New York Times Changes, Scrubs Stupid Headline Designed to Set Up Israelis as Warmongers. MR Provides Screenshot.
Of the myriad the stupid and misleading ways to describe Hezbollah, yesterday morning's New York Times web headline - "Lebanese Rebels" - was truly spectacular (Update 4). It's not just that the headline slides somewhere between the demonstrably wrong and the outright incoherent - its that like most factual journalistic errors about the Middle East, the mistake somehow reflects negatively on Israel (what a coincidence!)
First, the error. It really is a sad day for the Grey Lady when someone can go to Al Jazeera and get more accurate reporting about Hezbollah's descriptions to Syria and Lebanon:
The Syria-backed group... refused to comment but its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, will announce the group's position at a news conference in coming days. Hezbollah, the only Lebanese faction to retain its weapons after the 1975-90 civil war, is also a political party with 14 members of parliament and two cabinet ministers.
Since Hezbollah is actually a member of Lebanon's parliament and is backed by Lebanon's ruler Syria, Hezbollah militia are rebels only if rebel no longer mean "soldier who fights against his own government". And since it does still mean that, the New York Times headline seems kind of silly (besides, even if that wasn't the case, Hezbollah is committed to attacking and destroying a country that the Lebanese government is in a state of war with - which makes them in the very, very, very worst case military allies of the Lebanese government).
But like many mischaracterizations of the Middle East, this is a mistake with a purpose. If Hezbollah is really on the other side of the vast majority of Lebanese, then Israel's actions against Lebanon would be the actions of irrational warmongers. You can can almost hear the fashionable cocktail party faux indignation now: "well you know, Hezbollah is actually a rebel army - Israel would be much better off appealing to those moderates than alienating the Lebanese people" (the bonus, of course, is that Israelis are not only blamed for the level of violence in the region, but also for the very fact that large numbers of people on the other side want to kill them). There's nothing parctircularly original about what this headline was trying to set up, although the utter hash he or she made of even the most basic Middle East fact should make them reconsider journalism as a career. At the very least, they should read some more coverage of the conflict before trying their hand again at setting up Israel to be demonized: there are plenty of far more seasons journalists out there who make their living framing stories in far more subtle anti-Israel ways, and this headline writer ever wants to get anywhere, he or she would do well to study their style. Here, we'll even help: here's Meryl Yourish's AP Bias archive. Don't say that we never did anything for you.
One more thing before we forget. When someone with a brain at the New York Times woke up and looked at the headline, they obviously rushed to change it. The original headline isn't even in the Google News cache, although you can see a link to the old headline by clicking on the cache of this old menu. Or, even easier, here's a screenshot of this pathetic attempt at journalistic bias:
First, the error. It really is a sad day for the Grey Lady when someone can go to Al Jazeera and get more accurate reporting about Hezbollah's descriptions to Syria and Lebanon:
The Syria-backed group... refused to comment but its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, will announce the group's position at a news conference in coming days. Hezbollah, the only Lebanese faction to retain its weapons after the 1975-90 civil war, is also a political party with 14 members of parliament and two cabinet ministers.
Since Hezbollah is actually a member of Lebanon's parliament and is backed by Lebanon's ruler Syria, Hezbollah militia are rebels only if rebel no longer mean "soldier who fights against his own government". And since it does still mean that, the New York Times headline seems kind of silly (besides, even if that wasn't the case, Hezbollah is committed to attacking and destroying a country that the Lebanese government is in a state of war with - which makes them in the very, very, very worst case military allies of the Lebanese government).
But like many mischaracterizations of the Middle East, this is a mistake with a purpose. If Hezbollah is really on the other side of the vast majority of Lebanese, then Israel's actions against Lebanon would be the actions of irrational warmongers. You can can almost hear the fashionable cocktail party faux indignation now: "well you know, Hezbollah is actually a rebel army - Israel would be much better off appealing to those moderates than alienating the Lebanese people" (the bonus, of course, is that Israelis are not only blamed for the level of violence in the region, but also for the very fact that large numbers of people on the other side want to kill them). There's nothing parctircularly original about what this headline was trying to set up, although the utter hash he or she made of even the most basic Middle East fact should make them reconsider journalism as a career. At the very least, they should read some more coverage of the conflict before trying their hand again at setting up Israel to be demonized: there are plenty of far more seasons journalists out there who make their living framing stories in far more subtle anti-Israel ways, and this headline writer ever wants to get anywhere, he or she would do well to study their style. Here, we'll even help: here's Meryl Yourish's AP Bias archive. Don't say that we never did anything for you.
One more thing before we forget. When someone with a brain at the New York Times woke up and looked at the headline, they obviously rushed to change it. The original headline isn't even in the Google News cache, although you can see a link to the old headline by clicking on the cache of this old menu. Or, even easier, here's a screenshot of this pathetic attempt at journalistic bias:
