So the New York Times hired an ex-IDF intelligence officer without any journalistic experience and her nephew to be 2 out of 3 journalists covering one of the most sensational/impactful stories of the last year. The story was controversial within the newsroom and it’s reported that a podcast based on that story was allegedly pulled due to fierce concerns about accuracy (the NYT denies this). It’s also reported that Schwartz liked/upvoted social media posts comparing Palestinians to animals and encouraging the IDF to “violate any norm” to kill them. Now the NYT is saying “we don’t comment on internal matters” and the CNN articles says:
"Vanity Fair’s Charlotte Klein reported Thursday that the newspaper had taken the rare step of launching a leak investigation, questioning “at least two dozen staffers” about “how internal details about the podcasts’s editorial process got out.”
All of this sounds like damage control following a very serious lapse in quality control. There’s no denying the violence of Hamas’ Oct. 7th attack, but that doesn’t absolve journalists from the obligation to be diligent, unbiased, and accurate. I’d argue the seriousness of the situation and the violence of the Israeli response actually makes it much more important for journalists to be very careful. Once a false report is published by a respected outlet, the genie is out of the bottle and misinformation can lead to justification of ugly actions. “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on it’s shoes”.
This CNN story omits an important point - co-author of the original article Anat Schwartz was previously an intelligence officer for the Israeli Air Force. She also had no real journalistic experience at all before writing that article for the New York Times. The 2nd of 3 co-authors was Schwartz’s nephew.
So the New York Times hired an ex-IDF intelligence officer without any journalistic experience and her nephew to be 2 out of 3 journalists covering one of the most sensational/impactful stories of the last year. The story was controversial within the newsroom and it’s reported that a podcast based on that story was allegedly pulled due to fierce concerns about accuracy (the NYT denies this). It’s also reported that Schwartz liked/upvoted social media posts comparing Palestinians to animals and encouraging the IDF to “violate any norm” to kill them. Now the NYT is saying “we don’t comment on internal matters” and the CNN articles says:
"Vanity Fair’s Charlotte Klein reported Thursday that the newspaper had taken the rare step of launching a leak investigation, questioning “at least two dozen staffers” about “how internal details about the podcasts’s editorial process got out.”
All of this sounds like damage control following a very serious lapse in quality control. There’s no denying the violence of Hamas’ Oct. 7th attack, but that doesn’t absolve journalists from the obligation to be diligent, unbiased, and accurate. I’d argue the seriousness of the situation and the violence of the Israeli response actually makes it much more important for journalists to be very careful. Once a false report is published by a respected outlet, the genie is out of the bottle and misinformation can lead to justification of ugly actions. “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on it’s shoes”.
The investigation part is witch hunt, not damage control
Right, that’s what that was.