Israel Matzav: New York Times eulogizes Helen Thomas, barely mentions why she 'retired'

Sunday, July 21, 2013

New York Times eulogizes Helen Thomas, barely mentions why she 'retired'

Yid with Lid reminds us of how Helen Thomas' anti-Semitism was exposed.

My "association" with Helen Thomas began a Friday, a month longer than three years ago when my friend Rabbi David Nesenoff sent me a video which contained a short explosive interview he had conducted with Helen Thomas. There on tape the veteran White House correspondent gave a statement that many people (including me) saw as telling the Jews to go face another Holocaust. That was probably one of the more pleasant things Thomas has ever said about Jews.

On the call David asked me if there was anything I could do with the video. He had already offered it to the mainstream media and even The Jewish Week, a weekly progressive newspaper for the Jewish community. Taking up David's challenge, I guaranteed the video would have a half a million hits before he turned on the computer again after the Sabbath (I was wrong--it was over 750 thousand).

I quickly posted it on my site The Lid, wrote it up for Big Journalism, gave it to Scott Baker (who at the time was running Breitbart TV , and sent out tweets and emails to most of the large sites. Before I left on a five hour car ride to my brother's house for the weekend the video was posted on the Big sites and as a banner Drudge headline.

By the time I arrived in Maryland the same video they had rejected a few days earlier was dominating the headlines of the mainstream media .

The mainstream media circled the wagons to protect Helen Thomas then, and they continued to do so during the following three years. Read the whole thing.

The mainstream media continues to protect Thomas after her death. For example, this gushing praise from the New York Times omits almost entirely the circumstances of her 'retirement' from the media as if the interview that Jeff Dunetz describes above never happened (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). It merits one short paragraph buried in the middle, and goes on to excuse her as someone seeking 'mutual respect and tolerance.'

But 16 months later, Ms. Thomas abruptly announced her retirement from Hearst amid an uproar over her assertion that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go back where they belonged, perhaps Germany or Poland. Her remarks, made almost offhandedly days earlier at a White House event, set off a storm when a videotape was posted.

In her retirement announcement, Ms. Thomas, whose parents immigrated to the United States from what is now Lebanon, said that she deeply regretted her remarks and that they did not reflect her “heartfelt belief” that peace would come to the Middle East only when all parties embraced “mutual respect and tolerance.”

“May that day come soon,” she said.

Of course, they don't mention all the anti-Semitism that spewed out of Thomas' mouth once she was unconstrained, and which probably far better reflects her true feelings. That has nothing to do with 'mutual respect and tolerance.' Can you imagine the Times similarly eulogizing a reporter who had made anti-Black or anti-Muslim comments?

Perhaps we all ought to reconsider how reliable the mainstream media is. It is no longer capable of unbiased reporting (if it ever was). Not even in the US.

Labels: anti-Semitism, blogosphere, Helen Thomas, mainstream media