Photo Tilt at the NYT
The New York Times rightly featured an image of the Palestinian terrorist attack in southern Israel on its front page on August 19, 2011. It was, after all, a deadly, multi-pronged attack from the Sinai of a kind not seen in many years. (The Times itself, needless to say, refrained from actually calling it a terrorist attack.)
Yet, while the attacks primarily targeted and killed civilians, the image was one of soldiers.
And, in what is virtually an art form of misdirection and circumlocution at the paper, editors managed to shade the language of the caption to omit the targeting of Israeli civilians, even to leave unclear the attack occurred inside Israel, and to omit identifying the perpetrators — Palestinians. In contrast to the un-named Palestinian actors in the attack, a bolded headline above the caption made clear how Israel responded — by bombing Gaza — and this was repeated in the text of the caption. It read:
Israel Responds to Attacks by Bombing Gaza
Wounded Israeli soldiers were treated Thursday after gunmen attacked them near the border between Israel and Egypt. Eight Israelis were killed and more than 30 wounded in multiple attacks in the area. Israel responded with air strikes on Gaza.
The original AP photo caption that accompanied the image was far more clear and direct, making clear the attack occured in Israel and identifying Palestinians as involved. It read this way:
Wounded Israeli soldiers are treated at the site of a shooting attack along the border between Israel and Egypt, southern Israel, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011. Assailants armed with heavy weapons, guns and explosives crossed into southern Israel from the neighboring Egyptian Sinai peninsula on Thursday, killing six Israelis and wounding at least a dozen more in an audacious string of attacks that stoked concerns about Palestinian militants exploiting the recent instability in Egypt. (AP Photo/Yosi Ben)
More from SNAPSHOTS
President of Bethlehem Bible College Expresses Thanks for Antisemitic Comment
January 30, 2018
Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College, either can’t recognize antisemitism when he sees it or is OK with it. In a Facebook discussion underneath one of his articles at The Christian Post, a website [...]
Civilian Bounties, Quartz, Haaretz & Lousy Translations
January 29, 2018
Quartz, which describes itself as "a digitally native news outlet, born in 2012, for business people in the new global economy. We publish bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview," today took heat [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Arab Enrollment in Israeli Universities Grows 78%
January 27, 2018
Part of the campus of Tel Aviv University The number of Arab students in Israeli universities has grown an astonishing 78.5% over the last seven years, according to Israel’s Council for Higher Education (CHE). Although [...]
Is The U.S. State Department Hiding a ‘Game Changer’ Report on Palestinian Refugees?
January 25, 2018
The United Nations Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides aid to approximately 5.3 million Palestinians which they categorize as “refugees”—but the actual number may be as low as 20,000, according to a Washington Free Beacon [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Palestinian Leader Buys $50 Million Private Jet
January 25, 2018
The President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, has bought a private jet worth an estimated $50 million. The purchase comes after widely reported “major funding cuts from the U.S.,” as The Times of [...]
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Takes Heat for Inaccurate Knesset Tweet
January 22, 2018
After NBC anchor Andrea Mitchell posted an inaccurate and inflammatory comment on Twitter about the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, she was quickly corrected by Israeli journalists. In her Monday morning tweet, Mitchell asserted that “the 13 [...]
Updated: AFP Photo Captions Mislead on Gaza ‘Smuggling Tunnels’
January 17, 2018
Update Appended to Bottom of Post: AFP Removes Misleading Reference to 'Smuggling' Tunnels A series of Agence France Presse photo captions earlier this week misleadingly identified the tunnel discovered under the Kerem Shalom crossing, extending [...]
In English, Haaretz Misleads on Ibrahim Abu Thuraya
January 14, 2018
Update, 8:10 am EST: For Second Time, Haaretz English Edition Corrects on Abu Thuraya’s Leg Injury Despite the fact that Haaretz’s earlier this month corrected a photo caption which inaccurately reported on the unclear circumstances [...]
Where’s the Coverage? Israel Prevented ‘Several Dozen’ Terror Attacks in Europe
January 11, 2018
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu The nation of Israel prevented ‘mass’ terror attacks on the continent of Europe, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Jan. 9, 2018. This admission—made at a meeting of Israel-based [...]