NEW STUDY: JOURNALISTS, EXPERTS ARE MASSIVE BULLSHITTERS
by Jamie, New Left Project, 10 March 2013
Yesterday, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that journalists
and experts are bullshitters, nearly to the last one.
Some background. One unambiguous Israeli victory in its attack on Gaza
last November, journalists and experts widely concurred, was the
performance of its 'Iron Dome' missile defence shield in shooting down
projectiles fired from Gaza. The BBC's Jonathan Marcus reported on the
"remarkable" progress in missile defence technology represented by
Iron Dome, evidenced by its "recent success" in the field. His
colleague, Mark Urban, described Iron Dome's "impressive" performance,
while the Guardian's Harriett Sherwood reported Iron Dome's
"considerable success". "The naysayers now are few", observed the New
York Times's Isabel Kershner—or non-existent, to judge by the number
quoted in her article. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg was satisfied
that Iron Dome "is doing a very good job", though he quoted a
"friend... who knows a great deal" fretting that Iron Dome might, if
anything, be too effective. The experts, too, seemed to agree. For
dovish Israeli academic Ron Pundak Iron Dome was a "game changer"; for
Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) it
"represent[ed]... a major shift for Israel"; for the respected
International Crisis Group, "the success of... Iron Dome" was not in
doubt. The Council on Foreign Relations' Max Boot spoke for most when
he wrote:
"The latest Gaza war is only a few days old, but already one
conclusion can be drawn: missile defence works".
This expansive edifice of journalistic and expert analysis,
pontification and reportage was based on a single source: official
Israeli government statistics, which claimed a success rate for Iron
Dome of approximately 84 per cent. The BBC's Mark Urban was unusual in
noticing that this was a not entirely disinterested authority—Israel's
government being "anxious to dismiss the impression that it has not
[sic] been humiliated by Hamas"—but he proceeded to rely on its data
regardless. Most reported Israel's official line uncritically.
With surprising speed, the accumulating media and expert consensus on
the success of Iron Dome became self-reinforcing, its existence taken
as evidence of its own accuracy. Thus Max Fisher informed readers of
the Washington Post that Iron Dome is, "by every appearance, a
remarkable success"—"every appearance" being useful journalistic
shorthand for "every regurgitation of the exact same set of official
Israeli data".
Read more....
http://www.newleftproject.org/
by Jamie, New Left Project, 10 March 2013
Yesterday, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that journalists
and experts are bullshitters, nearly to the last one.
Some background. One unambiguous Israeli victory in its attack on Gaza
last November, journalists and experts widely concurred, was the
performance of its 'Iron Dome' missile defence shield in shooting down
projectiles fired from Gaza. The BBC's Jonathan Marcus reported on the
"remarkable" progress in missile defence technology represented by
Iron Dome, evidenced by its "recent success" in the field. His
colleague, Mark Urban, described Iron Dome's "impressive" performance,
while the Guardian's Harriett Sherwood reported Iron Dome's
"considerable success". "The naysayers now are few", observed the New
York Times's Isabel Kershner—or non-existent, to judge by the number
quoted in her article. The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg was satisfied
that Iron Dome "is doing a very good job", though he quoted a
"friend... who knows a great deal" fretting that Iron Dome might, if
anything, be too effective. The experts, too, seemed to agree. For
dovish Israeli academic Ron Pundak Iron Dome was a "game changer"; for
Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) it
"represent[ed]... a major shift for Israel"; for the respected
International Crisis Group, "the success of... Iron Dome" was not in
doubt. The Council on Foreign Relations' Max Boot spoke for most when
he wrote:
"The latest Gaza war is only a few days old, but already one
conclusion can be drawn: missile defence works".
This expansive edifice of journalistic and expert analysis,
pontification and reportage was based on a single source: official
Israeli government statistics, which claimed a success rate for Iron
Dome of approximately 84 per cent. The BBC's Mark Urban was unusual in
noticing that this was a not entirely disinterested authority—Israel's
government being "anxious to dismiss the impression that it has not
[sic] been humiliated by Hamas"—but he proceeded to rely on its data
regardless. Most reported Israel's official line uncritically.
With surprising speed, the accumulating media and expert consensus on
the success of Iron Dome became self-reinforcing, its existence taken
as evidence of its own accuracy. Thus Max Fisher informed readers of
the Washington Post that Iron Dome is, "by every appearance, a
remarkable success"—"every appearance" being useful journalistic
shorthand for "every regurgitation of the exact same set of official
Israeli data".
Read more....
http://www.newleftproject.org/
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