terrorism." Anyway he was accused of being an Islamiaphobic scoundrel for his support of Bush decision to go to war with Iraq. Okay. I guess people can get it wrong. The Times can spread falsehoods from ignorance rather than intentionally. But then there was a scandal involving Wolfowitz after he became president of the World Bank. He was accused of favoring his girl friend who worked there (if I remember correctly it was her pay or a promotion) The Times went on and on about what a scum bag he was. Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal made it immediately clear that the scandal was phony. He had gone to the Ethics Committee of the World Bank about his dilemma with his girlfriend and followed their recommendations. The story was covered for weeks and not once did the Times mention the fact of what they obviously knew. (Even if their reporters didn't look into the story I'm sure that someone there read the WSJ) Then after many weeks David Brooks snuck in that fact in one of his columns. His article was an explanation of why Wolfowitz was turned on by some of his employees. Brooks thought it was because Wolfowitz acted like he was smarter than everyone there.
I don't know what really happened but that the Times could deliberately withhold this crucial information indicated a lack of scruples about honesty. That was the final blow. Now I get it on the internet (my wife has a subscription) and when she throws some argument at me, the conservative, I check it out.
I have, on occasion, read some very intelligent articles there and would love to know why one of my favorite columnist at the WSJ, Bret Stephens switched to the Times. They still have some bright people but so, so, so much of what the Times has become is exactly what critics on this site claim. There is very little difference between Pravda and the New York Times.
I'm not bothered that a well-known news organization on the Left tries to hide the ball on a story about Gaza, it's rather to be expected. What does bother me is that ALL corporate media does this kind of thing. They're in lock step: same messages, same choices of lead story, same timing, heck, even literally the same words, repeated across the country. When we see that kind of thing in a communist country, we all shake our heads and sigh because we know the media is totally captured there. But then it happens here, and what does that mean?
To me the real question is why true believers in the power of ideas are so won over by ideology, so much so that they are less able than the average person to observe reality. That has always been the claim about professors and the like, that they have their head in the clouds and don't have common sense. I suppose that is okay. I am one of them. I am passionate about ideas, but when that passion turns to politics watch out. If only the problem is the NY Times. What is going on in universities is even more disturbing
It should be noted that this is not new at the Times. In the 30's, when being a communist was fashionable among intellectuals, Gareth Jones tried to get the word out that literally millions of people were dying of starvation due to a famine resulting from Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture. He was mocked by Journalist Walter Duranty of The New York Times . Duranty was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his articles about the USSR, denying there was a famine.
And they got a Pulitzer Prize for the Russian Election crap that Hillary put out there , which says to me who cares about the Pulitzer ? News doesn't have to be real to get one does it , fiction of News a whole new area ?
The question is why the Times, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Washington Post etc and public radio and TV all went in that direction. The funniest thing is how on Public TV, before a program streams, they have these ordinary people talking about the balance in their reporting. Supposedly Marlboro turned to the Marlboro Man because it was seen as a women's cigarette. They are obviously aware of what has happened to their objectivity but instead of correcting it they think of advertising that they are balanced will accomplish the same thing.
Please take a look at why ideology distorts the perception of so many people who prize thinking as a way to understand reality.
I have to ask myself if the journalists at the Times, etc.. are just flat-out, not so good anymore? Has the long-held assumption of an "other worldly" quality of journalism at the "Gray Lady" diminished and no one has bothered to notice; because it's the New York Times? I don't have the answer, I'm just asking myself if we are mistaking nefarious intent with incompetence.
What I suspect is going on is that in addition to young Caucasian reporters proving to themselves and others they aren't racist, that they are truly progressive, there are a large number of reporters intimidating supporters if they veer off the woke, transgender, global warming, anti-Western, anti-Israel agenda. The BBC has been horribly anti-Israel since the war began. Yet a petition was signed by BBC reporters accusing them of being pro-Israel. Way more than half of the reporters signing that petition were not white. I am hesitant to report that fact out of fear I will be called a racist, which I am not, but I recognize that there are extremely anti-Western members of the Western media who have the power to intimidate others any time they don't lean towards progressive points of view. Part of their effectiveness stems from their supporters insecurity about their former or hidden feelings about non-westerners. I recall questioning myself if I am truly not prejudiced. Why haven't I had more black friends.? etc. I accused myself. Maybe there is something to the charges that all Westerners are xenophobic. I don't think it is true of me but there is certainly an element of truth. My heart was broken when I read of the massacre of Jews on October 7th. It was if family membersI had been killed. I cried out of joy when several hostages were rescued. Yes I felt badly for the Gazan civilians losing their lives, but it wasn't as intense as what I felt for Jews. It didn't tear me apart.
