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Dull and Largely Uncritical Recitation of Official Sources
by
Russel Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Dissident
Voice
October 25, 2003
The New
York Times reported yesterday that a Columbia University history professor
hired by the paper to make an independent assessment of the coverage of one of
its correspondents in the Soviet Union during the 1930s said that the Pulitzer
Prize the reporter received should be rescinded because of his "lack of
balance" in covering Stalin's government.
The Times
had asked the professor, Mark von Hagen, to examine the coverage of the
correspondent, Walter Duranty, specifically for his "failure to report on
a famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933."
According
to the Times, Professor von Hagen described the coverage for which Mr. Duranty
won the Pulitzer -- his writing in 1931, a year before the onset of the famine
-- as a "dull and largely uncritical recitation of Soviet sources."
Well, if
the standard is "dull and largely uncritical recitation of" official
sources, then maybe the Times should just close up shop.
Let's take
one example: the 1967 Israeli military attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34
American crew members. Both the government of Israel and the government of the
United States continue to claim that the Israeli bombardment of the U.S. ship
was a "tragic mistake."
There was
a press conference on Capitol Hill yesterday where former high-ranking U.S.
government officials released a report
that found that Israel "committed acts of murder against American
servicemen and an act of war against the United States" when it
deliberately attacked the USS Liberty.
Why would
Israel want to deliberately sink a U.S. ship? One reason put forth by the
Commission: Sink the ship, and blame Egypt -- with the hope of drawing the
United States into the 1967 war.
In
addition, the chief attorney to the original 1967 Navy Court of Inquiry said in
a sworn affidavit that then-President Johnson and then-Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara ordered the Court of Inquiry to cover up the attack by presenting
it as a mistake.
Admiral
Thomas Moorer, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, headed the
independent commission of inquiry that released the report yesterday.
"The
men of the USS Liberty were representing the U.S. They were attacked for over
two hours by Israeli Air Force and Navy units with 70 percent American
casualties and the eventual loss of our best intelligence ship," Moorer
said. "These sailors and marines were entitled to our best defense. We
gave them no defense. The findings of this commission are irrefutable. Every
other attack on a ship in our history has been investigated by our Congress
except this one."
"Nor
has Congress ever investigated the recall by the White House of U.S. Navy
aircraft sent to rescue the Liberty while the ship was still under
attack."
Moorer
called the Johnson White House's cancellation of the Navy's attempt to rescue
the Liberty "the most disgraceful thing I have witnessed in my entire
military career."
The major
newspapers, including the New York Times, did not mention Moorer or his report.
Typical of the Times' reporting on this issue is its most recent entry July 10,
2003, when it ran an AP story reporting that "newly declassified
transcripts back up Israel's claim that its attack on an American spy ship
during the 1967 Middle East war was an accident." The AP dispatch quotes a
Florida Judge, A. Jay Cristol.
It was Mr.
Cristol's work that led the Navy attorney of the official inquiry to go public
after almost four decades of silence.
In his
sworn affidavit, Captain Ward Boston, Counsel to the original 1967 U.S. Navy
Court of Inquiry's investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty,
says the attack was deliberate but that the Court was ordered to cover it up by
the Johnson White House.
"For
more than 30 years I have remained silent on the topic of the USS Liberty. I am
a military man and when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and
President of the United States, I follow them," Boston said.
Boston
said that Cristol's book forced him out of the closet. The book, The Liberty
Incident, "twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who
investigated the attack. Contrary to the misinformation presented by Cristol
and others, it is important for the American people to know that it is clear
that Israel is responsible for deliberately attacking an American ship and
murdering American sailors."
On the
issue of the USS Liberty, it can be said that the New York Times' reporting has
been a "dull and largely uncritical recitation of" official sources.
They'll
win no Pulitzer on this one -- so they won't have to give it back.
Russell
Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Corporate Crime Reporter, http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com.
Robert Weissman is editor of the
Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for
MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).
Other Recent Articles by Russell Mokhiber
and Robert Weissman
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Things You Might Do With $87 Billion
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Had a Democracy Once, But You Crushed It
* The
Two Faces of George Bush in Africa
* Corporate
Crime Without Shame
* Gray
Panthers’ Corporate Connections
* Throwing
Precaution to the Wind
* Why
Ari Should’ve Resigned in Protest
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