NY Times News Analysis, For Whatever It’s Worth
One wonders if Robert F. Worth of the New York Times even read his own newspaper before he wrote this analysis, which appears today in the International Herald Tribune. He writes:
Earlier this month, Israeli soldiers were pruning a tree on their country’s northern border when a firefight broke out with Lebanese soldiers across the fence, leaving one Israeli and four Lebanese dead.
The skirmish seems to have been accidental.
1) The “firefight broke out”? That is a pretty lame and euphemistic way of describing Lebanese firing on Israeli troops trimming a tree on their side of the border in a pre-coordinated move with the United Nations. In a news analysis in the supposed paper of record, you would hope for a tad more precision.
2) The skirmish seems to have been accidental? Really? Based on what? Not the United Nations, which “largely vindicat[ed] Israel’s account of how the fighting started,” in the words of the New York Times.
In another worrisome indication about Worth’s analytical skills, he writes that for some Lebanese, having the Lebanese army back on the border with Israel “was a possible first step toward disarming Hezbollah.”
A step toward disarming Hezbollah? In fact, the opposite has happened. But don’t hold your breath for our worthy analyst to share the facts with you. Nevermind that since UN Resolution 1701 was passed after the 2006 Lebanon war, placing the Lebanese army in the south of the country, Hezbollah’s missile supply has skyrocketed to 40,000, far beyond the quantity it had in 2006.
A day in the life of New York Times news analyses. For whatever it’s worth.
More from SNAPSHOTS
Mahmoud Abbas’ Diatribe Threatening Israel Included Bogus Canaanite Claim
September 10, 2019
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent anti-Israel diatribe that aired on PA TV was monitored and translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Excerpt: "I say to [Israel]: Every stone you have built on our land [...]
CNN Calls House’s Unifying Anti-BDS Vote ‘Divisive’
July 24, 2019
Yesterday, in an overwhelming vote of bipartisan support, the House of Representatives voted 398 to 17 to adopt a resolution opposing the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) campaign. Yet, CNN's headline casts the unifying vote [...]
NY Times Cites Poll, Hides Palestinian Support for Violence
July 9, 2019
The New York Times has struggled to accurately describe polls this year. In January, editor Jonathan Weisman misrepresented Pew polling data to describe a nonexistent surge in Israeli support for the United States under President [...]
CNN’s Zakaria Indulges Palestinian Propagandist Hanan Ashrawi
June 9, 2019
Fareed Zakaria’s weekly Cable News Network (CNN) program (grandiosely named “Global Public Square”) June 9 broadcast included a discussion of the current U.S. Middle East peace plan with guests Hanan Ashrawi (Palestinian Authority official) and [...]
In Robert Bernstein Obit, AFP Inappropriately References His Judaism
May 29, 2019
Robert Bernstein (Courtesy the New Press) In its obituary yesterday for American publisher Robert Bernstein, Agence France Presse inserted an inappropriate reference to the Human Rights Watch founder who later turned on the organization due [...]