Berl Falbaum
As I have written often in the last year, the media coverage of the Hamas-Israeli war has been disgraceful and shameful.
Starting just a few days after October 7, the entire emphasis has been on Israel’s response and, overall, Hamas has been barely mentioned. Israel is endlessly blamed for all the civilian deaths, the destruction in Gaza, and death toll numbers are distorted and skewed.
This one-sided coverage reminded me of a dispute I had with The New York Times in 1997 about its coverage of the general conflict between the Palestinians and Israel.
It was prompted by a letter from The Times’ news editor to a subscriber that implied — more than implied — that a double standard exists at the paper on how The Times covers violence by the two parties.
It is worth, I think, revisiting that exchange; it may shed some light on not only The Times’ coverage but the media as a whole. Thus, I went to my files.
In 1997, Sherman Miller, of Longwood, Fla. sent a letter to The Times in which he charged its coverage of alleged torture by Israel and Palestinians was “uneven and lacked professional integrity.” He said he was surprised by the distortion from a paper which is “supposedly the bastion of actual reporting.”
In a one-paragraph reply, the late William Borders, then news editor, wrote: “The whole point is torture by Israel, a democratic ally of the United States, which gets huge support from (the U.S.) is news. Torture by Palestinians seems less surprising. Surely, you don’t consider the two authorities morally equivalent.”
Miller responded to Joseph Lelyveld, then executive editor, (top dog), with the following:
“If I were to take his [Borders] hypothesis to its conclusion then we would have to assume that the recent Palestinian terrorist bombing in Jerusalem is not news and would not be covered by your paper since it was carried out by [an] amoral authority. How absurd! What an insult to the intelligence of not only me but to your readers.
“So, factual reporting is no longer the issue but the morality of the participants is the criteria for emphasis and coverage.”
In a column I wrote at the time:
“Probably never in the history of journalism has any mainstream publication ever confessed to such a bias and it is nothing short of astounding coming from the executive who has policy responsibilities at this prestigious news organization.”
I joined others in discussing the letter publicly, which led Borders to state in an interview: “If I had known it [the letter] would be widely circulated, I would have worded it more carefully. I’m sorry and I repudiate it.”
Borders, who died in 2018, did not deny the double-standard; he just regretted that it became public. Further, to this day, I still don’t know how one repudiates his own letter.
But that was not the end of it. Lelyveld, who died last year, wrote to me, defending The Times.
“I deny we have had a dual moral standard,” Lelyveld wrote, “Bill Borders’ formulation notwithstanding.” Oops, an admission there was something amiss with Borders’ definition of news.
He said Borders was “baited” by Miller (I loved that) and concluded with the following: “Mangling language, you say our policy is ‘incredulous.’ But there is no such policy and there never has been.”
I responded to Lelyveld, stating that I did not know that such a powerful person as poor Mr. Borders could be baited by one subscriber into making such an admission.
Then, I told him that I shared the letter with colleagues at two university journalism departments (Oakland and Wayne State) where I was teaching, and everyone mangled language in interpreting the original letter. So did students whom I assigned to write a paper on the letter.
Through the years, Israel has continually been held to a double-standard. Thus, I raise the issue because there appear to be some parallels that I think might apply to the war in Gaza.
Perhaps the media considers Hamas amoral and gives it a pass on its butchery and savagery and the deaths it causes in the strip. Perhaps the media expect more from Israel and thus places most of the blame on the Jewish state. Maybe that is why the media ignore several other humanitarian disasters that are far worse around the world.
None of that, of course, excuses the slanted coverage by the media, but it helps explain the reality.
Whatever the reasons, the consequences are formidable in that it provides the public with a one-sided view of the war, gives Hamas cover, and, equally condemnable and frightening, stokes antisemitism worldwide.
What’s more, the situation is much more serious in today’s political climate than when Miller challenged The Times in the late 1990s.
Given attacks from Iran and its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, Israel faces potentially fatal threats never experienced before.