Tales of antisemitism remain in my mind, told to me by my grandparents, even if I have rarely run into it. I can understand how non-whites, even those who are now accepted in Western culture , have a residue of anti-white, anti-Western hostility that won't leave for many generations. It erupts any time support for progressives isn't 1000%. Or especially now when white Westerners are killing brown skinned Arabs. My people right or wrong. They can't help their emotions and I can't .
As I noted I was hesitant to bring up the BBC study out of fear for what I might be called, which says a lot about how intimidated reporters are, why group think is the only safe position to take. It was nuts the way no one dared criticize Obama when he was president or how he won the Nobel Peace prize before he did anything. It must be difficult to have to guard one's career by going along with any and all left wing positions. To make a show of innocence. But then the media have always been sheep. I am old enough to remember in the 50's how most of them were God fearing, right wing, supporters of Senator McCarthy and in the beginning, enemies of the anti-Vietnam protesters. I don't doubt that in the next 50 years a time will come when they are again blindly supporting the right. At that point I will probably again be left wing.
The Gray Lady has been moving in this direction for a long time. The move to advocacy journalism was noticeable back in the ‘90s, but I thought it was still possible to read between the lines, and figure out how they were slanting the news. A decade later that transformation was complete, and the move to today’s propaganda organ was underway. That’s when I cancelled my subscription.
No, it’s not incompetence. It’s not a question of their journalists being “good” or not. It’s that they no longer see journalism as their job.
I would guess for some, but not all . So who is blame the stupid ones or the smart one's . My best guess is the whole organization is to blame , in that management need to be accountable for the actions of such employees .
Why am I not surprised? Shameful, lazy, and actually intellectually dishonest on the part of the NYT and any other organization that fails to do its homework, or possibly, looks the other way when vetting or failing to vet a source. This is not journalism, not advocacy journalism, not anything ethical!! Just propoganda and hyposcrisy in the the name of "woke" social justice and antisemitism.
No surprise here. The media lost the public's trust when it decided "everything is political" and felt that gave them more than the right, it gave them the mandate to tell it like they thought it ought to be. I'm mid-70s and I remember well over half a century ago spending pleasant Sunday mornings in bed with a lovely woman, my incredible coffee, breakfast, and the NYTimes. Still have a lovely woman, coffee's even better, breakfast is healthier, and the NYTimes I wouldn't even line a bird cage with.
"“I’m surprised that there is humans doing this force,” Hussein said of Israeli soldiers, in broken English. “How could human became this evil, killing others, imposing collective punishment on over two million people with no reason? What are they going to gain? Why they are doing this?”
Curious questions considering that the government he served "did use force", "killed others", "collectively punished" thousands of civilians, many of whom were peace activists so there was no reason to "punish" them", had nothing to gain (and lost everything in consequence). As to why Israelis are doing this, perhaps it's because the Hamas leadership promised (this is well documented) many more Oct 7. Perhaps the sight of mothers and one year old infants being dragged into captivity triggered the Israelis, who knows?
Rampant antisemitism won't convince any of my Jewish friends to reconsider their blind devotion to the left.
