Omri Ceren of Mere Rhetoric has written a thoughtful article over at Big Journalism on how the mainstream media doesn’t let facts get in the way of their anti-Israel narrative:
The problem isn’t so much a resistance to specific facts, though the BBC has indeed been conspicuously ignoring Israeli evidence that contradicts their preferred take on reality. It’s just that being wrong is a functionally costless proposition if the error works against Israel, so journalists can publish an endless stream of sensational accusations with minimal concern for their veracity. All they need is a quote, which anti-Israel partisans are more than willing to provide, and that qualifies as fact-checking.
The reports surrounding Israel’s Monday raid on the Mavi Marmara ship stands as a veritable textbook on how that coverage plays out in real time.
While Ceren singles out the BBC, the same holds true of course for the Guardian.
Concluding Ceren writes:
Israelis became determined not to let anti-Israel media feeding frenzies get ahead of facts ever again, with the assumption being that media outlets simply couldn’t simply lie in the face of evidence.
They were half-right: journalists gave up the easily disprovable lies, and moved on to incoherent arguments. Instead of trying to sustain new story lines, they just fell back to older talking points.
Read the whole thing here.
