What’s behind France2’s stance in the al Durah case?: the press and honesty
Wretchard at Belmont Club has a post about the France2 case, in which he asks the following question:
While the Press is probably honest in most things — who won the NASCAR race, what the stock price is, who won a particular election, etc — in certain areas more than others a kind of horrible distortion has crept into their coverage. And the question is why. Members of the press are not inherently evil. They are not very different from most white collar workers or academics. With their individual foibles to be sure, but no inherited large scale defects in character. The reason huge events, like the Ukraine famine, for example, and perhaps the recent war in Lebanon, can be so horribly misreported is a subject worthy of a whole book. I tend to think that the memetic cavalry of ideologies is drawn towards certain issues and makes certain they spin them. The effect is that in areas we care about most we have inaccurate coverage, but in areas we care about least (say the yearly production of Ipods) we have the most accurate coverage. Well, I’m not the one to write that book.
I’m not the one to write that book–or books–either. Others have done so before me, notably Bernard Goldberg and Peter Braestrup.
I utterly agree with Fernandez, as far as he goes. I would add that I think there really is a belief held by too many in the MSM that “fake, but accurate,” is an okay stance to adopt, due to post-modern “truth is relative” thinking. Combine this with the strength of mindset and pre-existing belief systems in shaping our perceptions of events, and you have paved the way to this sort of media madness.
There are often personality factors operating, as well. Arrogance is one. In the France2 case, Enderlin was not only arrogant–and if you read Nidra Pollner’s latest description of the trial proceedings, you’ll see just how far that arrogance went–but, in addition, Enderlin had a decade-long relationship of trust with his cameraman, Talal. It was on the strength of that cameraman’s word that Enderlin, who was not present at the scene in Gaza, spread the news about Israelis murdering the 12-year-old al Durah. And once an arrogant person has backed a lie and thrown his entire reputation behind it, it’s very difficult to have the humility to face the truth and publically reverse yourself. There’s humiliation involved, and also acknowledgement of betrayal by someone you once thought your friend and trusted colleague. Often, it’s just too big and bitter a pill to swallow, and so it is spit out instead, sometimes with enormous consequences.
You may be right about the reason behind the al Dura issue.
Or it could be he’s a Palestinian sympathizer and just flat lied because he thought he could get away with it, which he did if we consider getting away with it long enough getting away with it.
There is also confirmation bias which leads reporters to stop looking when they find facts supporting their worldview, without either checking out the those facts or looking further for countervailing facts or bothering with context.
But it’s hard to figure any kind of “honest” (explained by reference to worldview, psychological processes, or ignorance) explanations for the endless strings of false reports, unbalanced reports, or selection bias. Once all the other possible explanations are examined and discarded, we’re left with the most likely one; conscious intent to deceive.
I used to think we could solve most of the spin problem by taking away adjectives from reporters. But when they being making up stories out of the air, we have to take away the nouns and verbs, too. That would be like Deadwood without the curse words. Mostly silence.
The important thing to remember is that the most likely scenerio is that Al-Durah was killed by IDF forces.
You can google it and find any number of theories by Israeli apologists – the whole thing was faked; he was killed by Palestinians; he is still alive; his father changed the story etc – in other words, any explanation that verves people away from recognizing the brutality of the Israeli occupation.
It’s also important to note that none of accusations by rightwing extremist groups have gained any real traction beyond their limited audience – and the fact that it is used to encourage a racist perspective of Palestinians and thus to question any atrocity Israel committ – the Gaza beach massacre being a sterling example.
Again, check out Human rights organizations- Israeli and American – and the picture becomes quite clear.
One particular point I found interesting was the accusation that before the acutal shooting of father and son(accusation of a staged shooting)that Palestinian children were acting out being shot and wounded.
Interesting because if you’ve watched Palestinian children play they often play out what they see in their daily lives – shooting, death, etc.
Sad, really.
Just my observation.