Same here
I think it is worth mentioning what turned me against the Times. For years and years I read the Times and the WSJ. I eventually was ambivalent about the Iraq War and didn't like the way they lied about Bush lying about weapons of mass destruction. He was wrong but it was the belief of the CIA which is why Hillary supported him in the war. Her husband and he had been told the same thing by the CIA and indeed Madeline Albright and Al Gore seemed to be preparing us that we might have to overthrow Hussein because of the danger of his warrior mentality and his developing weapons of mass destruction. I am sure that the editors at the New York Times knew it was the CIA that got it wrong but their hatred of neo-conservatives trumped their desire to tell the truth. They threw s**t at the wall and the Bush Lied lie seem to stick so they joined others in promulgating this lie
But this isn't why I stopped reading the Times. Paul Wolfowitz, a prominent neoconservative who actually had been particularly fond of Muslims. Long after he left his post in Indonesia he had this to say "Winning the war against terrorism and shaping a more peaceful world means "we must speak to the hundreds of millions of moderate and tolerant people in the Muslim world, regardless of where they live," he said. "We need to recognize that the terrorists target not only the West, but they also target their fellow Muslims, upon whom they would impose a medieval, intolerant and tyrannical way of life. Those hundreds of millions of Muslims who aspire to freedom and prosperity are, in many cases, on the frontlines of the struggle against terrorism." Anyway he was accused of being an Islamiaphobic scoundrel for his support of Bush decision to go to war with Iraq. Okay. I guess people can get it wrong. The Times can spread falsehoods from ignorance rather than intentionally. But then there was a scandal involving Wolfowitz after he became president of the World Bank. He was accused of favoring his girl friend who worked there (if I remember correctly it was her pay or a promotion) The Times went on and on about what a scum bag he was. Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal made it immediately clear that the scandal was phony. He had gone to the Ethics Committee of the World Bank about his dilemma with his girlfriend and followed their recommendations. The story was covered for weeks and not once did the Times mention the fact of what they obviously knew. (Even if their reporters didn't look into the story I'm sure that someone there read the WSJ) Then after many weeks David Brooks snuck in that fact in one of his columns. His article was an explanation of why Wolfowitz was turned on by some of his employees. Brooks thought it was because Wolfowitz acted like he was smarter than everyone there.
I don't know what really happened but that the Times could deliberately withhold this crucial information indicated a lack of scruples about honesty. That was the final blow. Now I get it on the internet (my wife has a subscription) and when she throws some argument at me, the conservative, I check it out.
I have, on occasion, read some very intelligent articles there and would love to know why one of my favorite columnist at the WSJ, Bret Stephens switched to the Times. They still have some bright people but so, so, so much of what the Times has become is exactly what critics on this site claim. There is very little difference between Pravda and the New York Times.
I'm not bothered that a well-known news organization on the Left tries to hide the ball on a story about Gaza, it's rather to be expected. What does bother me is that ALL corporate media does this kind of thing. They're in lock step: same messages, same choices of lead story, same timing, heck, even literally the same words, repeated across the country. When we see that kind of thing in a communist country, we all shake our heads and sigh because we know the media is totally captured there. But then it happens here, and what does that mean?
Well done!
The last line is the final punch
Another reason I cancelled my NYT subscription years ago!
I always hate “spokesperson speak” language.
Talking about “allegations” that UNWRA is associated with Hamas is just gaslighting.
Once again, even with all the conflicts in the world fully 1/3 of all people drawing a paycheck from the UN work on behalf of the Palestinians.
I know the Jews can do anything but this one is amazing.
To me the real question is why true believers in the power of ideas are so won over by ideology, so much so that they are less able than the average person to observe reality. That has always been the claim about professors and the like, that they have their head in the clouds and don't have common sense. I suppose that is okay. I am one of them. I am passionate about ideas, but when that passion turns to politics watch out. If only the problem is the NY Times. What is going on in universities is even more disturbing
It should be noted that this is not new at the Times. In the 30's, when being a communist was fashionable among intellectuals, Gareth Jones tried to get the word out that literally millions of people were dying of starvation due to a famine resulting from Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture. He was mocked by Journalist Walter Duranty of The New York Times . Duranty was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his articles about the USSR, denying there was a famine.
How little times change.
And they got a Pulitzer Prize for the Russian Election crap that Hillary put out there , which says to me who cares about the Pulitzer ? News doesn't have to be real to get one does it , fiction of News a whole new area ?
