A comment from a former Reuters employee

The Global Editor of Ethics, Innovation and News Standards for Reuters, Dean Wright, recently stepped down from his position with the agency.  We commented on Wright's final online column here.  Over the weekend, we received the following comment from a reader:

Wright is wrong: I was bounced off Reuters fairly recently for not meeting their "standards." Well, I don't crop photos to fit a narrative. And unlike Dean Wright, I never worked for MSNBC - no paragon of objectivity and elevated standards. The threadbare default argument that certain language "offends" or fails to comport with "standards" is in itself code for bias and censorship. 

Plainly, I was removed from posting for my point of view, conservative. I've seen a trend in America the last many years that reveals leftists are generally the least tolerant and least disposed toward debate. Liberalism, the American left, is Marxist by nature. And it's all about control. When I come across intellectually dishonest vermin like Dean Wright, I find it affirming and actually vindicating that I pushed his buttons enough, tweaked his thin-skinned sensibilities to merit removal from his tiny parcel of the internet. But, like it or not, I am not chastened, nor am I restrained from speaking truth to power, albeit media power.

Wright and his ilk clearly do not realize that many of us who fail to meet his subjective "standards" have been dealing with leftist mental Lilliputians for decades. I studied in Boston, often taught by open Marxists and Harvard Ph.Ds (usually one and the same). I know the game. One thing I've found, when the heavy hand is used and intolerance applied, it signals frustration at being on the losing, ultimately soon to be irrelevant side. Truth is revealed from the airing of opposing opinion; its product and yield are there to be examined by the consumer of information. People are smart enough to see through the sophistry and subterfuge through their own intellectual capacity and common sense. It is always preferable to err on the side of more information than less, that is if truth is your goal. At Reuters, Wright is Wrong.

Any further comment would be superfluous.

Dean Wright stepping down

Dean Wright, Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards for Reuters, is leaving the company.  Wright's profile on the Reuters website reads:

He leads the process of reviewing, establishing and encouraging adherence to standards in Thomson Reuters journalism and works with editors to promote innovation. He writes a regular column and works with Editor in Chief David Schlesinger in maintaining the editorial relationship with the Reuters trustees and upholding and promoting the Reuters Trust Principles

In his final "regular" column for Reuters (six months after his last column),Wright writes:

After six of the most rewarding years in my career, this is my final week at Reuters as global editor for ethics and standards.  In this role, it’s been my job to make sure Reuters journalists have the guidance, tools and oversight to help them practice journalism in a way that is consistent with the highest ethics and standards [...]

We also heard from people who pointed out occasional inconsistencies between the handbook guidance and the way we actually reported stories. And that’s great–because we believe in transparency.

"Occasional inconsistencies"?  Our 500+ posts over the last 19 months documenting systematic bias, the liberal use of propaganda, deep dishonesty, and outright racism demonstrated by Reuters correspondents reporting on the Middle East conflict puts lie to any notion that journalism is being practiced "consistent with the highest ethics and standards".  Although Reuters does provide its staff with guidance and tools to comply with ethical journalism standards, in the form of the much-vaunted Thomson Reuters Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism, the oversight function Wright refers to has clearly and utterly failed.

If Reuters believes in transparency, why doesn't the agency always correct errors openly, as promised by The 10 Absolutes of Reuters Journalism?  Why didn't the agency formally acknowledge and apologize to readers for the publication of doctored photographs in violation of its commitment to "never alter a still or moving image beyond the requirements of normal image enhancement"?  Why does Reuters regularly publish pieces that clearly fall into the category of op-eds while refusing to identify them as such?

Wright continues:

Not all interactions have been so pleasant. Partisans on all sides of Middle East issues are particularly prone to alleging bias in our reporting—and I’ve long since lost hope of convincing them that journalists can indeed put aside their own viewpoints and even ethnic backgrounds and report a story fairly and completely. That’s what our journalists do every day.

Interesting that Wright should point specifically to claims of bias in Reuters Middle East reporting.  There are hundreds of other military conflicts and political contests ongoing in the world with partisan and passionate observers.  Why, we wonder, do Wright and Reuters feel the heat so intensely in this area of reporting?  Could it be in fact, that Reuters journalists writing on the Middle East consistently fail to put aside their own viewpoints and report a story fairly and completely?

Not according to Wright:

And judging from my contacts with the Reuters journalists who do the hard work of daily journalism, they’re less cynical and more idealistic than ever. So many have told me that they see themselves as evangelists of truth, of independent reporting and the free flow of information. For most, this is much more than a job. They believe, as do I, that the world would be a poorer, meaner place without their efforts.

Which only goes to show that denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Proverb: the counsel you would have another keep, first keep yourself

Regular readers of RMEW will be familiar with the Reuters Trust Principles and the agency's Handbook of Journalism.  We refer to these frequently to illustrate the way Reuters correspondents regularly violate their own corporate governance charter and ethical guidelines with patent partisanship and skewed reporting.

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards for Reuters.  On the Reuters website, Wright's bio reads:

"He leads the process of reviewing, establishing and encouraging adherence to standards in Thomson Reuters journalism and works with editors to promote innovation. He writes a regular column and works with Editor in Chief David Schlesinger in maintaining the editorial relationship with the Reuters trustees and upholding and promoting the Reuters Trust Principles."

