LA Times‘ Temple Mount Provocation, II
For the second time in just over a year, a Los Angeles Times headline about increasing Jewish visits and attempts to circumvent the ban on Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount misleads and inflames.
In October 2012, we flagged this front-page headline on the LA Times site:
At the time, we noted:
The headline is provocative and misleading given that the site in question, the Temple Mount, is not simply a “site sacred to Muslims,” but is also Judaism’s holiest site, as the article itself makes clear.
Furthermore, the front-page blurb does nothing to clarify the fact that the site where Jews are seeking to pray is Judaism’s holiest site. It says: “Israeli police and Muslim officials say prayers at the Temple Mount-Al Aqsa mosque site are a provocation. One rabbi responds: ‘What is provocative about a person wanting to pray?'”
Those readers who bother to click on the headline in order to read the story will come to a page with a more balanced headline. It states “More Jews praying on site also sacred to Muslims” (emphasis added). The “also” makes clear that the site is holy to Jews, an essential point that the majority of Los Angeles Times Web visitors would miss.
The Times does it again, with a page 3 headline yesterday (only in print) stating:
Israeli Jews defy ban on prayer
Increasing visits to a Muslim holy site could lead to violence, some warn
The accompanying article is by AP’s Daniel Estrin, and the original AP headline was accurate and not misleading:
While Estrin does not spell out that the Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site, he reports:
Jews believe the rock may be where the holiest part of the two ancient temples stood about 2,000 years ago — and where religious Jews pray a third temple will one day be built.
The site is so holy that Jews have traditionally refrained from praying on the hilltop, congregating instead at the adjacent Western Wall.
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