Category: Media Watch

Would You Buy a Used Car from This Man? Or This One Either?

Yasser Arafat hinted at recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, according to a transcription of an interview with Henry Siegman, which this article describes as an “American Jewish activist”:

Israel would receive sovereignty over the Western Wall — a remnant of the Second Temple compound — and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, “because we recognize and respect the Jewish religion and the Jewish historical attachment to Palestine,” according to the transcript.
Asked about Israel as a Jewish state, Arafat said that it was up to Israel to define itself, as long as it was democratic and guaranteed the rights of minorities.

Arafat included the reference to democracy and the rights of minorities to appeal to American and EU audiences, but left unspoken the tripping point of refugee return, through which Arafat hopes to establish a Palestinian primacy in Israel. Dore Gold, a Sharon adviser, makes this point in the article.
However, who is Henry Siegman, the “American Jewish activist”?

Continue reading “Would You Buy a Used Car from This Man? Or This One Either?”

Let’s Play “Spot the Media Bias”

Steve Gigl at Helloooo Chapter Two! alerts his readers to the following story from the AP, reprinted in the Star Tribune with the following headline:

Driver hit while talking on radio call-in show in SUV

Steve Gigl adds:

Does “in SUV” tacked on the end there supply any useful information? To say it differently: do you lose anything by just reporting “Driver hit while talking on radio call-in show?”

No, it doesn’t, but note that it does associate four “evils” of the Left in one story:
* driving, instead of using public transportation
* SUVs, the new epitome of conspicuous consumption
* using cell phones while driving
* talk radio
When this came across the wire, the news desk at the Strib must have tripped over themselves rushing this to print with the superfluous mention of the SUV. Only when you read the article do you read that she had pulled over to the side of the road to make her call, and was in fact struck from behind. What you won’t read is that being in the SUV probably saved her life or kept her from more serious injury (she was hospitalized in stable condition, which indicates that the accident was more than a fender-bender).