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The "Jerusalem Post" and the Guardian

Skeptic

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For those of you who get your information about israel from the Guardian, here is how it and other papers botched an issue that is a). important, dealing with the now-infamous cartoons, and b). could have been very easily verified, as all they needed to do was pick up a copy of the Jerusalem Post, and c). naturally, was given an anti-israeli spin.

The Jerusalem Post chose not to republish the incendiary cartoons... At the same time, while the cartoons are readily accessible on various Web sites, we felt that the readers of our print edition ought to have some sense of what it was that people in our region were burning embassies and threatening massacres over.... so,... on an inside page of our Monday paper we carried a one-column wide reproduction of the original page of the offending Danish daily Jyllands-Posten - the cartoon page, that is, scaled down to perhaps a fortieth of its original size. Ma'ariv, incidentally, had done the same a day before.

...

Britain's Guardian newspaper, which this week has carried reams of copy from its correspondent here examining the "explosive comparison" between Israel and apartheid South Africa, promptly and inaccurately reported on its Web site that "The Jerusalem Post today became the first Israeli newspaper to publish the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that have sparked furore across the Muslim world."

...

The Guardian's excited effort to haul Israel to the center of the cartoon battlefield on the strength of what it acknowledged, lower in its text, was "A facsimile of the original page from the Danish paper... one column wide and about two-and-a-half inches high," was dwarfed, however, by the hysterical reaction of the Norwegian press and government.

Two leading Norwegian newspapers not only asserted, as the lead item on their Web sites, that the Post had published the cartoons, but were so kind as to manufacture our reason for doing so. "The English-language paper says it is publishing the drawings to enable people to understand the Muslim reaction," one of the sites reported, quite unperturbed by the fact that "the English-language paper" had not said anything at all.

Can't say I'm terribly surprised.
 
" we carried a one-column wide reproduction of the original page of the offending Danish daily Jyllands-Posten - the cartoon page, that is, scaled down to perhaps a fortieth of its original size. Ma'ariv, incidentally, had done the same a day before."

So then when the Guardian reported that "The Jerusalem Post today became the first Israeli newspaper to publish the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that have sparked furore across the Muslim world."" it was wrong? The Jerusalem Post hadn't actually published the cartoons even though the article says they did? :confused:

Oh and the fact that they also reported: " "A facsimile of the original page from the Danish paper... one column wide and about two-and-a-half inches high,"" that was also wrong although that is also what the article says the Jerusalem Post did? :confused:

Could you explain to me how what the Guardian reported was wrong, they seem to have been more accurate then I'd normally expect a newspaper to be!
 
So then when the Guardian reported that "The Jerusalem Post today became the first Israeli newspaper to publish the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that have sparked furore across the Muslim world."" it was wrong?

Yes, since (in a part I didn't quote though I should have):

Ma'ariv, incidentally, had done the same a day before. (Israel TV's Channel 1, by contrast, prominently showed the cartoons.)

So in any case the JP wasn't first, but also, publishing a copy of the entire cartoon page reduced to 1/40th of its original size as part of an article about the who conflict clearly isn't the same as "publishing the cartoons", any more than--say--showing the first page of Der Sturmer as part of of an article about antisemitism is "publishing antisemitic cartoons".
 
For whatever it's worth, this is what the page looks like reduced to 2.5 inches tall. (after the click -- not the thumbnail).

At least I hope. Let's upload this and see what we're looking at.

ETA: That's pretty close -- it's a touch taller than 2.5" in my browser. But that's a pretty good idea of what it would have looked like in the newspaper. If someone wants to scale it down further feel free.
 

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What I would like to know is -- how has the Guardian covered the story of the new round of rioting in the West Bank that just erupted today when a mosque was defaced with anti-muhammed grafitti? Is the Guardian reporting it?
 
What I would like to know is -- how has the Guardian covered the story of the new round of rioting in the West Bank that just erupted today when a mosque was defaced with anti-muhammed grafitti? Is the Guardian reporting it?

Can't find any major UK paper reporting on that on their online sections at the moment, or on the BBC or CNN.
 
Also CNN - perhaps it will be picked up as a story later on?

Some clown graffiti's a mosque, some Palestinians gather to protest and throw rocks at Israelis wounding someone. The Idf wounds 3 palestinians who were involved in rock throwing....this should be international news? Sounds more like just another day in gaza.
 
