Lies, More Lies, Damn Lies and Newspapers

Zen & Understanding the Middle East

Caveat Lector - Let the reader beware of vicious op-eds. It is universally accepted that editorial writing does not have to tell the truth about facts, and it rarely does. It is absurd to write "in my opinion there was no Holocaust" or "in my opinion Israel received $400 billion in US aid," because these are not assertions of opinion. They are false assertions of fact. It is perfectly acceptable to write such things in editorials, and people do it all the time. A two article series by Chris McGreal in the Guardian smeared Israel as an "Apartheid state" and made a number of provably false allegations. The Guardian editors had hyped the article with this introduction:

Clearly, anyone who read that introduction would think they are getting the straight goods, but it was not so.

Nevertheless a review board cleared McGreal of the obligation to be honest.

Really? Was that clear to you from the introduction above? If journals are not willing to adhere to elementary standards of honesty, the only thing one can do is use them to wrap fish and stuff cracks.

Attribution - A journalist can get away with any falsehood even in a news article by putting it in the mouth of someone else or quoting someone else. For example, "Report: US used nuclear weapons in Iraq," is an acceptable news headline. The report may be completely false. "'There are no Arabs living in the Jewish quarter," according to a Palestinian I interviewed'" Such an assertion appeared in the Guardian article written by Chris McGreal. Anyone reading the Guardian would think it was true, but it was not, and McGreal, who wrote it, could hide behind the defense of "attribution." He didn't say it - someone else did. He didn't take care to check the facts and present them either of course, because they contradict his thesis. If the attribution is to a "reliable source" it may be even more suspicious.

Previous: Understand the Context Next: Beware of Generalizations