Commentary editor unimpressed with New York Times journo’s defense

A Commentary magazine editor is thoroughly unimpressed with New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren’s defense of her coverage of Tuesday terrorist attacks in Jerusalem.

“The New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief has established a record of not just inaccurate reporting but the kind of mistakes that should never get through layers of editors and fact checkers,” Seth Mandel wrote Friday.

Mandel was referring to Rudoren telling the Washington Examiner Thursday that she believes much of the criticism the New York Times receives is from advocates rather than people interested in accurate reporting.

“Out of sheer pride, Rudoren will remain uninformed,” Mandel responded. “Rudoren is a firm believer in the single most toxic fallacy that bad reporters believe in. Namely, the idea that if both sides of an issue hate your writing, you must be doing something right. In fact, it often means you are doing a great deal wrong.

He added: “Rarely has a mainstream reporter embraced this kind of strident anti-intellectualism publicly, and even suggested that it forms the bedrock of their professional outlook.”

Mandel’s critique doesn’t end there:

The ignorance of reporters about the subjects they cover is an ongoing problem, and it’s especially egregious when the subject turns to religion. Yet often when reporters take their base of knowledge of a subject and arrogantly assume it’s all they’ll ever need to know, they at least know something—anything, even basic information—about the issue. That’s not the case with Rudoren. Her mistakes include those that are disproved by merely looking at a map, for instance.

Somewhere along the line, liberal reporters and editors decided that the greater the depth and breadth of criticism of their work, the better they assumed it to be. This attitude has produced the work of Jodi Rudoren as its inevitable consequence. And it’s how, seemingly against all odds, coverage of Israel is still getting worse. The hope is that Rudoren represents the media hitting bottom, but I fear we’re not there yet.

You can see the rest of Mandel’s remarks here, and you can read the defense Rudoren gave the Washington Examiner for the New York Times’ coverage of recent events in Jerusalem.

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