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Robert Fisk: Geen wonder bloggers wint
Zaterdag, 21 Juli, 2007
Deze gutless documenten verklaren waarom meer mensen Googling dan draaiende pagina's zijn Ik veracht Internet. Het is onverantwoordelijk en, vaak, een net van haat. En ik heb geen tijd voor Blogopops. Maar is hier een verhaal van twee gutless kranten dat verklaart waarom more and more mensen Googling eerder dan het draaien van pagina's zijn. Eerst de Tijden van Los Angeles. Vorig jaar, werd het verslaggeversTeken Arax toegewezen een routineverhaal op de volkerenmoord van 1915 van anderhalf miljoen Armeniërs door de Ottoman Turkse overheid. Rapport van Arax concentreerde zich op afdelingen binnen de lokale Joodse gemeenschap over of om de volkerenmoord een volkerenmoord te roepen. Het is een oud argument. De Turken dringen aan - tegen alle feiten en documenten en ooggetuigenverslagen, en tegen geschiedenis - dat de Armeniërs slachtoffers van een burgeroorlog waren. De Israëlische overheid en zijn nieuwe, prijs-winnende voorzitter van Nobel, Shimon Peres - bezorgd om comfortabele relaties met modern Turkije te houden - hebben verkozen mendacious versie van Istanboel van gebeurtenissen goed te keuren. Nochtans, hebben vele Joden, zowel binnen als buiten Israël, bravely erop aangedrongen dat zij een volkerenmoord, inderdaad de eigenlijke voorloper aan de recentere Nazi Holocaust van zes miljoen Joden vormen. Maar het de volkerenmoordrapport werd van Arax gedood over de orden van leidende redacteur Douglas Frantz omdat de verslaggever een „positie inzake de kwestie“ en een „belangengeschil“ had. De lezers zullen reeds verondersteld hebben dat Arax een Armeens-Amerikaan is. Zijn zonde, schijnt het, was die manier terug in 2005, schreven hij en vijf andere schrijvers een formeel memorandum aan de redacteurs die van de Tijden hen eraan herinneren dat van La de de stijlregels van het document betekenden dat de Armeense volkerenmoord moest worden geroepen enkel dat - niet „zogenaamde volkerenmoord“. Frantz, echter, beschreef het oude memorandum als „verzoek“ en beschuldigde blijkbaar Arax van het landen van de taak door een redacteur van Washington te behandelen die ook een Armeniër was. Het verhaal werd opnieuw toegewezen aan de verslaggever Rijk Simon van Washington, die zich op de poging van Turkije concentreerde om Congres te blokkeren van het erkennen van de Armeense slachting - en het waarvan verhaal onder de krantekop de „Resolutie van de Volkerenmoord nog verre van Bepaald“ liep. LA Times executives then went all coy, declining interviews, although Frantz admitted in a blog (of course) that he had “put a hold” on Arax’s story because of concerns that the reporter “had expressed personal views about the topic in a public (sic) manner…”. Ho ho. Truth can be dangerous for the LA Times. Even more so, it seems, when the managing editor himself - Frantz, no less - once worked for The New York Times, where he referred to the Armenian massacres as, yes, an “alleged” genocide. Frantz, it turns out, joined the LA Times as its Istanbul correspondent. Well, Arax has since left the LA Times after a settlement which forestalled a lawsuit against the paper for defamation and discrimination. His employers heaped praise upon his work while Frantz has just left the paper to become Middle East correspondent of the Wall Street Journal based in - of course, you guessed it - Istanbul. But now let’s go north of the border, to the Toronto Globe and Mail, which assigned columnist Jan Wong to investigate a college murder in Montreal last September. Wong is not a greatly loved reporter. A third-generation Canadian, she moved to China during Mao’s “cultural revolution” and, in her own words, “snitched on class enemies and did my best to be a good little Maoist.” She later wrote a “Lunch With” series for the Globe in which she acted all sympathetic to interviewee guests to catch them out. “When they relax, that’s when their guard is down,” she told a college newspaper. “It’s a trick, but it’s legit.” Yuk! Wong’s take on the Montreal Dawson College shooting, however, was more serious. She compared the killer to a half-Algerian Muslim who murdered 14 women in another Montreal college shooting in 1989 and to a Russian immigrant who killed four university colleagues in Montreal in 1992. “In all three cases,” she wrote, “the perpetrator was not ‘pure laine’, the argot for a ‘pure’ francophone. Elsewhere, to talk of racial purity is repugnant. Not in Quebec.” Painfully true, I’m afraid. Parisians, who speak real French, would never use such an expression - pure laine translates literally as “pure wool” but means “authentic” - but some Montrealers do. Wong, however, had touched a red hot electric wire in “multicultural” Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper complained. “Grossly irresponsible,” said the man who enthusiastically continued the policy of sending Canadian troops on their suicidal mission to Afghanistan. The French-Canadian newspaper Le Devoir - can you imagine a British paper selling a single copy if it called itself “Duty”? - published a cartoon of Wong with exaggerated Chinese slanted eyes. Definitely not pure laine for Le Devoir. The hate mail was even more to the point. Some contained excrement. But then the Globe and Mail ran for cover. Its editor-in-chief, Edward Greenspon, wrote a cowardly column in which he claimed that the offending paragraphs “should have been removed” from her story. “We regret that we allowed these words to get into a reported (sic) article,” he sniffled. There had been a breakdown in what he hilariously called “the editorial quality control process”. Now I happen to know a bit about the Globe’s “quality control process”. Some time ago, I discovered that the paper had reprinted an article of mine from The Independent about the Armenian genocide. But they had tampered with it, altering my word “genocide” to read “tragedy”. The Independent’s subscribers promise to make no changes to our reports. But when our syndication folk contacted the Globe, they discovered that the Canadian paper had simply stolen the article. They were made to pay a penalty fee. But as for the censorship of the word “genocide”, a female executive explained to The Independent that nothing could be done because the editor responsible had “since left the Globe and Mail”. It’s the same old story, isn’t it? Censor then whinge, then cut and run. No wonder the bloggers are winning. Have Your Say: Robert Fisk: No wonder the bloggers are winning Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. Related News
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