We recently discovered two interesting videos of Wright talking about online journalism ethics and the Reuters handbook, respectively.

When the going gets tough, the tough get reading

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards for Reuters.  His bio on the Reuters website reads:

"He [Wright] leads the process of reviewing, establishing and encouraging adherence to standards in Thomson Reuters journalism and works with editors to promote innovation. He writes a regular column and works with Editor in Chief David Schlesinger in maintaining the editorial relationship with the Reuters trustees and upholding and promoting the Reuters Trust Principles."

The overture to the Reuters Trust Principles incidentally, states:

"Thomson Reuters is dedicated to uphold the Trust Principles and to preserving its independence, integrity and freedom from bias in the gathering and dissemination of information and news."

With the publication of doctored photos eviscerating material evidence of armed violence by members of the Turkish group İnsani Yardım Vakfı (IHH) on board the Gaza flotilla, Reuters violated the most fundamental standards of professional journalism and its own code of ethics.  And this was not the first time.

Given all that, one might expect the "Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards" for Reuters to address in his column, this serious breach of public trust and reader concerns on the matter.  So what is Wright writing about these days?

Novels about journalists:

Maybe it’s because I want to find some glamor or intrigue or romance in my profession, so I find it reassuring that writers are still able to spin entertaining tales about journalists.

Phew! What's that smell? It's another Reuters fauxtography scandal!

Charles Johnson at LGF has picked up the ball on the latest example of Reuters attempting to alter reality.  In another photo taken by the terror-linked IHH and originally published on its website, Reuters again crops out a knife held by one of the attackers as well as a pool of blood, and a second injured Israeli marine.  Here is Reuters version of the photo:

And here is the original from the IHH:

Johnson then increases the exposure slightly to better resolve the knife, blood, and second marine.

Paging Dean Wright; we think you have a problem.

Why is this thing unlike the other?

In previous posts, we note Reuters repeated use of the racist misnomer "Arab East Jerusalem" to describe the eastern portion of the city.  The term originated over the period 1949 -- 1967 following the Arab Legion's conquest of the area and accompanying ethnic cleansing of thousands of Jews living there.  Today, approximately 42% of the population of the eastern part of the city is Jewish, yet Reuters continues to refer to the area with an inaccurate, anachronistic, and racist tag in a transparent effort to assign Title to the Arabs.

In a story on protests by secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews over the question of whether Israeli businesses should be allowed to open on the Jewish sabbath, Reuters writes:

Police said there was no violence as hundreds marched in the predominantly Jewish western part of Jerusalem...

Note the different treatment: there are significantly more Jews living in the eastern part of Jerusalem than there are Arabs living in the western part of Jerusalem yet Reuters refers to the former as "Arab East Jerusalem" and the latter as the "predominantly Jewish western part of Jerusalem".

Paging Dean Wright, we believe you have a problem. 


Photos published in Life Magazine in 1948 of Jewish Jerusalem
prior to, and following ethnic cleansing by the Arab Legion.

After stabbing two Jews, Palestinian terrorist is shot by Israeli soldier; Reuters refers to "gun attack"

If a Reuters ombudsman like Dean Wright would like to know why the public no longer trusts media organizations like Reuters to report the news accurately, he can check out this story appearing on the Reuters website today.  Correspondents Haitham Tamimi and Dan Williams report on an incident involving the knifing of two Jews in the community of Kiryat Arba near Hebron and lead with this headline: 

Three hurt in knife, gun attack at WBank settlement

Got that?  The shooting of an assailant who has just stabbed two people is characterized as a "gun attack" and conflated with the knifing.

Tamimi and Williams add:

Kiryat Arba abuts the Palestinian city of Hebron.

For those who may not be aware, Hebron is regarded by Jews as their second holiest city next to Jerusalem.  Further, the city remains formally unallocated to any people as per international law.  But  of course for Reuters, it's a "Palestinian" city.

Yes Mr. Wright, many of us do take a dim view of media. 

 

Photo of members of the Slonim family, murdered by Arabs in the 1929 Hebron massacre

The dream-weavers at Reuters

In an effort to affix blame to Israel for the years of horrendous bloodshed otherwise known as the Palestinian "intifada", Reuters' writers frequently assert that Palestinian violence occurred as a spontaneous response to Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa mosque compound in September of 2000. Douglas Hamilton today writes:

"He [Mohammad Dahlan] compared the week's events to violence that erupted after Israeli right-winger Ariel Sharon visited the site in 2000, triggering a Palestinian uprising against Israel."

Quite apart from the puerile reference to Sharon as a "right-winger", Hamilton is again misrepresenting the historical facts behind the cause of the intifada. Here's what PA Communications Minister, Imad Al-Faluji said in March 2001:

"The Al-Aqsa Intifada emphasizes these principles and axioms. Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is wrong, even if this visit was the straw that broke the back of the Palestinian people. This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton. [Arafat] remained steadfast and challenged [Clinton]. He rejected the American terms and he did it in the heart of the US."

A direct quote from an authoritative Palestinian source. Yet Reuters' writers persist in spinning a yarn at every opportunity. Irresponsible, unprofessional, and unethical journalism pure and simple. A clear violation of Reuters Trust Principles as well as the tenets of its Handbook of Journalism. Where is Dean Wright? Where is David Schlesinger?

For shame.