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April 19, 2002 Last updated at 10:00 am est
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There's a recurring theme in a lot of the Sun's news coverage that might not be evident on a first read: The more obviously slanted an item is, the less solid the supporting evidence. Take today's piece, "Bush Gives Nod to Israel's Forces in Ramallah, Bethlehem," with the subhead "Taxpayers Send $92M More to Palestinians." Here it's the subhead that counts — despite the fact that a result of Powell's return from the Middle East sans ceasefire is a major coup for Israel's continued military operation in the West Bank, the Sun decides to lead with news of a $92 million aid package for the Palestinians, juxtaposing it with Bush's praise of Sharon in a clear move to call into question the president's true intentions. In any case, the Sun says no more — we are left to wonder who, exactly, is getting the aid (will it be administered by the Palestinian Authority? a NGO?), what it is for, when it will arrive and even — most glaringly — the source. A key omission, given that no other major daily, not the Times, not the Washington Post, not even the Los Angeles Times, carried the story. Where did the Sun, seeing as how it has 16 reporters and none outside the New York area, get this juicy tidbit? You have to turn to the editorial page to find the source, which turns out to be the Zionist Organization of America. The editorial turns out to be better informed than the news piece — here we learn that the money is fungible, and therefore accessible by terrorists. Wow, fungible ... oh wait, this all comes from the Zionist Organization's press release! Is that why it's not mentioned on the front page? How do we know the funds are fungible? And we've all seen the pictures of Jenin — 13,000 Palestinians are now homeless — isn't it reasonable to suspect that some of that money might actually go to help them? Or that the Bush administration would be a little more careful than to hand over the money and then pay no attention to where it goes? And isn't is reasonable to say that, given that we send $2 billion to Israel each year, money that made the whole operation possible in the first place, it might be OK to send a little to ease the suffering of innocent Palestinians? But that's not what the Sun thinks. Instead, it compares the aid to Swiss banks cooperating with Nazis, or US businesses trading with Japan during the war: "Years from now, students of history are going to look back on the American funding of the Palestinian Authority the way they look back now on, say, the collaboration of Swiss banks with the enemy in World War II." Really? A more ridiculous comparison is hard to find — humanitarian aid as an equivalent to international trade? Of course, it's hard to make a reasoned argument here; the Zionist Organization/the Sun are the only source of information, and spotty, inconsistent information at that. Careless readers will simply accept the Sun's word at face value; careful readers will dismiss it entirely. ARCHIVES |
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