The Mark
April 18 2010

The Veil of Objectivity

The New York Times claims to do objective journalism, but how
impartial can it really be?

Many have recently questioned just how objective the New York Times’
correspondent in Israel and Palestine, Ethan Bronner, can be when he
has a son serving in the Israeli army. In an article published March
28, Bronner showed readers there was cause for concern.

Bronner refers to illegal settlement expansion in East Jerusalem
simply as `Jerusalem housing.’ He quotes Americans and Israelis, many
speaking about Palestinians, but not one Palestinian. He includes a
quote from Moshe Yaalon, a senior Israeli politician, stating that
`the belief of land for peace has failed. We got land in return for
terror.’ Bronner could have asked a senior Palestinian government
minister what he thinks the Palestinians got in return for recognizing
Israel’s right to exist, and after over forty years of occupation and
nearly twenty years of negotiations. But he did not.

The Times sees nothing wrong with its coverage of the Israel-Palestine
conflict being shaped by journalists such as Bronner and their
stridently pro-Israel columnist, Thomas L. Friedman. Nor do they see a
conflict of interest in Bronner having a son in the Israeli army. They
believe this will not affect his coverage of its actions in the
occupied territories.

`Record the fury of a Palestinian whose land has been taken from him
by Israeli settlers ` but always refer to Israel’s `security needs’
and its `war on terror,” wrote veteran Middle East war correspondent
Robert Fisk, author of Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon and
The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East. Fisk
was referring to the creed of objectivity in journalism which he and
others like him believe only dilutes the truth by making journalists
timid voyeurs bound by the interests of the corporate media and
incapable of writing directly, frankly, and fearlessly. This veneer of
objectivity only serves to thinly veil the biases always present in
the media.

`If Americans are accused of `torture’, call it `abuse,” Fisk
continues. `If Israel assassinates a Palestinian, call it a `targeted
killing’. If Armenians lament their Holocaust of 1,500,000 souls in
1915, remind readers that Turkey denies this all too real and fully
documented genocide. If Iraq has become a hell on earth for its
people, recall how awful Saddam was. If a dictator is on our side,
call him a `strongman’. If he’s our enemy, call him a tyrant, or part
of the `axis of evil’. And above all else, use the word `terrorist.’
Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Seven days a
week.’

Last month, news outlets across the United States reported the arrests
of several members of a right-wing militia which planned to kill an
unidentified law enforcement officer and then bomb the funeral
procession. Even though, according to the Department of Homeland
Security, right-wing extremist ideology is now the most dangerous
domestic terrorism threat in the U.S., the mainstream press did not
refer to those who were planning the attacks as terrorists.

The Times called them `apocalyptic Christian militants,’ though they
had planned to use improvised explosive devices `based on designs used
against American troops by insurgents in Iraq.’ When the same
newspaper reported on the so-called `underwear bomber’ ` when Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight
253 on Christmas Day, 2009 ` they wrote of the `terror suspect,’ the
`terrorist plot,’ `terrorist connections,’ and the `terrorism
incident.’ Terror, terror, terror, as Fisk would say.

Adam Nossiter wrote in the Times that `behind Mr. Abdulmutallab’s
journey from gifted student to terrorism suspect’ there `is a struggle
within Islam itself, not just in the Middle East or in centers of
jihadist ideology like London, but also here in Kaduna, the northern
Nigerian city where Mr. Abdulmutallab grew up ¦’ But when it came to
Christian terror suspects the word `terror’ in the Times was
conspicuously missing. There was no talk of `terrorist connections’ or
of a struggle within Christianity itself. Perhaps the paper shares Ann
Coulter’s view that `not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all
terrorists are Muslims.’

I was recently at the Times office in Manhattan and asked someone in a
senior position about the editorial board’s stance on Iran. While most
of the important editorial pages in the U.S. call for measures of
varying severity to be taken against Iran for stubbornly forging ahead
with its nuclear program, few dare examine the possible motives behind
Iran’s determination such as using nuclear weapons as a deterrent to
foreign aggressors.

Iran may want nuclear weapons because it sees the U.S. occupying
countries on its eastern and western boarders; because there was talk
in the previous U.S. administration of Iran being next after Iraq in
2003 when things seemed to be going well for Washington; or because
Israel, a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
introduced nuclear weapons to the region in the first place. The
actual use of such a weapon by Iran would be an act of national
suicide.

The senior Times employee told me the editorial board’s position was
non-proliferation, meaning no weapons. This is a good principle at
face value, but why, then, had the paper not written editorials urging
Israel to ratify the NPT, to stop producing nuclear weapons, and to
open its massive arsenal to international inspections? The person
rather bizarrely retorted that Israel’s arsenal was not massive, when,
in fact, Israel may have hundreds of nuclear warheads (it is hard to
know how many exactly since Israel maintains a policy of nuclear
ambiguity). Compared to Iran’s possible development of a few warheads
and considering the damage that just one such weapon can do, Israel’s
arsenal is, indeed, massive.

Objectivity has become a creed without credence. It is time for
newspapers to either drop the illusion or restore the faith of readers
in it. This requires honest journalists who operate independently from
the power elite instead of seeing themselves as belonging to it, and
editorial boards that truly search for new and unconventional
perspectives. This will only be achieved when the press begins to
apply the same standards ` and the same terminology ` without
discrimination to all those it covers. The New York Times, as one of
the world’s preeminent papers, should do more to set the example.

-the-veil-of-objectivity