Shit! I should have previewed. Sorry about that.
BTW december name calling aside, very decent of you to heed my previous requests and post this kind of ill founded toilet waste in the forum were it belongs.
Even Yasser Arafat calls it “terrorist crimes.”
istara, I have no reason to believe that Reuters has legal reasons for holding back information about Israeli alleged crimes. I know that the UK does have such a law, but if Israel had a similar law, then an Israeli newspaper wouldn’t have been able to write about the grenade.
I disagree with your comment, I love how you choose to prefer believing “Israeli military sources” over an independent news organisation. First of all, Reuters is hardly “independent” when the story concerns a Reuters reporter accused of being a terrorist. Second, Reuters didn’t deny the grenade; they just omitted it.
China Guy, I agree with your statement, “Reuters and the wire services have their own guidelines that they follow. One reason they have these guidelines is to protect their reporters from physical harm, endangerment and detention.”
However, this policy can become a problem if Reuters slants their reports in order to prevent their reporters from being harmed by Arabs.
As far as the groups criticizing Israel, either it may be a sign that Israel is wrong, or it may be a sign of anti-Israel prejudice. Criticism of Israel’s reactions, which ignores the provocations, indicates that it’s the latter.
I like to carry a hand grenade when I’m covering Little League games. When the parents start getting too rowdy, I blow them up.
Yeah - so you’ve just proved my point haven’t you? Different countries have different laws. Reuters wires to all of them. So doubtless it has to err on the side of caution.
Also: Israeli newspapers are undoubtedly biased towards Israel, as are Palestinian newspapers towards Palestine, as are the national media of most countries towards themselves, and certainly to countries in situations of conflict, where nationalism tends to intensify. This isn’t a judgement, just an observation that a country tends to put on a more united front in such a situation, including its media. Witness the US after the 11/9 attacks.
So I think even you should be able to agree, december, that relying on either Palestinian or Israeli news sources for an independent, unbiased view of the Middle East conflict is somewhat ridiculous.
Why not stop making yourself look quite so stupid by your constant unquestioning support of everything that comes out of Israel, and instead use some international sources that are at least not guaranteed 100% partisan in their editorial stance?
While I am not numbering myself among them, there are many extremely good debaters here with sympathies on either or both sides of the argument, who are still prepared to admit to weakness/error on their party’s side, and even argue strongly against their party’s position on certain issues. I suggest you study their debating techniques and perhaps try to emulate them to strengthen your own debating technique.
If Reuters does indeed have a written policy that it won’t report secondhand information from unnamed sources, then they’re ok. But honestly, I’m kinda skeptical. I did a search for the word “Ha’aretz” on the Reuters web site and found several articles. Admittedly, I do not know whether the original Ha’aretz articles contained named sources or not.
In any event, my point was mainly in response to the “libel” argument.
What do you mean? I don’t get it. Do you mean to say that biased reporting is inherently wrong?
He means that any reporting of any activity by any Israeli military, police, or government group that is not preceded by a long litany of Palestinian “provocations” is clearly (and solely) meant to discredit the Israelis.
When did he start working for the independent news agencies?
Note how the AP only uses the term terrorist when quoting him.
Sparc
I think I have to call counter-bullshit on that one. A news agency is supposed to report what happened, not tell us what conclusions to draw from what happened. Even when the conclusion is really, really obvious, or when the crime is really, really hideous. I think it was commendable of AP to hold to their internal rules despite the intense emotions of 9/11 and the subsequent weeks.
snicker “Journalism”… chuckle… “impartial”… BWAHAHAHA!
Oh, thanks, Gary. I needed a good laugh.
Oh shit, don’t tell me I posted with my zipper open again…
…cos failing that, I’m not sure what you’re laughing at. There are still some good journalists out there, and I’d hope you’d agree that requires impartiality?
Impartiality shouldn’t require torturing the language. “Terrorism” has a specific meaning, namely:* “The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.”* It’s not taking sides to use a word that describes what’s happening. One can believe that the suicide bombers are right in what they’re doing, but it’s still “terrorism.”
Fucks sake December, is someone running NO2 in your oxygen tent or something?
You post a question on why Reuters haven’t mentioned someone allegedly being in possession of a grenade when he was arrested.
A number of reasons are given, the most pertinent being that the person hasn’t been charged, and the sources that claimed he was in possesion of said grenade haven’t been identified.
What do you then do - you jump off on a rant about the term used to name people carrying out the bomb attacks.
Just for once could you stick to your own topic, and actually answer the replies people give you. Tell you what, here’s a nice, simple question. Would accurate news reporting require that you verify facts about someones arrest (especially when they haven’t even been charged yet) before you start making specific claims - yes or no?
and, of course, if the article involved is related to the person’s arrest (as it is in your OP), the correct term would be ‘suspected terrorist’, since (at most) they’d merely been charged. Regardless of the charge (so, for example, you could highlight the definition of the word ‘murderer’ and it still wouldn’t mean that a respected news source should call some on by that term until after they’d been found guilty of the crime)
Remember Richard Jewel? The guy in Atlanta who was arrested by the FBI as a suspected terrorist bomber!?!?! The charges were dropped. At that point, I’m sure all the media folk were glad they’d used the term ‘suspected’.
The article said Reuters had had no official communication with Israeli authorities concerning the arrest of the Reuters employee. According to your standard, Gary, Reuters shouldn’t even report that the guy was arrested.
However,But, if they can report the arrest, based on unofficial information, they ought to report the terrorism charge and the hand grenade based on unofficial information.
The arrest was verified and the verification had sources. The government, any government does not hold monopoly on being the source regarding information as per its own actions. When it is not so we don’t have freedom of press anymore, yaknowhatImean?
You’re arguments are batty december as usual.
I disagree with Gary as re you sticking to the topic. I think that you should debate what you really want to debate. The OP is moot as basis for debate anyway so come on old chap… clue us in on what it is you’re really dying to say. Don’t hold back, you’re in the pit - you can do it.
Sparc
Do you need someone to slowly and carefully explain the difference between there being proof of an event happening, and proof that everyone accused of causing it was in fact guilty as charged? Cos it’s a big difference. For example, the british pilot who was arrested for fuck knows how long because he was a) of arabic descent and b) taught flying, and was just released because, um, there’s no evidence against him. Just how guilty was he, hmm? But according to you, it seems, accusation is as good as proof. Hell, even arrest on suspicion is as good as proof. Yeesh.
Nota bene: calling a suspect a suspect is not the same as denying the crime! It’s called truthful reporting!
Ahh another objective, impartial thread by our pal December.
Hey december try to answer us instead of answering the voices in your head. In other words stick to your own discussion.
Having said that I will only add that I prefer to believe Reuters instead of the Israeli`s militars. Not because I am antisemitic as you are probably thinking but because it has been my expirience that militars tend to lie during a war. I am sure the Israeli’s are an exception but perhaps they made a honest mistake