ermmmmmm, that’s why I included the little example about people magazine.
They are not taken seriously outside the “Israeli Keyboard defence Force”
And what you have done their is called ad hominem (also detailed at the adress given, it is sometimes called a “false compromise”, cite:
rampisad,
This site also has thousands of supporters who support its fight against media bias. Should we trust them to report accurately, too?
If you really want to stick with honestreporting.com as an unbiased source, we can have lots of fun. We can cover things like its ties to Aish HaTora. Do you really want to go there, or would you prefer to get your “unbiased” cites elsewhere?
I don’t see any post where rampisad claimed that Honest Reporting was an unbiased source. They’re purpose is to support Israel by pointing out unfair media coverage and encouraging their readers to contact the media.
But, as far as I know, HonestReporting is accurate in what they say. They generally critique things on the web and provide cites. I’ve often checked the cites and found them accurate. I do agree with MC that their complaint about the Mel Gibson movie was relatively small, although it was fully accurate. I do wonder why the movie-makers chose the mis-representation that HR was complaining about.
However, I find most of their complaints to be substantial and some are glaring.
If you feel that HR cites should be checked for accuracy and for significance, please go ahead and vet all the examples rampisad provided. But, all of HR shouldn’t be rejected out of hand just because it has a POV and one particular complaint was a nitpick.
I’m not going to get into a big debate about the issue, but their complaint (about Mel Gibson) was inaccurate and think it goes against their credibilty that they did not even bother to find out when the kingdom of Israel actually ended and that they did not bother to find out how the term ‘ancient Palestine’ is used by historians (or that the term Palestine already existed at that time).
Does anyone have any cites for how many children have been killed while attempting “martyrdom”, or should we come up with our own term for the above violation by HonestReporting.com. In reading many of their reports, one realizes that they don’t often challenge facts by producing their own facts, they simply use the “Can you believe they said this?” tactic.
For the record, here are all of their “violations” that they are on the watch for:
While that’s quite an admirable list, they should probably apply the standards to themselves first. Finding fault with the site is like shooting fish in a dixie cup with a 12 gauge shotgun.
For even bigger laughs, take a gander here (PDF) to see what they are really all about (Pssst, but don’t tell the media that we sent you). To be fair, I find the bias of the link in my previous post, with a Palestinian bias, to be just as laughable, and would gladly shoot holes in it if anyone used it as a cite for their position.
I think you are confusing what he said in his public speeches with actual policy. Yes, the speeches were good; he said a lot of really admirable things. The actual policies, on the other hand, were a different matter.
As for the “middle ground,” the middle ground is a technical term, which also goes by such euphemisms as “supporting the moderates.” It’s actual meaning is supporting whoever happens to be best for U.S. (ruling class) interests. Recall that such personages as Duarte, Mussolini and Hitler have all been called “moderates” seeking to rein in the extreme right and extreme left.
Carter’s “middle ground” in Central America were the leaders of death squads, drug lords, sub-fascists torturers and mass murderers. They were in the middle ground in the technical sense of serving U.S. ruling class interests, but in reality they were extreme rightists.
I’m going to have to ask for a cite on this, and it’s irrelevant, anyhow. Why would some unnamed individual’s assessment of Duarte, Mussolini and/or Hitler have any bearing on Carter?
the BBC use unbiased language. It is in their charter to be unbiased. You used an obviously opinionated cite to chastise the BBC for not being “Anti-Palestine” enough.
TwistofFate
For your education, here is a definition of the word “cite” since you obviously don’t understand what it means.
What you have done is state your opinion about the BBC. You are welcome to it, weird as it is, but you have not yet cited a single reference that contradicts the many biased BBC opinions that I cited
DMC
This is going to come as a great shock to you, but I have no problem with a site like PMWatch. It is up to any and all special-interest groups to keep watch on the media, to highlight bias and misreporting, and to attempt to achieve balance and fairness. I am not going to spend a lot of time vetting their entries, since I have neither the time nor inclination to pursue their line of questions.
However, the existince of a site like PMWatch in no way invalidates the work, and the findings, of HonestReporting. I still have not seen a posing here that refutes ANY of the cites that I made. If PMWatch, for an example, finds that AP is biased in favour of Israel, that has absolutely no bearing on HR’s claim of bias in the BBC. I cannot search PMWatch for its claims about the BBC, so you will have to quote chapter and verse to prove that the BBC is biased against the Palestinians, just as I have cited chapter and verse of the BBC’s bias against Israel
The reason rampisad is that no-one can be bothered to refute accusations made by an organization that is wholly devoted to putting one and only one side of the story across and consistently lies to do this.
Quite frankly, I haven’t even READ what HR has said because I know this organization well and it simply cannot be trusted as a source of accurate information.
That’s a sweeping decision, considering that you haven’t pointed out even one single HR error.
Well, I just did with the whole Mel Gibson thing, DMC pointed out another.
For a start, just looking through their site, you can see so many errors, for example it says that no Palestinians claim that there was a massacre at Jenin, this is patently false as the majority still do. Almost all the complaints about the media are based on their own opinions.
I’m pretty sure I did that, unless there’s been a huge number of kiddie suicide bombers that I seem to have missed in the news.
I’ll tell you what, december. You and rampisad get together and decide between yourselves how many flawed and biased reports I need to come up with on that site before you’ll admit that it’s mission has nothing to do with promoting honesty in reporting. Once you have come up with a number, I’ll happily provide you the results of my research.
The good news is that I now know where you get the tactic of labelling a news article “Anti-Israel”, simply because of omissions that you thought were necessary. Next time you use that tactic, I will be able to find out where your opinion came from.
MC Can you please post a cite with each of your alleged HR errors, so that we can verify them. Frankly I doubt that that HR said “no Palestinians claim that there was a massacre at Jenin.” I do recall them saying that some Palestinians now acknoledge that there was no massacre at Jenin, and they had cites to prove that IIRC.
Regarding the Mel Gibson thing, I agree that it’s relatively minor, but I’ve seen no cite confirming that HR was inaccurate.
I’m amazed by your comment “Almost all the complaints about the media are based on their own opinions.” In fact, almost all the HR complaints are accompanied by cites, so one can to right to the source.
DMC, HR’s point is that a certain number of Palestinian children were killed initiating attacks, while no Israeli children were. That’s an important distinction. It makes comparisons of body counts an inadequate basis for a moral calculus. HR’s position was that the media source using the body counts ought to have made this distinction. I think that’s a fair point. There’s nothing inaccurate about it.
I’m unclear about why you consider it to be objectionable. Can you explain in more detail? Is it your position that the number of Palestinian children killed in the process of conducting attacks is negligible? If so, do you have a cite?
December, I find it very annoying that you argue by continously asking for cites about everything.
The best thing to do is to tell what you dispute about my reading of the article and why you dispute it and then I can give you specific information.
LOL. This would be a good signiture line.
Regarding Jenin, can you provide a cite showing exactly what HR alleged? Then I’d be happy to debate whether or not they were accurate.
Thank you. From your cite, the relevent quotes about Jenin are:
Note that[ol][]HR did NOT say, “no Palestinians claim that there was a massacre at Jenin.”[]HR had links proving their assertions about Human Rights Watch and Kadoura.HR’s assertions were accurate.[/ol]
This is the key phrase, it clearly implies that most Palestinians or yhe vast majority say there was no massacre at Jenin which is clearly not the case.