The New York Times has corrected a photo caption of a Reuters image that it ran Thursday, April 15. The error and correction follow:

Error (photo caption, 4/15/10): Ultra-Orthodox Jews last month in Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)

Correction (4/16/10):A picture caption on Thursday with the continuation of a news analysis article about a shift in the Obama administration’s Middle East policy referred incorrectly to Ramat Shlomo, the name of a Jewish housing development that Israel says it is expanding despite objections by the United States and the Palestinian Authority. It is a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, not a settlement in the West Bank.

Open letter to Jon Stewart, host and executive producer of the Daily Show on Comedy Central (Monday through Thursday, 11:00 PM ET).

Dear Mr. Stewart:

Your popular Daily Show often tackles current news items with clever, caustic humor. In this vein, a March 31, 2010 Daily Show broadcast segment humorously and appropriately lampooned a C-SPAN host‘s feckless handling of a casually racist anti-black caller in a March 29 C-SPAN Washington Journal broadcast. However, this host merely typifies all (or nearly all) of the C-SPAN Journal hosts in their handling of a particular class of bigoted rants by sitting mutely, shuffling papers, and then thanking the callers for their input. These rants, contained in hundreds of calls aired by C-SPAN, are readily available to be mined for humorous fulmination. The documentation is concisely presented on CAMERA’s Website, camera.org, in the following articles (several of the calls documented include video clips): C-SPAN Watch, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal a Platform for Anti-Semitism, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Caller Problem, and – C-SPAN President’s CAMERA Shy Reaction (with video clip) in which a rare Israel related call not bashing Israel, is humorously mishandled by C-SPAN’s president, acting as Journal host, reacting tongue-tied and speechless to a caller’s news that the historical record shows that Arab anti-Jewish terrorism had preceded Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

These CAMERA articles describe hundreds of Journal calls containing virulent anti-Jewish, anti-Israel rants handled in a feckless or foolish way by the host and (often) the guest.

We trust that you will utilize the Journal broadcast material from CAMERA (or at least make use of the CAMERA material in searching C-SPAN archives) for use in the Daily Show since you aim (or should aim) to be an equal-opportunity satirist.

Sincerely,

CAMERA

Former soldier Anat Kamm is under house arrest for allegedly passing some 2000 classified documents to Ha’aretz journalist Uri Blau. In 2008, Blau published an article based on the Kamm material alleging that the Israeli army violated a High Court ruling by assassinating terrorists, including a key Islamic Jihad leader. Kamm claimed that her motives were ideological, to alert the public to war crimes.

The Jerusalem Post reports that former Attorney General Menachem Mazuz had earlier weighed in, refuting Ha’aretz claims that the assassinations were in violation of the High Court decision:

On Monday, the Justice Ministry spokesman released a letter by former Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz. It was written 15 months ago in response to a demand by attorneys Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfard to investigate allegations in the article that the IDF was continuing to carry out targeted assassinations in violation of conditions set down in a High Court of Justice ruling. Three cases were referred to, including the killing of key Islamic Jihad terrorist Ziad Malaisha.

The article, entitled “Secret IDF Documents: The Chief of Staff and the Top Echelon of the IDF Authorized Killing Fugitives and Innocent People,” was based on documents summarizing meetings of operational plans to strike at the Palestinian fugitives. Haaretz also displayed a photocopy of one of the summaries from a meeting held on March 28, 2007. The words “top secret” appeared at the top of the document. . .

The Justice Ministry spokesman’s office said Monday that several reporters had asked whether Mazuz had ordered an investigation into the allegations raised in the article after it was published.

This is what Feldman and Sfard had demanded of Mazuz 15 months earlier. The two attorneys had represented The Public Committee against Torture in Israel in its petition to the High Court against targeted assassinations. It was in its ruling on that petition that the court set down the conditions which, if met, could justify using this tactic. In their letter to Mazuz, the attorneys charged that Blau’s article indicated that the state had violated the ruling in connection with several killings of terrorists including Malaisha.

Mazuz wrote back on January 7, 2009, and turned down the attorneys’ request for an investigation.

Regarding the killing of Malaisha, Mazuz wrote, “The IDF operation met all the conditions laid down in the Bagatz ruling regarding ‘targeted assassinations.’ The attack took place after the possibility of arresting the fugitives was ruled out as being impossible to achieve under the circumstances and after it was made clear to the soldiers that arrest was the first preference.

“The attack was aimed at senior and extremely dangerous terrorists, who were involved in preparations to carry out dangerous terror attacks, and regarding whom the security system had reliable and precise information … It was carried out in awareness of the duty to avoid harming innocents and reduce the danger to them, and after implementing the principle of proportionality.”

Mazuz added that “the legal aspects of the operation were examined at each one of the planning stages and there is no basis to the charge that the IDF ‘ignored’ the High Court’s instructions regarding targeted assassination operations. On the contrary, the operational officers in the general staff, who had close legal consultation, were aware of the High Court instructions and stressed and carried them out in all stages of the planning and the approval of the operation.”

CAMERA has posted another analysis in which Fox’s Geraldo Rivera cites his dubious Zionist credentials to launch an assault against Israel. Much has also been made about Rivera’s March 13, 2002 declaration that “I’m also becoming a Palestinian-ist.”

