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Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute. He took issue with the December 2 Washington Post story “Israel’s assault forced a nurse to leave babies behind. They were found decomposing.” Satloff deconstructed the Post story in the 5,000-word critique “Once Again, a ‘Palestinian Babies Story Merits a Washington Post Apology.”
Satloff’s critique elicited a response from Post executive editor Sally Buzbee. She stands by the Post’s story and demands that Satloff clean up his critique. Satloff publishes Buzbee’s response in his disappointed postscript “Sadly, WaPost Admits No Error in Story Filled with Them.”
This episode had me thinking back to my own examination of the Post’s reporting in this vein on Israel’s 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense. Mr. Satloff, I see your 5,000 words and raise you 5,000 words. I wrote several posts and well over 5,000 words on the story featuring the aptly named Jihad Masharawi. Forgive me for saying that those posts have stood the test of time! As the song goes, “same as it ever was.” I have retrieved this March 11, 2013 post from our archives.
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I wrote about the photograph of BBC Arabic editor Jihad Masharawi holding the shrouded body of his 11-month-old son, Omar, in posts here, here, here and here. The photograph depicted Masharawi outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City early in Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense. The young Masharawi’s death was attributed to an Israeli airstrike.
The photograph went viral on the second day of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, being featured on the Web and in newspapers around the world. One such among many was the Washington Post, which ran it at the top of page one. The photo is below.
Washington Post ombdudsman Patrick Pexton devoted a column to complaints about the photograph. Paul Mirengoff explicated the manifest animus in Pexton’s column.
Everything Pexton asserted directly or indirectly as a matter of fact was wrong. When a major newspaper ombudsman is this utterly clueless, who ya gonna call? Not Ghostbusters. Power Line, I guess.
Paul Danahar is the BBC Middle East Bureau Chief and Masharawi’s colleague. He spent much of the day at Masharawi’s house on the day on the day Masharawi’s son was killed, tweeting a photo of the hole in the roof of Masharawi’s house. The house wasn’t bombed, Pexton to the contrary notwithstanding. Danahar described the munition that did the damage as a “shell.”
I tweeted Danahar to ask him on what basis he identified the munition as Israeli. I wrote at the time on Power Line that I doubted it was. I thought it was more likely to have been a Hamas rocket that failed to hit its intended target in Israel. (As I recall, something like 10 percent of the Hamas rockets landed in Gaza.) Danahar failed to respond to my tweet, although he relentlessly propagated the line that Israeli forces had killed Masharawi’s son.
Everything about the photograph looked phony to me. Was Masharawi sobbing? His face doesn’t even look like he has shed tears. Masharawi looks like he’s enacting grief. I understand that Masharawi in fact lost his son as a result of the munition that hit his house, but I found the photo odd (as I did the other photos in the series of Masharawi parading around for the cameras).
I thought that Masharawi was engaging in an opportunistic bit of Terrorist Theater, the kind I wrote about in the Weekly Standard article “He didn’t give at the office.” The article demonstrates how news service stringers in Gaza work as an arm of the terrorist authorities on whom they purport to report. By the way, the staged photos of Arafat that I wrote about in the Standard article were the work of an AP stringer. The photo of Masharawi that the Post ran was credited to the AP.
Terrorist Theater is a function of the sinister authority wielded by terrorist forces in the areas where they hold sway. Gaza is of course under the thumb of Hamas, one such terrorist power.
We held that the death of Masharawi’s son was a tragedy and offered our condolences to Masharawi on the loss of his son. We acknowledged that we didn’t know to a certainty what had happened or who is responsible for the death, and therefore asked readers to keep an open mind.
I hope you will forgive me for rehearsing what must seem like ancient history, but it really is necessary to put this report in context, as they say: “UN clears Israel of charge it killed baby in Gaza.” The Times of Israel has the story, based on this UN report:
United Nations report cleared Israel in the death of the infant son of a BBC employee during Operation Pillar of Defense in November, instead fingering a misfired Palestinian rocket for the tragedy.
The November 14 strike left 11-month-old Omar Jihad al-Mishrawi and Hiba Aadel Fadel al-Mishrawi, 19, dead. The death of Omar, the son of BBC Arabic journalist Jihad al-Mishrawi, garnered more than usual media attention and focused anger for the death on Israel, which was initially blamed for the death.
Rather, the report suggests, a 19-year-old woman and a baby were hit by shrapnel from a rocket fired by Palestinians that was aimed at Israel, but missed its mark.
Omar is dead, and Hamas killed him, but both Jihad and jihad live, and the BBC and the Washington Post among others are their willing tools.
When we started this site, exposing mainstream media bias was a big part of our mission. Using the then-new internet, we and many others held liberal outlets (i.e., virtually all of them) accountable in a way that hadn’t happened before. The effect of that effort was not that the liberal press became more accurate or more objective. Rather, they came out of the closet. For the most part, they no longer make any serious pretense of neutrality. Whether that is an improvement or not is debatable.
But, in any event, it no longer makes sense to criticize, say, the New York Times or the Washington Post for being biased. That would be like, if you were a soldier in World War II and a Panzer division was approaching, you were to say, “Those Germans are biased against us!” It isn’t a question of bias. They are just the enemy.
Donald Trump was perhaps the first major Republican politician to abandon the effort to curry favor with the press establishment. He famously denounced the fake news press (sometimes abbreviated to the press in general) as enemies of the people. The good news is, most Americans agree with him.
Rasmussen finds that Trump’s characterization is the majority view:
60% of Likely U.S. Voters agree that the media are “truly the enemy of the people,” as Trump said in 2019, including 30% who Strongly Agree. Thirty-six percent (36%) disagree, including 21% who Strongly Disagree.
That is an extraordinary finding. Respondents were asked this question:
Do you agree or disagree with this statement: The media are “truly the enemy of the people”?
And a clear majority said that they agree. The press has utterly squandered whatever respect it once enjoyed.
The Rasmussen survey also asked about the Democrats’ “bloodbath” hoax:
Former President Donald Trump recently said that it would be a “bloodbath” if he didn’t win in November. Which is more likely, that he was talking about auto workers losing jobs or that he was talking about widespread political violence by his supporters?
The result:
Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters believe Trump was talking about auto workers losing jobs when he warned of a “bloodbath,” while 40% think Trump was talking about widespread political violence by his supporters if he did not win the election. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.
Basically, Democrats follow the Democratic Party press and swallow the Democrats’ talking points:
Among voters who Strongly Approve of Biden’s job performance as president, 78% believe Trump’s “bloodbath” comment was about widespread political violence by his supporters if he did not win the election. By contrast, among voters who Strongly Disapprove of Biden’s performance, 84% think Trump was referring to auto workers losing jobs.
But again, returning to good news, most voters believe that the media’s coverage is driven by the Biden administration’s talking points:
Among all Likely Voters, 63% believe it is likely that the major news media’s political coverage is dictated by talking points from the Biden campaign, including 42% who say it’s Very Likely. Twenty-nine percent (29%) don’t think it’s likely media coverage is dictated by the Biden campaign, including 11% who say it’s Not At All Likely.
Majorities of every political category – 78% of Republicans, 50% of Democrats and 61% of unaffiliated voters – believe it’s at least somewhat likely that the major news media’s political coverage is dictated by talking points from the Biden campaign.
So even half of Democrats admit that the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Associated Press are servants of the Democratic Party. The bottom line is that the liberal press serves certain functions on behalf of the Democratic Party: it reinforces Democrats’ talking points and keeps Democratic voters riled up. Those are valuable contributions, to be sure. But the days when the liberal media could actually drive public opinion are long gone.
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