05 December 2005

On balanced reporting

To confirm the rumors about our obsession with the Guardian Unlimited: yes, we are not obsessed, it is just nice to see some patterns in behavior of this august champion of the free liberal press.

Today (December 5, 2005), there are two adjacent headers:

Five killed in Israel blast

This one tells more or less straightforwardly what happened today in Netanya. No blaming Zionism or some such.

Diplomat blames Israel for Zia's death

This article follows the first one directly. To balance the impression a naive reader might get that Guardian (god forbid!) is sympathetic to the Zionists, it tells in details a story so farfetched that even its inventor confesses to it being a fruit of his imagination. Pay attention to the word "blames" in the header that is neither repeated nor supported in the article itself.

Mr Dean told the World Policy Journal that it was plausible Mossad had orchestrated an assassination plot, believing Gen Zia's boast that he was only "a screwdriver's turn away from the bomb".

Mr Dean, a Jew who fled Nazi Germany, said he had no proof of Israeli responsibility. General Muhammad Ali Durrani, a retired Zia-era commander, told the journal the Israeli thesis was "far-fetched" and blamed the crash on the C-130, which he said had a history of faults.

So? Plausible, right? Especially when told by a Jew who fled Nazi Germany, no less.

It is plausible that Mossad is behind 9/11, JFK assassination, global warming, riots in France, death of Arafat, Nazism, extinction of dinosaurs and more and more. After all, an inquiring mind could always find a reason for this or that happening being of profit to the Jooz.

The only question is - why Guardian? After all, there is a plethora of sources for such ...er ...theories. Hmmm...

But after all, the daily balance of the articles in the Guardian Unlimited shows its impartiality, and if a conspiracy theory (even a shitty one) is required to round up the day - so be it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you aware that after WWII many Nazi functionaries, who were in any case quite familiar with Jewish customs, used documents stolen from their victims and lost themselves amongst the Jewish survivors. This is the only explanation I can think of for behavior like this.

Anonymous said...

Yes - this is standard Guardian behaviour i.e. always accompany any story that looks even mildly "sympathetic" to Israel with one that very clearly isn't.

That they had to dig this deep for such a follow up shows how strictly followed the policy must be.

GideonSwort said...

Of all the Chuzpah, sensationalist Anti-Semitic rag indeed. Mind you, we mustn't talk too much about all the Jooz that staff and head that popular chipshop serving paper, the Elder's plot could seep through the cracks…

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Guarduan? Anti-Semitic?

Oy vey. I can see the crowds of liberal protesters picketing our facilities here, throwing rotten tomatoes and eggs at our building, taunting our Dobermans and insulting our armed guards.

It's good that we are so far from the population centers in the desert. And that TheMaiden never sleeps.

GideonSwort said...

Guarduan? Anti-Semitic?

Well Goon, we gotta keep a façade Doc, we wouldn't wanna compromise our shloofers, Eh?

Beware of the wrath of TheMaiden, never invoke her name in vein.