...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Better late than never: CIJA honcho and newbie blogger Hershell Ezrin says that Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon’s ‘dozer piece in the Globe and Mail (the one in which Malarkey observed the “irony” of Jews getting flattened by bulldozers manned by Palestinian terrorists) “crossed a line”.

Gee, ya think?

As Hershell sees it,

…For a Canadian public who (sic) accepts equivalency and generally reacts to Middle East violence with ‘a plague on all their houses’, the story might evoke a brief review or a careless acknowledgment. For those who are friends of Israel, the thesis was repugnant. But there have certainly been other stories that have aggravated and frustrated, so why I have singled out this one for commentary?

The answer is that MacKinnon’s article, and the editors who sanctioned its placement in the news section of the Globe and Mail, crossed a very important red line. His reporting was designed, in my opinion, to lead readers to only one conclusion: that the Israelis got what they deserved. In placing this article in the general news sections of the paper instead of its opinion pages, the Globe and Mail entered the realm of advocacy, thereby undermining the ‘objective character’ of its news pages. The result is similar to what you get in the latest Oliver Stone movie about President George W. Bush’s youth or any good HBO biopic; the truth is selected, while objectivity, fairness and accuracy take a distant second place to advancing a one-sided story line. So much for giving readers the facts so that they can form intelligent choices…

Er, sorry to have to break it to you, Hershell, but MacKinnon (along with his wife, the lovely and talented Carolynne Wheeler) crossed that line long before you started blogging. Nice of you to finally notice, though.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:31 | link | comments (1)

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