The Palestinian man waving his arms and shouting in Arabic after the shooting(apparently directing the ‘action’ according to the conspiracy theorists) – also seems particularly weak and without merit.
But, I’m all ears if there’s better evidence than that….
Stephen, what is your evidence for the statement that the most likely scenario is that Al-Durah was killed by IDF forces? Having asserted none, perhaps you do not realize how much your comment looks as if you intended it to be an illustration of the “fake but accurate” stance described by Neo in her post, and the confirmation-bias comment above yours. I think you will find that many of us do not feel that we “have” to believe anything in the absence of evidence.
And as for your theory that these “accusations by rightwing extremist groups have gained any real traction beyond their limited audience,” you might want to re-read the descriptions of the testimony at the France2 trial. Your wishful thinking appears to be overcoming your grasp of reality.
Stephen,
As always you have no evidence for any of your assertions, so you attempt to highjack yet another thread by asking for sound alternatives to your stupidity. And, as always, you immediately use the “racist” accusation to taint anyone who responds to your vacuous blather. Given the fact that one way of looking at racism is a preoccupation with race, it would appear that you bleat too much: the so-called “Gaza beach massacre” is endlessly used by anti-semites to whip up hatred.
“Interesting because if you’ve watched Palestinian children play they often play out what they see in their daily lives – shooting, death, etc.”
Again, as always, with your childish logic, you put our a cause and effect arguement that is nonexistent. It is more highly probable that what they play out in their daily lives is from watching Hamas.
“Sad, really.” Yes you are, including your repititious, tiresome, and just plain stupid use of ellipses to finish nearly all your mindless adolescent posts.
Like any child that needs attention, you also spam with no consideration for others, as usual, 2 of the first 4 comments are your mindless, uneducated bleating.
You are boring, you are poorly educated, you are ignorant of history, and you have the writing style of a smarmy teenager who knows no better.
Stephen Britton is a shape-shifting troll who knows that he’s been banned from this site under various other names and continues to return. He was not banned, by the way, for posts such as the ones he has entered here, which show an ignorance and/or willful disregard of the facts but nevertheless remain within the realm of a polite discussion of events. He was banned for , among other things: obscene and vicious accusations, and sock puppetry.
I’ve been too busy to work on the changes I’ve been meaning to make to the blog, but when I do get around to it things should improve in this respect. Until then, I would caution other commenters that they may certainly respond to Stephen if they wish, but know that he has a long and shameful troll history here.
Okay, Stephen, now I understand — you clearly haven’t watched or examined any of the evidence that the video is fabricated, and that’s your “proof” that it’s real.
I see that Neo is, as usual, right — there is no mind here to engage with.
It’s funny you see it that way – twits who ramble on unchallenged and then when confronted by facts and reason – whine like babies about ‘trolls’ and the like.
I find it remarkable that you’ve made it this far and haven’t figured it out yet (especially when quite a few posts recently have come right out and said it): you’re in a propaganda war now. Under such conditions, no “fact” can be taken at face value; it must be proven to be correct. You offer a list of claims (right or wrong) either without the evidence or with an insufficient amount of evidence to prove that they are true; this leads directly to claims of trolling (though admittedly they use a much more broad definition of “troll” than I do).
Furthermore, it’s the nature of the brain to color new input based on what it already “knows”. The evidence to prove true what the person already believes to be true in their mind will be substantially less than the evidence required to make a person change their mind about something. For a painfully obvious example: you consider testimony of Palestinians to be sufficient or substantial evidence that a given claim is true, while they do not; they consider the testimony of “pro-Zionist” sources to be substantial evidence that a given claim is true, while you do not. You seem to have this funny notion that some of these traits are unique to “neocons”; you obviously have not taken a basic social psychology class.
You’re not the only one to suffer from these problems, but you do seem to be the one most in danger of having a nervous breakdown. Consider this an FYI.
