Originally published at Extra! the magazine at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
Hyping Iranian threat while ignoring Israeli defiance
By Michael Corcoran and Stephen Maher
The New York Times' treatment of Iranian and Israeli nuclear programs in recent months is a clear example of the systematic double standard the "paper of record" displays in international coverage (Extra!, 8/09).
The Times has devoted tremendous space and resources to covering Iran's nuclear program. Even though, as the Times itself explained (9/26/09), there is "no evidence" that Iran is building a bomb, and despite Iran's cooperation with international inspectors, the paper has continued to wave the specter of the "Iranian threat"--calling to mind the paper's warmongering coverage leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Extra!, 12/09). Meanwhile, Israel's longstanding refusal to cooperate in any way with international institutions seeking to monitor its actually existing nuclear weapons is absent from the pages of the New York Times. The contrast once again demonstrates how the Times systematically applies different standards to official allies and enemies of the U.S.--a long-standing and well-documented pattern at the paper (Extra!, 2/09; NACLA, 12/19/08).
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