OK, so according to these UK media, it really never happened then.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681790.html

Nevermind...


Just looked at that site and it doesn't seem to be covering any of the UK news stories of today, so should I take it that really nothing has happened in the UK today?

(ETA) Also so far I haven't been able to find that story on the Washington Post or New York Times sites - perhaps the editors just don't consider it very newsworthy?
 
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(ETA) Also so far I haven't been able to find that story on the Washington Post or New York Times sites - perhaps the editors just don't consider it very newsworthy?
Heh. In fairness, a) TF is correct -- this isn't signficantly different from what happens every day in the territories and is a dog bites man story and b) our Vice President went and shot someone, which is pretty big news.
 
The graffiti story was shown on the Monday Morning TV news in Australia.

I thought the most telling part of the story was that the IDF removed the graffiti imediately.
 
Graffiti insulting the Prophet Muhammad — including offensive slogans equating Islam's founder with a pig, an animal Muslims regard to be unclean — also was found scrawled on a West Bank mosque, touching off a protest in which three Palestinians were shot by Israeli soldiers and an Israeli woman was slightly injured by stones thrown at her car.

Israeli soldiers erased the slogans, but hundreds of villagers in the area gathered to protest the graffiti, which they blamed on Jewish settlers.

I found this on a Yahoo news site.
 
Some clown graffiti's a mosque, some Palestinians gather to protest and throw rocks at Israelis wounding someone. The Idf wounds 3 palestinians who were involved in rock throwing....this should be international news? Sounds more like just another day in gaza.

It's a double bind, if you take too much interest in Israel/Palestine, it can only be because you are a subtle anti semite. If you don't you also are.
 
For whatever it's worth, this is what the page looks like reduced to 2.5 inches tall. (after the click -- not the thumbnail).

At least I hope. Let's upload this and see what we're looking at.

ETA: That's pretty close -- it's a touch taller than 2.5" in my browser. But that's a pretty good idea of what it would have looked like in the newspaper. If someone wants to scale it down further feel free.
To be honest, I don't think that was a good decision by the Jerusalem Post. If you are going to reprint something, I think it should be done in a way that its readable.

So the people who rely exclusively on the Jerusalem Post for their news still didn't get enough info to form their own opinion on the cartoons. And the people who want to jump down anyones throat for reprinting the cartoons will scream anyway.
 
Here on JREF, we pretty much got the same thing -- a small version that replaced the full-sized stuff that was yanked by the moderators.

========================================

TF, "Sounds more like just another day in gaza."

It wasn't in Gaza.
The incident of the anti-muhammed grafitti took place near Qalkilya,
the West Bank.

Carry on...
 
For those of you who get your information about israel from the Guardian, here is how it and other papers botched an issue that is a). important, dealing with the now-infamous cartoons, and b). could have been very easily verified, as all they needed to do was pick up a copy of the Jerusalem Post, and c). naturally, was given an anti-israeli spin.

(snip)

Can't say I'm terribly surprised.
When you quote something, you should link to the source.

Is there anyone else besides me skeptical that Jerusalem Post published the Jyllands Posten page at 1/40 of the size? If the published it with a height of 2,5 inches (6,35 cm), Jyllands Posten has to publish its newspaper on sheets 2,5 meters high. And I always thought non-tabloits are too big...

1/40 = 2,5%
Height: 2,5 inches
1 inch = 2,5 centimeters and a bit,
leads to 2,5 meter and a bit newspaper sheets.
According to the Koran, Muslims should pay 1/40 (that's 2,5%) in Zakat
I think it is obvious God is trying to tell us something here. :D
 
That's very disappointing.

And also slightly misleading. Yes, the full-sized versions were yanked but the abiding objection was copyright. Nevertheless the images are still available to view on the forums (and in a much larger format than the Jerusalem Post apparently used). Image size is less important on a website because links to the originating paper's website are also included where you can view the cartoons in full unexpurgated detail.
 
even more misleading...

richardm -- I am sure you're totally incorrect by saying:

"Yes, the full-sized versions were yanked but the abiding objection was copyright."

When the images were originally removed, the main objection had nothing to do with copyright. At all. Only much later did that even become an excuse.
You can follow the episode of Ryokan's offering the in-line large versionsHERE on the Forum Management threads.

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