Posted on 08/03/2006 6:42:15 AM PDT by Lazamataz
The Photo that Started it All
On the day the Intafada broke out, Tuvia Grossman was riding a taxi to visit the Western Wall. He was unwittingly thrust into the international limelight -- and nearly killed in the process.
On September 30, 2000, The New York Times, Associated Press and other major media outlets published a photo of a young man -- bloodied and battered -- crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman. The caption identified him as a Palestinian victim of the recent riots -- with the clear implication that the Israeli soldier is the one who beat him.
The victim's true identity was revealed when Dr. Aaron Grossman of Chicago sent the following letter to the Times:
Regarding your picture on page A5 of the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian on the Temple Mount -- that Palestinian is actually my son, Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago. He, and two of his friends, were pulled from their taxicab while traveling in Jerusalem, by a mob of Palestinian Arabs, and were severely beaten and stabbed.
That picture could not have been taken on the Temple Mount because there are no gas stations on the Temple Mount and certainly none with Hebrew lettering, like the one clearly seen behind the Israeli soldier attempting to protect my son from the mob.
In response, the New York Times published a half-hearted correction which identified Tuvia Grossman as "an American student in Israel" -- not as a Jew who was beaten by Arabs. The "correction" also noted that "Mr. Grossman was wounded" in "Jerusalem's Old City" -- although the beating actually occurred in the Arab neighborhood of Wadi al Joz, not in the Old City.
In response to public outrage at the original error and the inadequate correction, The New York Times reprinted Tuvia Grossman's picture -- this time with the proper caption -- along with a full article detailing his near-lynching at the hands of Palestinians rioters.
Read Tuvia Grossman's in-depth, first-person account of his ordeal, entitled Victim of the Media War. www.aish.com/jewishissues/israeldiary/
The photo of a bloodied Tuvia Grossman became a symbol in the struggle to ensure that Israel receives the fair media coverage that every nation deserves.
In April 2002, a District Court in Paris ordered the French daily newspaper "Liberation" and the Associated Press to pay damages to Grossman in the amount of 4,500 Euro.
The Court condemned the Associated Press for "mispresenting [Grossman] as a member of the Palestinian community," while the court censured "Liberation" for "publishing the litigious picture with a comment edited the same faulty way, giving the picture a meaning and a scope it could not have."
A classic. Thanks.
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If you believe this apology...you will believe anything.
NY Times Apologizes For Fake Stories
/ 13 Shevat 5798 |
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"The New York Times" issued an apology today for dozens of fabricated stories printed on its pages by one of its staff writers. |
| The New York Times issued an apology today for dozens of fabricated stories printed on its pages by one of its staff writers. Jayson Blair, a long time writer for the Times was revealed to have been writing dispatches that purported to be from Maryland, Texas and other states, while he was located in New York. He made up scenes, quotations, entire interviews and reported several events that had not occurred, managing to get the articles past the editorial staff of the Times and printed in the widely distributed newspaper. In an inquiry formed to explain how such fraud could have gone undetected within the newspaper, journalists from the Times have identified "factual" problems in at least 36 of the 73 articles Mr. Blair wrote since he started getting national reporting assignments late last October. "The widespread fabrication and plagiarism represent a profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper" read an apology in Sunday's New York Times. This is not the first time the New York Times has been accused of dishonest reporting. An Associated Press photo was published on page A5 of the Times on September 30, 2000 with the false and deceptive caption, "An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount." In actuality, the bloodied teenager was Jewish yeshiva student, Tuvia Grossman, who was saved by the Israeli policeman after nearly being lynched by Arabs. In what was an extensive, if not timely apology for another one of its controversial journalistic decisions,The New York Times published a full page editorial on November 14, 2001 apologizing for its lack of coverage of Nazi genocide during the Holocaust. Robert Lichter of the US based Center for Media and Public Affairs commented that "any time you find something so pervasive, you have to wonder what else slips past the checks and balances. The Times was a standard that journalists looked up to. Now it's something they're going to have to live down." "The ease with which Mr. Blair fabricated article after article to be printed on the pages of one of the world's leading newspapers exposes a great chasm at the feet of the editorial staff of the New York Times," said Yisrael Medad, former director of Israel's Media Watch in an interview with Israel National News. "If he got away with it for as long as he did, with no political agenda or ideological beliefs fuelling his distortions, one can only imagine what goes on in the news room when Israel is the subject being reported upon." "Mr. Blair was not pro-sniper or anti-sniper," Medad pointed out, "his fabrications about meetings with soldiers back from Iraq stemmed not from political motives but a desire to make a name for himself - if he could so easily turn lies into 'truth' using the pages of the 'newspaper of record' I shudder to think of what other writers, holding very strong views about Israel, manage to slip into the 'news'." |
Yes! This should be on all the news services.
I love that picture. Where can I buy a framed copy?
I like Lazamataz' new term, "PABE (Print and Broadcast Enemy)".
Must read.
ping
Great post Laz.
Thanks!
The NYT has been anti american since the Civil War (giving out Southern propoganda and anti-Lincoln news stories).
With such gross misrepresentation I would have thought that the legal eagles could have finally had there day with the NYtimes, I mean if French got there papers to pay 4,500 euro in Europe surely $450 million would be appropriate in the USA?
Many are adopting a belief in Spiritual Evolution as the only rational explanation for the Liberal phenomena. By the way, this in no way endorses Darwiniacs or attempt to explainn their particular dementia.
Perhaps they are born with no conscience. Many are adopting a belief in Spiritual Evolution as the only rational explanation for the Liberal phenomena. By the way, this in no way endorses Darwiniacs or attempt to explainn their particular dementia.
BTW, I knew who posted that survey the other day before I even got to the end of it. :-)
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