Hey neo – what happend to the threads about Khonemhi and Israel below – you erased them.
Why?
Enjoying you hero status amongst rightwing retards too much to have it spoiled by fact and reasoned argument?
Huh? Which threads are you referring to?
And will somebody ban banopus already?
Stephen,
Is ‘rouge state’ just a fancy way of saying Republican state? Just curious…I guess spittle-flinging causes bad spelling.
Boy did this discourse go down hill fast.
I guess thats why they call themselves ‘progressives’.
People should have to fill out applications before they are allowed to post. Not screening out for ideology, but rather manner and basic emotional stability.
“One particular point I found interesting was the accusation that before the acutal shooting of father and son(accusation of a staged shooting)that Palestinian children were acting out being shot and wounded.”
And yet, the “Loose Change” video maintains that the existence of a government study on remotely controlling airplanes is proof that the Bush Administration committed 9/11.
Holding nose. Ooowww, there are trolls in here.
An interesting thing I studied at one time was ant behaviour (this was for an artificial intelligence project I was toying with). Essentially it came down to each ant had a really simple set of decisions it made and no more. It just so happens (in this case nature caused it) that these few simple decisions resulted in the complex ant behaviour we see, one that for many many years people thought needed an “overmind” or “hivemind”.
There were some really neat models of this. In some cases simply have one antbot pick anything it runs into, move it two inches forward, set it down, pick a random direction and start again and the second antbot do the same thing except move two inches backward produced a highly orderd system (note, I don’t remember the exact set of decisions – these probably will not work). You can also produce very similar thing with random numbers.
Anyway – why do I bring this up? Well, because it is what I’ve thought the media does since I have read that research. It’s basically what is described above – while there is no overlord, no vast conspiracy, there doesn’t need too. Thier view of the world is so colored that they hire people who are able to see the world “correctly” and that colors the entire industry. That is thier decision matrix.
Amusingly enough, it tends to happen in all non-hard professions (hard professions being math – 2+2 will always be 4 in our universe). Over time it works out that way – they take a good scattered idealology and, due to a few simple widely held decisions, create a highly biased ordered system. It sometimes collapses, sometimes the internal decisions change and it becomes scattered again, and sometimes it remains that way for decades.
Of course, if you decision matrix works (like ants) then you are actually in a good position. The main difference is that nature is brutal, any inferior system will be quickly eradicated, there is no “keep trying as we see it is failing miserably”.
You all realize that Enderlin continues to be a star reporter for France2, including his most recent broadcast from DC on 9/11?
He’s staying at the network.
Fausta: No surprise there. It will be interesting, however, to see what the verdict will be (Oct. 19 is when it is due), and whether there will be any fallout from that for Enderlin.
The effect is that in areas we care about most we have inaccurate coverage, but in areas we care about least (say the yearly production of Ipods) we have the most accurate coverage. Well, I’m not the one to write that book.
it is called Heisenberg’s UnCertainty Principle. You cannot both know the location of a particle and its speed at the same time.
The variables x and y can be traded for many different things having to do with human observation. For example, x is importance of a subject and y is the accuracy of a subject. If you have a high X, you will have a low y. A low x, creates a high Y, accuracy. Heisenberg’s UnCertainty Principle.
Propaganda wars are like gordian knots. You have to cut them… preferably with a very sharp damascene steel knife.
“The evidence to prove true what the person already believes to be true in their mind will be substantially less than the evidence required to make a person change their mind about something. For a painfully obvious example: you consider testimony of Palestinians to be sufficient or substantial evidence that a given claim is true, while they do not; they consider the testimony of “pro-Zionist” sources to be substantial evidence that a given claim is true, while you do not. You seem to have this funny notion that some of these traits are unique to “neocons”; you obviously have not taken a basic social psychology class.”
Justin Olbrantz, you must be a carpenter. Never has a nail been hit so resoundly on it’s head.
“its” not “it’s”. Sheesh.