And that is not mangling language.
Starting just a few days after October 7, the entire emphasis has been on Israel’s response and, overall, Hamas has been barely mentioned. Israel is endlessly blamed for all the civilian deaths, the destruction in Gaza, and death toll numbers are distorted and skewed.
This one-sided coverage reminded me of a dispute I had with The New York Times in 1997 about its coverage of the general conflict between the Palestinians and Israel.
It was prompted by a letter from The Times’ news editor to a subscriber that implied — more than implied — that a double standard exists at the paper on how The Times covers violence by the two parties.
It is worth, I think, revisiting that exchange; it may shed some light on not only The Times’ coverage but the media as a whole. Thus, I went to my files.
In 1997, Sherman Miller, of Longwood, Fla. sent a letter to The Times in which he charged its coverage of alleged torture by Israel and Palestinians was “uneven and lacked professional integrity.” He said he was surprised by the distortion from a paper which is “supposedly the bastion of actual reporting.”
In a one-paragraph reply, the late William Borders, then news editor, wrote: “The whole point is torture by Israel, a democratic ally of the United States, which gets huge support from (the U.S.) is news. Torture by Palestinians seems less surprising. Surely, you don’t consider the two authorities morally equivalent.”
Miller responded to Joseph Lelyveld, then executive editor, (top dog), with the following:
“If I were to take his [Borders] hypothesis to its conclusion then we would have to assume that the recent Palestinian terrorist bombing in Jerusalem is not news and would not be covered by your paper since it was carried out by [an] amoral authority. How absurd! What an insult to the intelligence of not only me but to your readers.
“So, factual reporting is no longer the issue but the morality of the participants is the criteria for emphasis and coverage.”
In a column I wrote at the time:
“Probably never in the history of journalism has any mainstream publication ever confessed to such a bias and it is nothing short of astounding coming from the executive who has policy responsibilities at this prestigious news organization.”
I joined others in discussing the letter publicly, which led Borders to state in an interview: “If I had known it [the letter] would be widely circulated, I would have worded it more carefully. I’m sorry and I repudiate it.”
Borders, who died in 2018, did not deny the double-standard; he just regretted that it became public. Further, to this day, I still don’t know how one repudiates his own letter.
But that was not the end of it. Lelyveld, who died last year, wrote to me, defending The Times.
“I deny we have had a dual moral standard,” Lelyveld wrote, “Bill Borders’ formulation notwithstanding.” Oops, an admission there was something amiss with Borders’ definition of news.
He said Borders was “baited” by Miller (I loved that) and concluded with the following: “Mangling language, you say our policy is ‘incredulous.’ But there is no such policy and there never has been.”
I responded to Lelyveld, stating that I did not know that such a powerful person as poor Mr. Borders could be baited by one subscriber into making such an admission.
Then, I told him that I shared the letter with colleagues at two university journalism departments (Oakland and Wayne State) where I was teaching, and everyone mangled language in interpreting the original letter. So did students whom I assigned to write a paper on the letter.
Through the years, Israel has continually been held to a double-standard. Thus, I raise the issue because there appear to be some parallels that I think might apply to the war in Gaza.
Perhaps the media considers Hamas amoral and gives it a pass on its butchery and savagery and the deaths it causes in the strip. Perhaps the media expect more from Israel and thus places most of the blame on the Jewish state. Maybe that is why the media ignore several other humanitarian disasters that are far worse around the world.
None of that, of course, excuses the slanted coverage by the media, but it helps explain the reality.
Whatever the reasons, the consequences are formidable in that it provides the public with a one-sided view of the war, gives Hamas cover, and, equally condemnable and frightening, stokes antisemitism worldwide.
What’s more, the situation is much more serious in today’s political climate than when Miller challenged The Times in the late 1990s.
Given attacks from Iran and its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, Israel faces potentially fatal threats never experienced before.
And that is not mangling language.
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