A New York Times bureau chief pushed back Thursday on criticism of her coverage of the deadly terrorist attacks this week in Jerusalem, telling the Washington Examiner that most of the complaints she has received are from advocates rather than people interested in accurate reporting.
“Broadly speaking, most of the criticism of our coverage, and it is immense, is not rooted in the values of mainstream journalism, but is done from the prism of advocacy. Frequently, these critics ignore the stories or parts of stories that don’t fit with their pre-determined conclusion of our bias (and we have pretty much equal accusations of biases on both sides),” New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren told the Washington Examiner.
“They often try to subject stories or sentences to some kind of scoring system — good for Israel, bad for Israel — which is problematic because the stories, and the subjects, are much more complex and nuanced than that,” Rudoren added.
Following a killing spree Tuesday that saw two Palestinian cousins attack a Jerusalem synagogue, claiming the lives of four rabbis and an Israeli police office, Rudoren said in a report:
“That blood splattered the victims’ prayer shawls and holy books underscored growing indications that extremists on both sides are turning the stalemated battle over territory and identity into a full-throated religious war.”
Her analysis, titled “In Jerusalem’s ‘War of Neighbors,’ the Differences Are Not Negotiable,” added: “It is, of course, not the first time the conflict has spilled into religious sanctuaries. Tuesday’s attack was reminiscent of the 2008 killing of eight Jewish students at a Jerusalem yeshiva. In a 1994 massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, an Israeli extremist killed 29 Muslim worshipers. Jewish vandalism against mosques is a regular occurrence.”
Commentary Magazine assistant editor Seth Mandel responded angrily to Rudoren’s article in a series of deeply critical tweets.
“Yes Jodi. The spilling of Jewish blood in a shul by Palestinian terrorists deserves the mealy mouthed ‘on the one hand, on the other’ garbage,” he tweeted. “Is Jodi Rudoren the worst major-outlet reporter covering the Arab-Israeli conflict? Is anyone even close to this bad?”
He continued, addressing her points one-by-one.
“Also, time to end this nonsense about the Temple Mount ‘status quo.’ It’s the Palestinians who are trying to change it. Bibi made it clear,” he said, “that Israel isn’t changing the status quo. But Palestinians now don’t want Jews to even visit, let alone pray. So for Rudoren to accept the idiocy that Israel is disrupting the status quo shows the kind of aggressive, astounding ignorance you rarely see outside of, say, Vox.”
Vox is an online “explainer” website founded by former Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein.
“Rudoren puts her thumb on the scales: ‘Jewish vandalism against mosques is a regular occurrence.’ Citation, Jodi, or are you not a reporter?” Mandel asked.
“And is there vandalism against Jewish property? Of course there is. Might have made a good sentence to follow up with,” he added.
Here’s Mandel’s full online response to the New York Times report:
[View the story “Seth Mandel Introduces Jodi Rudoren To Reality” on Storify]
Rudoren told the Examiner: “It seems that advocates on both sides of this conflict are devoting an increasing amount of energy to attacking journalists (often personally), which may be because they find the conflict itself so insoluble.
“People who are passionate about the issue and have a personal stake in it often struggle to see the full picture, but they are a tiny fraction of our global audience, most of which does not want a scorecard, just some insight into what is going on. I’m doing my best to provide that.”
Mandel did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s repeated requests for comment.