A visit to the Fox archives reveals a significant fact not realized eight years ago: Rivera attributes his self-declared transformation to the Al Dura affair. Consider the following exchange with Brit Hume:

Hume: It happens time and again. Western journalists, sympathetic to Israel and repelled by the terrorism practiced by the Palestinians, head off to cover the Middle East. After experiencing the place firsthand, especially when the fighting is intense, their views seem to change, and there emerges a certain sympathy for the Palestinians and their cause.

Fox News war correspondent, Geraldo Rivera, a longtime supporter of Israel, who is himself part Jewish, seems to have undergone just such an experience in his recent work in the region, and he joins me now live from Jerusalem. Geraldo, welcome.

GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brit. I think you characterized my evolution in thought quite accurately. The catharsis for me was that video — I’m sure you remember — of the Palestinian father huddled with the child.

Later in the broadcast, after a recovery from a satellite failure, Rivera repeats:

You remember that infamous video of some months ago, that showed a Palestinian father huddled with his 7- or 8- or 9-year-old son against the wall, caught in a crossfire between the Israelis and Palestinians who, at the time, were shooting back, were throwing rocks at the soldiers. By the time that video ended, that young boy was dead and the father severely injured.

Now, I have been, as you suggest, a Zionist my entire life. I would die for Israel. But watching the suffering of the Palestinian people, the real suffering of these people, I’ve also become a Palestinian-ist, in a sense.

(more…)

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt describes the pitfalls of fast-paced journalism in the age of social media and Web 2.0:

THE Times introduced a regular video newscast on its Web site late last month. “TimesCast” shows scenes from the morning meeting where planning starts for the next day’s paper, and it features editors and reporters discussing the top stories that are developing, often with compelling video and photography from world hot spots. . . .

But several stumbles in the past few weeks have demonstrated some of the risks for a print culture built on careful reporting, layers of editing and time for reflection as it moves onto platforms where speed is everything and attitude sometimes trumps values like accuracy and restraint.

On just the second day of “TimesCast,” Bill Keller, the executive editor, misspoke about a sensitive story involving Israel. . . .

Paul Iredale, a veteran Reuters reporter, said he watched “TimesCast” on its second day and was unhappy to see Keller say that Britain had expelled “the head of Mossad,” the Israeli intelligence service, “in retribution for the Israelis’ having assassinated a Hamas militant in Dubai.” The British had not accused Israel of the assassination. Nor had The Times established that the person sent home was the Mossad station chief.

CAMERA has on a number of occasions commented on the problems with Wikipedia when it comes to articles about the Arab-Israeli conflict. See, for example, “How and Why to Edit Wikipedia” and “The Wild West of Wikipedia.”

But a picture is worth a thousand words. (Especially a picture with words.) So here’s a screenshot from Wikipedia that captures all that’s wrong with the encyclopedia:

The screenshot (and this page) reflects how the article looks as of this writing. The actual article page, containing whatever the latest version of the article happens to be, can be found here.

According to the article’s history page, it was created on April 4 by a Wikipedia account created that same day. Later that day, another Wikipedia user removed the reference to “israeli” perpetrators and added the word “alleged.” But the creator of the article returned a couple of days later to undo those changes.

From Maan News Agency and Ynet we learn of yet another resurrected Palestinian, back from the dead after having been murdered by the Zionists.

For details about the earlier resurrection of Muhammad al-Harrani, see here.

Readers often don’t get past a headline — or, at best, the first few lines of a news story. That’s why journalism 101 calls for providing the essentials about an event — who, what, where, when, why — at the very beginning of an article. An April 2 BBC Web site posting flunked the test in a story about an Israeli strike on Gaza.

The Israeli air force attacked weapons and training facilities in the Gaza strip, in retaliation for the recent firing of Qassam rockets into Israel, as well as the killing of two IDF soldiers in Khan Younis last Friday.

However, readers of the BBC website will have a hard time fully understanding Israel’s motives and actions.

Unlike similar stories in the New York Times and CNN, the BBC article waits until the ninth paragraph, to inform its readers that this is a retaliatory strike due to Hamas rocket fire.

Before getting to the fact of rockets fired on Israel, the BBC explains the Palestinian position and even harkens back to operation Cast Lead (including a death toll figure), and includes an extended quote by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya calling “on the international community to intervene in the latest cycle of violence between Gaza and Israel in order to avoid a possible escalation.”

Posted by NB

David Harris responds to a recent Times editorial that, like so many of that newspaper’s editorials, excoriated Israel while virtually ignoring Palestinian responsibility for the situation in the Levant:

On March 27, The New York Times published a lead editorial entitled “Mr. Obama and Israel”.

It was a bare-knuckled assault on Israel. That will bring joy to Israel’s critics. But it did a disservice to the realities on the ground.

Of the editorial’s twenty-six sentences, exactly one – “He [President Obama] must also press Palestinians and Arab leaders just as forcefully.” – is devoted to Israel’s neighbors.

That’s the sum total given to other side of the peace-process equation. It reads like a throwaway line to cover that flank.

Of course, getting serious about peace, which is the editorial’s nominal purpose, requires more attention to those who have rejected every serious overture – from the 1947 UN Partition Plan to the 2009 two-state proposal offered by Prime Minister Olmert.

And it necessitates a more thorough review of the past 14 months since President Obama took office – and of most of the Arab world’s failure to respond to Washington’s pleas for confidence-building measures.

Read the rest here.