Some articles a correction is what it is. But NYT habit of smearing public officials on the right, maybe the correction should go page one above the fold. Also what steps are being taken hahahaha I can't even finish the sentence.
Again, it's great to have conservatives writing columns for your super liberal publication. But know what would actually make a difference? Having conservatives in the editing pipeline with the power to effect real change with regard to implicit bias.
Mainstream liberal outlets are manifestly unwilling to do the basic things that would curb these mistakes and boost the outlets' credibility. They just don't wanna, ok? They don't wanna. So there. But don't pretend to take seriously any suggestion that they care.
When people say this about race, everyone nods their head. Of course a newsroom should be diverse. Of course it's not enough to have token byline diversity. When it's religion or ideology, we completely ignore what we know to be true.
Imagine if the NYT said "no, we don't really have any Hispanic editors or senior managers, but we recently hired a Hispanic guy to write a column once a week." It's insane, right? Right. But this is what they do with conservatives.
Which, again, is their right! But everyone should just be aware that it means they simply don't care about the truth.
Want to say one more thing on this (sorry Shabbos is soon and you'll be rid of my squawking!), to illustrate:
It's common to hear ppl say that their move politically from left to right "started" with Israel, esp its treatment in the press and on the left. Often misunderstood.
It's common to hear ppl say that their move politically from left to right "started" with Israel, esp its treatment in the press and on the left. Often misunderstood.
Such folks are often accused of prioritizing Israel over other issues. But that's not what this means. What usually happens in these cases is the person knew enough about Israel to see that its coverage was riddled with lies, and led them to question *what else might be false*
In my house we refer to this as "The Economist Rule": The Economist writes about any and all subjects and parts of the world "in the voice of God," seeming impressive. Then you read an Economist piece on something you actually know about and say "holy crap these ppl are morons."
Suddenly, you wonder if they know anything, or have any editorial mechanism in place to catch the lies. (They don't.) This type of "awakening" is fairly common on the right with regard to Israel. The reason for this is cultural--sort of.
Jews tend to lean liberal, for important reasons: for example, the labor movement. But Jewish labor Dems were usually still big Zionists. I'll give a personal example. My bubby, who recently passed, was pretty solidly leftist but very politically engaged all her life.
Her family were dedicated to the civil rights movement, and her cousin was Newark's teachers union head at one point and also its human-rights group's chief at another point. (If you know anything about Newark, you know these are quintessentially Jewish background stories.)
She was not a passive voter. But she was also hugely Zionist. More background: Her father, who I've mentioned on here a bunch of times but I'll give the cliff's notes, fought in the Jewish Legion in WWI in Palestine.
The Jewish Legion trained in Cairo, I believe, with the rest of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force of the British armed forces, and when they went to fight in Palestine they went by rail. One story has it that en route to Palestine, the train stopped in the dead of night.
The soldiers were told to assemble outside in the pitch dark in the middle of the desert and stand at attention. Col. Patterson then reportedly told them: Gentlemen, we are about to cross into Palestine, and you are about to liberate, after two thousand years, your ancestral home
He wanted them to understand the meaning of what they were doing. (He also attended a seder in Cairo in 1918 and said "next year in Jerusalem," and there was indeed a seder for British Jewish soldiers in Jerusalem in 1919.)
These soldiers then fought at the Battle of Megiddo (Armageddon), and began marching there on Yom Kippur night, so you can imagine that yes, they understood the significance of what they were doing and where.
After the Armistice, Jabotinsky was making trouble so the Brits granted him his decommission (apologies if that term's not exactly right). He gave a farewell speech to the Legionnaires at Rishon Letzion. Here is basically what he said (close to a quote, but not exact):
Jabotinsky: Years from now, far away, you will pick up the newspaper and read of a Jewish gov't in the Jewish land, of ministers and budgets. And the paper will fall to the floor; you'll walk to the mirror, stand at attention, and salute yourself: for it is you who have made it.
Like Moses leading his ppl through the desert, Jabotinsky didn't live to see his prophecy come true. But my great-grandfather did: he caught malaria in the war, but held on long enough to walk my bubby down the aisle at her wedding, two years after Israel became a state.
So my bubby was both a fierce leftist and a fierce Zionist. Eventually, the two would be put in tension. But it was ppl like this who looked critically at the NYT and other reporting on Israel.
Because my bubby *didn't* want to destroy the Times' and others credibility. She wasn't out to undermine leftism. She was as good-faith a critic as the media could possibly have had. There are lots and lots of Jews like this.
It led many to question more than just the reporting on Israel, and it thus led many to believe the truth on other subjects wasn't precisely where they had been standing. It was this tension within dedicated leftist Zionists that punctured media credibility.
I have heard a lot today about how critics of mainstream media bias aren't acting in good faith. But that's just plain wrong. And the Israel stuff is a perfect example of how wrong it is, and how destructive it is to ignore or dismiss claims of bias rooted in good faith.
If ppl begin to suspect that you're not even trying to see your blind spots, to address your weaknesses, to correct your biases--that you don't care enough to get the story right--they will begin to question your credibility on everything else. And rightly so.
Is everyone on the right arguing in good faith? No. But far more on both sides of the aisle are arguing in good faith than the NYT and its defenders today are willing to admit. And that is a very destructive path for the media to go down. I urge it to reconsider. /fin
