A Year of Biased Reporting: Why the New York Times Won

[Fay Dickson-- AKA doofs]

When HonestReporting readers were asked to choose the “winner” of the 2013 Dishonest Reporting Award, the prevailing displeasure was best summed up in a one-line email:

“The NY Times bludgeoned Israel all year.”

Much of the resentment focused on the paper’s op-ed section. A steady parade of commentaries disdainfully dismissing Israel’s Iranian anxieties certainly cemented the Gray Lady’s award in the latter part of 2013. This wasn’t surprising. HonestReporting’s long-term study of the Times’s opinion section found similar problems in 2012.

But the NY Times built up a bona fide case to win this award even without the issue of op-eds.

The paper added a known anti-Israel conspiracy theorist to its editorial board, glorified stone throwers, raised questions about the way it corrects the record, and finished the year with a flourishing photo failure. None of the 2013 runners up such as the BBC, CNN, Haaretz, and others, came close to matching the tensions the Times stoked.

To be fair, there were some bright spots. Perhaps the Gray Lady’s finest moment, as one reader asserted, was when Memri brought to light a video of Mohammed Morsi making anti-Semitic comments. The story didn’t get the widespread attention it deserved until the New York Timespicked it up, ultimately leading to a White House condemnation and public scrutiny that Morsi couldn’t ignore.                                                                                                     

The Times is America’s most influential newspaper, partly because of its reach, and partly because of its reputation for journalistic excellence. With more than 1.8 million subscribers, 4.7 million followers on Facebook, and another 10.4 million on Twitter, the New York Times is the second most-visited news site in the world.

Here are the reasons HonestReporting readers flagged the New York Times for this year’s Dishonest Reporting Award.

 Why The New York Times Won the 2013 Dishonest Reporting Award

 

Glorifying Stone Throwers

Not once, but twice, the Times put stone-throwing Palestinians on a glowing pedestal. First was a March New York Times Magazine cover story about weekly protests at Nabi Saleh (accompanied by a photo slide show titled The Resisters).

The author of the piece, Ben Ehrenreich, had previously smeared Israel in a vile Los Angeles Times op-ed comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa (South Africa was judged more benign) and labeled Gaza as a “139-square-mile prison camp.” And in a Harper’s dispatch, Ehrenreich imputed that Israel was waging a “water war with Palestine.”

As for the story itself, the specific criticisms were simply too lengthy to detail here. Arnold Roth had a compelling personal connection to the article. See also Haaretz columnist Chemi Shalev andCommentary editor Jonathan Tobin.                                                                      http://honestreporting.com/a-year-of-biased-reporting-why-the-new-y...