Matti Friedman worked for the Associated Press for six years in Israel. He began to see a shift in what was happening with his colleagues. They were moving from covering the news to covering “evil Israel versus the oppressed Palestinians,” even when the facts contradicted what they were writing (which was most of the time). Seen “ When We Started to Lie” at The Free Press.
I’ll add a postscript to that article. I used to trust the AP’s stories; they were often the only journalistic accounts of what was going on. Then, about 2012-2013, something began to shift. What passes for AP news reports today is more charitably labeled “opinion.” Friedman is right, but it’s not only news about Israel.
We were in London when what is known as “Benghazi” happened. We were happily ignorant of the news until our hotel concierge warned me one morning to avoid Parliament Square, Grosvenor Square, and other areas where Americans congregated. Protestors were targeting Americans because the U.S. Administration was blaming Benghazi on an alleged movie about Mohammed. Nobody, including the news media, wanted to dwell on what happened to the American ambassador and the other Americans killed – it was an election year, and Benghazi made the U.S. look powerless and incompetent. One story I hadn’t read about was the Navy SEAL who gave his life, doing what he was supposed to do.
What’s the best social platform for writers? Writing coach Ann Kroeker talks with Jane Friedman, who knows more about writing and electronic communications that just about anyone I’ve heard of. And Friedman says what she thinks, including about the most popular platform at the moment – Substack.
More Good Reads
Life and Culture
I Think Therefore I Am: Technology’s transformation of human existence is rendering conservatism irrelevant – Brad Littlejohn at American Compass.
The Total State and the Twilight of American Democracy – N.S. Lyons at The Upheaval.
“Fauxtastrophes” and the Power of Bureaucracy – Joseph Woodard at The Imaginative Conservative.
Building What Matters – Frank DeVito at Front Porch Republic.
Writing and Literature
Initials or Nicknames Out of Some Now Incomprehensible Affection – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War on Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner.
Writing When You Have No Time to Write – Thomas Kidd.
American Stuff
What September 11 Revealed – Jonathan Rosen at The Free Press.
War on Record: The Archive and the Afterlife of the Civil War by Yael A. Sternhell – review by Kevin Donovan at Emerging Civil War.
Poetry
“The Janitor’s Boy,” poem by Nathalia Crane – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
Israel
Holywood: The Birth and Death of a Vision – Michael Oren at Clarity.
Forrest Gumping Through Israeli History – Bonnie Goodman at Times of Israel.
Faith
Our Greatest Tool for Reaching the West – Aaron Armstroing.
Art
Some Favorite Nicholas Borden Paintings – Spitalfields Life.
British Stuff
Schrödinger’s Culture War – Kristian Niemietz at The Critic Magazine.
His Glory and My Good – City Alight
Painting: Young Woman Reading a Letter to a Blind Man, oil on canvas by Louis Denis-Valvérane (1870-1943).
No comments:
Post a Comment