The question is why the Times, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Washington Post etc and public radio and TV all went in that direction. The funniest thing is how on Public TV, before a program streams, they have these ordinary people talking about the balance in their reporting. Supposedly Marlboro turned to the Marlboro Man because it was seen as a women's cigarette. They are obviously aware of what has happened to their objectivity but instead of correcting it they think of advertising that they are balanced will accomplish the same thing.
Please take a look at why ideology distorts the perception of so many people who prize thinking as a way to understand reality.
I think they are like the casinos here in canada that run advertisements telling people “we’re fun!!”
If you have to tell someone you’re fun or honest and balanced, you aren’t
I have to believe that it is impossible to get unbiased reporting out of Gaza and now Lebanon.
If Jews in America today vote Dem then they are fools and I am a Christian.
I have to ask myself if the journalists at the Times, etc.. are just flat-out, not so good anymore? Has the long-held assumption of an "other worldly" quality of journalism at the "Gray Lady" diminished and no one has bothered to notice; because it's the New York Times? I don't have the answer, I'm just asking myself if we are mistaking nefarious intent with incompetence.
What I suspect is going on is that in addition to young Caucasian reporters proving to themselves and others they aren't racist, that they are truly progressive, there are a large number of reporters intimidating supporters if they veer off the woke, transgender, global warming, anti-Western, anti-Israel agenda. The BBC has been horribly anti-Israel since the war began. Yet a petition was signed by BBC reporters accusing them of being pro-Israel. Way more than half of the reporters signing that petition were not white. I am hesitant to report that fact out of fear I will be called a racist, which I am not, but I recognize that there are extremely anti-Western members of the Western media who have the power to intimidate others any time they don't lean towards progressive points of view. Part of their effectiveness stems from their supporters insecurity about their former or hidden feelings about non-westerners. I recall questioning myself if I am truly not prejudiced. Why haven't I had more black friends.? etc. I accused myself. Maybe there is something to the charges that all Westerners are xenophobic. I don't think it is true of me but there is certainly an element of truth. My heart was broken when I read of the massacre of Jews on October 7th. It was if family membersI had been killed. I cried out of joy when several hostages were rescued. Yes I felt badly for the Gazan civilians losing their lives, but it wasn't as intense as what I felt for Jews. It didn't tear me apart.
Tales of antisemitism remain in my mind, told to me by my grandparents, even if I have rarely run into it. I can understand how non-whites, even those who are now accepted in Western culture , have a residue of anti-white, anti-Western hostility that won't leave for many generations. It erupts any time support for progressives isn't 1000%. Or especially now when white Westerners are killing brown skinned Arabs. My people right or wrong. They can't help their emotions and I can't .
As I noted I was hesitant to bring up the BBC study out of fear for what I might be called, which says a lot about how intimidated reporters are, why group think is the only safe position to take. It was nuts the way no one dared criticize Obama when he was president or how he won the Nobel Peace prize before he did anything. It must be difficult to have to guard one's career by going along with any and all left wing positions. To make a show of innocence. But then the media have always been sheep. I am old enough to remember in the 50's how most of them were God fearing, right wing, supporters of Senator McCarthy and in the beginning, enemies of the anti-Vietnam protesters. I don't doubt that in the next 50 years a time will come when they are again blindly supporting the right. At that point I will probably again be left wing.
The Gray Lady has been moving in this direction for a long time. The move to advocacy journalism was noticeable back in the ‘90s, but I thought it was still possible to read between the lines, and figure out how they were slanting the news. A decade later that transformation was complete, and the move to today’s propaganda organ was underway. That’s when I cancelled my subscription.
No, it’s not incompetence. It’s not a question of their journalists being “good” or not. It’s that they no longer see journalism as their job.
I would guess for some, but not all . So who is blame the stupid ones or the smart one's . My best guess is the whole organization is to blame , in that management need to be accountable for the actions of such employees .
Why am I not surprised? Shameful, lazy, and actually intellectually dishonest on the part of the NYT and any other organization that fails to do its homework, or possibly, looks the other way when vetting or failing to vet a source. This is not journalism, not advocacy journalism, not anything ethical!! Just propoganda and hyposcrisy in the the name of "woke" social justice and antisemitism.
Ms. Reingold's reporting gives me hope.