Comments on: Abunimah: Jews can report on Palestinians, but the other way ’round?

By: Verdt å lese « Et gammelt hus med spøkelser og sånt

Verdt å lese « Et gammelt hus med spøkelser og sånt — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:20:23 +0000

[...] Jews can report on Palestinians, but the other way ’round? [...]

By: Jewish Bias in the New York Times on Palestine/Israel « Cienfuegos

Jewish Bias in the New York Times on Palestine/Israel « Cienfuegos — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:17:59 +0000

[...] Bias in the New York Times on Palestine/Israel Jump to Comments Ali Abunimah: I have been of course following all the absurd defenses and excuse-making from Jeffrey Goldberg, [...]

By: COOK: Some thoughts on Ethan Bronner at the New York Times

COOK: Some thoughts on Ethan Bronner at the New York Times — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:10:14 +0000

[...] ago. Ali Abunimah makes some important points about the NYT’s coverage of the Middle East on the Mondoweiss site. Although the paper has a Palestinian reporter in Gaza, Abunimah [...]

By: Tuyzentfloot

Tuyzentfloot — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:46:42 +0000

Jonathan Cook posted a valuable reply to Abunimah’s post over here http://www.jkcook.net/Articles3/0453.htm explaining the huge difference in responsibilities and freedom between local reporters and western reporters . Should be posted as an article on here if possible.

Cook also says My impression is that most of the NYT’s senior reporters over the past two decades have been Jewish or Israeli.. Like Abunimah, I am uncomfortable judging a journalist’s record of reporting based on his or her ethnic identification. But these scruples should not blind us to the danger that the apparent long-term structural bias in the NYT’s selection processes may have contributed significantly to distorting Western understanding of what is going on in the conflict.

I pointed out elsewhere that Keller would be concerned with containment of the problem. The NYTimes is authoritative. It doesn’t want to end up being tagged a Jewish – pro-Israel paper. I don’t want to see that happen either. But the NYTimes, and not only them, should correct its structural bias.
You can replace the Jewish reporters by non-jewish reporters and it won’t fix anything. Some people have a larger impact though, they’re the gatekeepers who control the attention, the focus. Bronner is such a person.
Note that Cook himself is married to a Palestinian, therefore he should abstain from reporting on Palestinian issues. Right?

By: Chaos4700

Chaos4700 — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:21:08 +0000

Gee, way to refute my observation about you, yonira. Stay classy.

By: Middle East Studies at Middlebury · Slamming the Times’ Coverage of the Middle East

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:40:25 +0000

[...] I sat out J-term in terms of blogging, being bogged down in teaching my course on Orientalism, but as the Spring term begins I have convinced myself that I have time to procrastinate creatively again. In the last few days I have run across two different blogs that have taken issue with the Times’ coverage of the Middle East. The first comes off a new blog on Yemen (itself replacing the lamented Waq al-Waq, Gregory Johnsen has decided that he should probably finish his PhD instead of educating the rest about Yemen, but his co-blogger Brian O’Neill has struck out on his own). Here Brian O’Neill rips into Thomas Friedman’s recent op-ed on Yemen, not in itself a difficult task, but being a journalist himself, Brian pays close attention to Friedman’s rhetoric. A different affair is that of the debate surrounding Ethan Bronner, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the Times. Over at The Angry Arab, Asad Abukhalil’s blog (a Lebanese Anarchist/secularist who teaches at UC Stanislaus, and a bitter critic of Israel) there was an interesting exchange between him and Ethan Bronner a while back about the lack of Arabic speaking reporters at the Times. See here. More recently (in the last few days), however the story of Ethan Bronner’s son serving in the IDF has surfaced, and this has occasioned commentary in the blogosphere by Abukhalil, Abunimah who also has a post over at Mondoweiss. [...]

By: Les

Les — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:08:36 +0000

How about if the Times replaces Bronner with another American Jew, Jared Malsin?

By: Citizen

Citizen — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:20:05 +0000

Hey, more and more Americans are realizing that the NYT is a yellow rag–the internet has a lot to do with this perception. Always nice to hear from people with the gag out of their mouths and the Goebbels family radio rejected.

By: Chu

Chu — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:16:29 +0000

Thanks for the reality check, Ali. Without Mondoweiss and other sites making this information more commonplace, I don’t have to feel like I’m crazy to believe anything other than what the major newspapers have to dish out.
The pendulum blade is coming close to the NY Times and it’s long overdue that they stop pretending to be a prestigious paper, when they are as bad as the NY Post with the Middle East coverage and balance.

By: Seham

Seham — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:21:26 +0000

I know. Shocking.