There is confusion laced with fear in the mind of every publisher in
the world. This is especially true of the old titans of the print media
who view the Internet with a mixture of lust and suspicion. Until just
a few years ago, a print media empire like the New York Times Company was
unassailable by virtue of its size. They could drown out any competitive
voice by sheer volume of circulation. Even a market as large as New York
City could be virtually monopolized by three daily papers, the New York
Times, the ever plebeian Daily News and Murdoch's tabloid, the New York
Post. Most other American cities have markets dominated by a single paper.
Before Gore invented the Internet, the print media was a tidy little
business dominated by a few publishers who made fortunes that made them
king makers. Randolph Hearst was a publisher who was arrogant enough to
start the Spanish-American war through his infamous campaign of yellow
journalism.
In a similar fashion, The New York Times Company has a management and
editorial staff that have arrogated the power to make and change America's
policy in the Middle East. This is especially true when it comes to the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The Machiavellian princes at the Times will
not shy from publicly tormenting any American politician who dares have
a view that clashes with Israeli 'wisdom'. Their power has been such that
America now has a Middle Eastern foreign policy that is based on Zionist
historic mythology. It is also a policy that caters to Israel's every ambition.
These old school media titans plan to hold onto their market share and
will not easily shed their power to sway public policy. Thinking themselves
invincible, they are making a play for dominating advocacy journalism on
the Web. They bring to this virtually impossible task the heavy artillery
of their historical record. One could not design a more lethal two-edged
sword.
Imagine the challenges they face on the views and news they have printed
on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict over the last fifty years. The 'vaunted'
content they wish to leverage on this particular subject is very tainted
material. I predict that the credibility of this news organization will
be damaged by a technology that gives a new generation of cyber journalists
immediate access to archives that can easily be impeached by those who
have not swallowed whole the encyclopedia of Zionist mythology.
New lessons are quickly being assimilated by nimble dot.com competitors
who do not carry the baggage of archives. The burden of these tainted archives
will be the Achilles heals of the 'established' print media. The rules
of the games in advocacy journalism are changing faster than a click of
the mouse. Consider that every article a journalist or an editor pens today,
becomes a permanent record. Every legitimate response also gains an eternal
shelf life. If a journalist twists his news or his facts, the evidence
of tampering will not get lost in the recycling bin. It can be accumulated
on a tiny disk. Indeed, the titans at the Times have not only to worry
about the news they print today, they need to worry about an Archive that
goes back 50 years and speaks volumes about the nature and extent of shameless
pro-Israeli advocacy.
The New York Times tradition of tainting the news on the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict is one that predates the founding of the Jewish State. In New
York, Israel is a local issue. That is why this particular municipal paper
devotes so much space to the subject. And that is just one subject matter
they need to fret about. It would be hard to believe that the complaints
about the content of their archives will emanate only from those of us
who know Palestinians history. Their role as in the attempted theft of
the presidential election has no doubt created serious concerns in serious
quarters.
The 'Archive' liability problem only gets worst when it becomes clear
that the New York Times will also be held accountable for the Boston Globe,
which practices a more vile and plebeian version of advocacy. The Boston
Globe, also published by Sulzberger, is the home of Jeff Jacoby, a peddler
of unusually derogatory smut. Consider his article in the Boston Globe
of 11/20/2000, which included the following choice words:
LATE IN SEPTEMBER, the Palestinian Authority kicked off a campaign
of organized violence meant to hasten the final ''liberation'' of Israel
from the Jews. The fighting began with mobs throwing rocks and firebombs
at Jewish civilians and vehicles. Soon it escalated to militiamen firing
automatic weapons at Israeli troops - often from behind Arab teenagers
used as human shields.
There have been scenes of shocking barbarity. On the eve of Rosh
Hashana, a Muslim throng on the Temple Mount plaza hurled stones and
bricks on worshippers at the Western Wall below. In Nablus, Arabs demolished
Joseph's Tomb, torching and smashing the ancient shrine in a frenzy of
desecration. On Oct. 11, gunmen opened fire on mourners carrying Rabbi
Hillel Lieberman to his grave; the rabbi had been killed trying to save
the Torah scroll at Joseph's Tomb. When three Israeli reservists took
a wrong turn into Ramallah, two of them were lynched, their corpses mutilated
beyond recognition, thrown from a window, and dragged through the streets.
The third, it was reported, was burned in his car.
As If that is not enough inciteful and hysterical hate mongering, this
moron of a bigot goes on to state that Palestinians are letting their kids
become 'martyrs' in exchange for cash from the Palestinian Authority. Maligning
and defaming the fallen Palestinians and their mothers with this particular
bit of slander has appeared once too often in Sulzberger's publications.
It cannot be written off as the work of a deranged solitary journalist.
No kind of apology will ever suffice for this kind of vindictive graffiti
that pollutes many a page published by the New York Times Company. It is
one thing for the Times to be a belligerent in the Palestinian/Israeli
conflict and quite another to practice the arson of defamation. The Palestinians
have no refuge from the Times, but Arab-Americans and the Muslims of America
will long remember the vilification and manufactured disdain that have
become a nauseating by-product of pro-Israeli advocacy at The New York
Times. The arsenal buried in the archives of Mr Sulzberger's publications
inflicted many a wound to our collective memory.
Jacoby's article completely ignored the almost 200 Palestinians who
had been killed by the IDF at the time the article was published. Also
unmentioned by Jacoby are the thousands of Palestinians who were maimed
and mutilated by the unrestrained force being applied by the IDF. Nothing
is said about the extent of property damage inflicted on Palestinians and
the desecration of their mosques and churches. Jacoby's racist drivel can
always be found in the archives of the New York Times Publishing Company
(Boston Globe Division).
What was even more outrageous about this particular 'Boston Globe /
New York Times' Jacoby article was that it came in response to a full-page
advertisement by the American-Arab-Anti-Discrimination Committee in the
New York Times. Yet there is no mention in Jacoby's article that his paycheck
is written by the New York Times Publishing Company. Sulzberger and his
company have no qualms about selling space to an Arab-American civil rights
organization in one of his publications and turning around and allowing
The Boston Globe's Jacoby to slander every Palestinian victim, every Palestinian
victim's family, every Arab, every Arab-American and every Muslim-American.
Sulzberger is not beyond selling an Ad to a baker and then spreading ruinous
rumors about his dough.
All this is nothing new for Sulzberger and his minions in New York and
Boston.
They have long considered it fair game to malign fellow Americans of Arab
descent We are just considered a side casualty of the Israel Firster's
attempt to demonize the Palestinians. Well, let them write what they want.
We just need them to remember to leave a copy in the archives.
It is said of lawyers that 99% of them give the other one- percent a
bad name. I don't know what the exact figures are for New York Times journalists.
But the archives paint a pretty dismal picture. Every journalist at the
Times and the Globe writes in the company of other journalists who get
paid by Sulzberger. Jacoby, Sontag, Safire, Friedman and Bob Herbert toil
at the same place as Anthony Lewis. Can it be that Lewis was blind to the
suspect journalism of his colleagues? Does Jacoby's attitude extend to
those who do the hiring and firing at the New York Times?. How diverse
is the staff at this print media empire, anyhow? Time for nothing but worries
at the New York Times. Infested archives are the dry rot that will reduce
Sulzberger's print empire back to being just another ethnic provincial
paper. The internet is not good news for the print media titans.
|