9 thoughts on “Er, Sorry Vatican — Jewish Press, Pull Your Heads Out Of Yer Asses

  1. Typical for self-hating Mobius… listen up, mamele: the Vatican’s own newspaper made the translation error, then corrected it….
    Boo-hoo for you, Mobi – this time the Jews aren’t at fault.
    Try a little fact-checking of your own, dolling – starting with the Catholic house organs on the internet:
    http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=34348
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1311389/posts
    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=14149

  2. Uh, no, ben-david. Miriam Shaviv broke this story among J-bloggers back on December 29, and both she and I have been following this one closely.
    The Jews — particularly the ADL and Mona Charen (she’s Jewish, right?) — behaved rather badly. And why did the JPost run the CWN story with neither attribution nor fact-checking?
    You can read the original Italian — mistranslated by CWN — on my blog. Miriam has other links.

  3. Sorry, Shawnaleh – the Jewish organizations responded after the report had started reverberating around the mediasphere. The CWN item was good enough confirmation for a lot of other mainstream news agencies to run with the anti-Israel screed. Not many of them were equipped (or bothered) to check the Italian text…
    Jewish organizations and journalists may have responded a fraction of a second earlier than others – justifiably as they naturally feel greater affinity for the topic – but they responded after the story was, for all intents, in fair play.
    In fact, Miriam Shaviv’s first post repeated the phrase “the entire world knows” (that Israel is sending aid) several times for dramatic effect – doesn’t exactly sound like she’s preaching restraint before denouncing this.
    Guess you’re on your own with this one, Shawnie… the Jews were not at fault, and have quickly issued corrections in light of CWN’s correction. I haven’t seen Mona Charen’s piece, but as she’s a weekly columnist, I’m sure there will be a correction shortly.
    THE JEWS DID NOT OVERREACT.
    THE JEWS WERE NOT AT FAULT.
    Ben-David

  4. For once I’m in agreement with the right wing people:
    Just because there are times when we can be accurately accused of jumping the gun doesn’t mean that every time there’s an issue that it’s our fault.
    When a creadible newssource publishes something, we accept it and work with that. Are you saying that if NBC had reported this event and the Jewish community freeked out that we would be unjustified? Well the WCN is considered a pretty creadible souce.
    This one was their bad. Now we need to suck it up, appologize for any offence we may have cause for someone else’s mistake, thank the pope for his support (this time) and move on.

  5. Tom, in the 2000 election, Fox News declared George Bush president despite the fact that the votes had not yet been fully processed in Florida and that there were serious disputes as to the legtimacy of the count in certain districts. However, soon after Fox’s announcement, the majority of major networks cited Fox’s findings and declared Bush the victor.
    News agencies have a responsibility to check facts and research news as opposed to regurgitating other outlet’s stories. I’m always amused by the stories I read in newspapers which say, “The New York Times reported today…” and so on. Would it have been so difficult for The Jerusalem Post to call up the Vatican’s press office and ask for confirmation? Within hours the story was all over the web and people, including myself, were denouncing the Vatican based upon innacurate informaiton.
    We’re all to blame, really. And this should serve as a meaningful demonstration to the Jewish press why it should not rely on second hand information, but rather investigate matters for itself.

  6. “The Jews” didn’t do anything. A bunch of people who work for nominally Jewish press organs did something. Watch the generalizations.

  7. And this should serve as a meaningful demonstration to the Jewish press why it should not rely on second hand information, but rather investigate matters for itself.
    Absolutely.
    The CWN item was good enough confirmation for a lot of other mainstream news agencies to run with the anti-Israel screed.
    Totally.
    Look, I sympathise with Mobius’s idea that the Jewish press should hold itself to a higher standard than the rest of America’s news vehicles, including the media conglomerates and ratings hogs. Why not? Everyone should always do the best job possible.
    I’m just not going to hold my breath. The Jewish press doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

  8. i don’t think the jewish press should hold itself to a higher standard than the rest of american’s news vehicles — i think all the press should hold itself to a higher standard, and that the jewish press should be no exception that fact.

  9. Ah — and here was me thinking that the Jewschool posting was entitled Jewish Press, Pull Your Heads Out Of Yer Asses. I get confused about these things.

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