At NYT, She Said No to ‘He Said/She Said’—but They Said Yes
An New York Times editor doesn’t seem to think checking the integrity of your argument is the business of the Paper of Record.
Now They Tell Us: Iran Didn’t Actually Threaten to Wipe Israel Off the Map
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor acknowledged on Al Jazeera English (4/14/12) that Iranian leaders have never called for Israel to be “wiped” off the map. Meridor agreed with interviewer Teymoor Nabili’s suggestion that the supposed remarks were never actually made; Iranian leaders, Meridor said, come basically ideologically, religiously, with the statement that Israel is […]
Ethan Bronner on the Non-Crisis in Gaza
When I saw the July 3 New York Times headline “Setting Sail on Gaza’s Sea of Spin,” I expected the worst. Times reporter Ethan Bronner’s analysis piece on the Gaza humanitarian flotilla starts off predictably enough, saying there’s blame to spread all around: Almost everything about the flotilla stuck in Greece and waiting to challenge […]
NYT’s Anonymous Israeli Truth-Tellers
What’s the Israeli government’s new “plan” for peace? Reading the New York Times doesn’t help your understand where they stand. Earlier this week, the Times‘ Ethan Bronner (5/17/11) praised a speech by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for exhibiting “greater flexibility on territory.” Bronner wrote that he showed “more willingness to yield territory than he […]
Palestinians Protest Israel’s Founding—or Something Else?
At Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah challenges the skewed history coming from Ethan Bronner in the New York Times (5/15/11). In trying to explain the context for the recent Palestinian protests, Bronner wrote: After Israel declared independence on May 15, 1948, armies from neighboring Arab states attacked the new nation; during the war that followed, hundreds […]
Adventures in Absurd Anonymity, Continued
Anonymous Israeli officials are weighing in at the New York Times today. Let’s remember the Times has some rules regarding the use of anonymous sources: The use of unidentified sources is reserved for situations in which the newspaper could not otherwise print information it considers reliable and newsworthy. When we use such sources, we accept […]
Remembering to Forget Israel’s Nonexistent Settlement Freeze
The big news in the U.S.-guided Israel/Palestine talks is that a renewal of a so-called “settlement freeze” in the West Bank is basically dead. Ethan Bronner has a post-mortem of sorts in the New York Times (12/9/10), where he describes the backdrop for the previous round of negotiations: The Israelis had insisted that the only […]
NYT: Israel-Palestine Conflict ‘Drained of Violence’–
There’s a lot to say about Ethan Bronner’s Week in Review piece in the New York Times (11/21/10). The headline says a lot on its own: “Why America Chases an Israeli-Palestinian Peace.” This is ironic, at the very least, given the role the U.S. has historically played in making peace quite difficult. And the current […]
Misleading Media on Israel and Gaza Rockets
In much of the coverage of Gaza, there is a media shorthand that is used torecall some of the most important recent history. Like in today’s New York Times (6/11/10): Israel imposed the embargo, allowing in charitable goods and letting out people with medical emergencies. It invaded in late 2008 to stop a flow of […]
NYT Discovers ‘New’ Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance
New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner has a piece today (4/7/10) headlined “Palestinians Try a Less Violent Path to Resistance,” which attempts to show that there is a new move away from armed resistance to Israeli occupation. You get that message pretty clearly from Bronner’s language: He calls it a “new approach” and argues, “Nonviolence […]
You Can’t Be a Neutral Observer of Your Child’s War
New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt (2/21/10) returns to the issue of Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner having a child fighting on one side of the conflict he’s covering (FAIR Activism Update, 2/12/10): Some Times journalists have taken issue with my position in this case, believing it suggests that no Jewish reporter could […]
New Action Alert: Does NYT’s Jerusalem Chief Have a Conflict?
FAIR has a new Action Alert out, “Does NYT‘s Top Israel Reporter Have a Son in the IDF?” (1/27/10), about the New York Times‘ failure to respond to questions about whether Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner’s son is enlisted in Israel’s military, and, if so, whether this poses a conflict of interest. If you send […]
‘Tensions’ and ‘History’ in Jerusalem
The New York Times‘ Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner (5/9/09) wrote about the Israeli government’s development planin Jerusalem–a “$100 million, multiyear development plan in some of the most significant religious and national heritage sites just outside the walled Old City here as part of an effort to strengthen the status of Jerusalem as its capital.” […]
NYT and the Perils of Mideast ‘Balance’
New York Times reporters Ethan Bronner and Sabrina Tavernise went to Gaza (2/4/09) to look into stories of civilian atrocities, and turned up some very powerful examples. Unfortunately, the impact of that reporting was undermined by the all-too-familiar tendency to “balance” these facts with criticisms of Palestinians. Fora piece that is attempting to get a […]
