Monday, January 25, 2010
Media / News Bites Did the Son of a Times Correspondent Just Join the Israeli Army?
Posted by Michael Miner on Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 8:21 PM
The Electronic Intifada, a Web site run by Hyde Park's Ali Abunimah, put up an intriguing story Monday. It began:
"The New York Times has all but confirmed to The Electronic Intifada (EI) that the son of its Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner was recently inducted into the Israeli army."
Times foreign editor Susan Chira was quoted as emailing EI to say, "Mr. Bronner's son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner's coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case."
EI wondered how the Times would react if one of its reporters in Jerusalem " had an immediate family member who faced Bronner's son across the battlefield, as a member of a Palestinian or Lebanese resistance organization?"
Yes, or what about an reporter in Beirut whose son joined Hezbollah?
Or, for that matter, a Pentagon reporter whose son just joined the marines to fight in Afghanistan?
A categorical rule might be tough, and inappropriate, to draw to cover a general situation so contingent on specifics, but I hope the Times doesn't deny it has a situation on its hands, even if it's confident that Ethan Bronner can successfully negotiate it.
EI headlined its item, "New York Times fails to disclose Jerusalem bureau chief's conflict of interest." There's a whiff of irony in that. EI thinks Bronner, an American, showed a "pro-Israeli bias" in his reporting of the military campaign in Gaza last year, and it appears to wonder if in his own view — and perhaps his paper's — his interests are aligned.
Not that it's ever impossible to find someone who thinks just the opposite of someone else, but in the case of the Middle East it's particularly easy. Here's a freshly minted assessment of Bronner from the American Thinker blog that rips him for his "pejorative coverage" of Israel's efforts to assist Haiti after the earthquake. "While Bronner gleefully quotes slanderous allegations about Israel's lack of humanitarian zeal," argues the American Thinker's Leo Rennert, "he omits any mention of the vast extent of humanitarian aid that is pouring into Gaza from Israel every day."
UPDATE: You will see below that I was immediately excoriated for taking the American Thinker seriously enough to even cite it. Sorry, I guess. Here's another critique of Bronner's Gaza coverage that's more impressive, though it's much more along the lines of EI's. It's from blogger Richard Silverstein of Tikun Olam,
Comments (5)
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You're not attempting to use American Thinker as a serious source are you? For them, Golda Meir would be an Arab lover because she'd once made a comment faintly sympathetic to Arabs.
If we compare sources EI, despite whatever biases it might have is light years ahead of American Thinker, which is truly an odious, scummy rag.
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Concerns about influences shaping the coverage of the conflict in Israel/Palestine not only focus on the ways that that coverage is skewed to emphasize support for policies and actions of the Israeli government, but also the ways that supporters of those Israeli policies and actions often stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy. A wonderful blog which tracks those efforts to stifle open debate is MuzzleWatch -- http://www.muzzlewatch.com/ . Begun by Cecilie Surasky of Jewish Voice for Peace -- http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/ -- MuzzleWatch is "dedicated to creating an open atmosphere for debate about US-Israeli foreign policy by: * shining a light on incidents that involve pressure, intimidation, and outright censorship of critics of US-Israeli policy
* showing that there is a real environment of intimidation that keeps people from speaking honestly and openly * making groups that use silencing tactics accountable."
The New York Times has now confirmed to If Americans Knew that Bronner's son is in the Israeli military. Studies of the Times reporting on Israel-Palestine while Bronner was deputy foreign editor can be seen at http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/nyt-r…
More information on Bronner and his "reporting"can be found at http://alisonweir.org/journal/2010/1/26/ne… and at http://www.israel-palestinenews.org/2010/0…
"Lebanese resistance organization"? Are you kidding? What are they reisting exactly?, Israel's right to exist? Hezbollah is a terrorist organization as would likely be any Palestinian group with which Mr. Bronner would come into conflict.
As an ardent reader of The New York Times for over forty years - it is still my primary source of news from around the world - I have often wondered why it has published such biased, slanted, pro-Israel articles written by Mr. Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem. For example in several of his articles Mr. Bronner mentions that 1300 Palestinians were killed during the Gaza War (a figure closer to Israel's estimate), even though more than a dozen human rights organizations from around the world, and foreign news agencies, too, state that more than 1400 Palestinians were killed. After reading about Mr. Bronners' son's joining the IDF, his biased reporting is beginning to make sense. His family is so strongly pro-Israel that his own son has joined the Israeli army. I think it would be highly appropriate for the NYT to recall Mr. Bronner from Jerusalem and reassign him to its bureau in London, New Delhi or Frankfurt.
Yesh Prabhu, Plainsboro, NJ
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