History Lesson at the Times

The New York Times’ Corrections section is endlessly fascinating–often funny, sometimes revealing. Consider the implications of this item from today’s section, quoted here in its entirety:
“An article yesterday about the dismantling of a rusty tower by an Israeli settlement in the West Bank as a gesture of compliance with the American-led peace initiative misstated the origin of Israeli control of the territory. During the 1967 war, Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan and took Gaza from Egypt, not from the Palestinians.”
Is it any wonder that the Times’ news coverage is unreliable, when its reporters are ignorant of the most basic historical facts about the regions they are assigned to cover?
By the way, this is why I sometimes refer to the Palestinians as the “Palestinians.”
One more thing: David Broder has a piece in today’s Washington Post in which he argues that the besetting sin of today’s journalists is arrogance. But I think that lets the press off too easy. What makes much of today’s news coverage so toxic is the combination of arrogance with ignorance.

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