Many of you have been posting about the media's language usage when covering recent events in Israel. They seem to keep distance when reporting on the Fogel family tragedy and don't seem to want to label the Jerusalem bus bombing as "terrorism." Although I am completely biased in this situation and wish the media would show some compassion, I still like to look at both sides. Take the New York Times, for example. They are one of the few who still try to maintain a high standard of journalistic objectivity. So if they distance themselves from the news and label events as generic "killings" or "bombings," I understand why.
But then I read this NYT article which reported on the sensitive issue of what to do with all the bodies left behind by Japan's earthquake/tsunami catastrophe. The language used here was poetic, touching, beautiful really. And this was not an article in the Opinions section. Yes this natural disaster took far more lives than recent tragedies in Israel, yes maybe the writing style of this one writer could not speak for the standards of the entire NYT, but don't you think the NYT should maintain objective standards for all tragic events or express some humanity in their writing for all?
Interesting point. I think in general for natural disasters and incidents in which many many people are killed there is a different tone. For smaller scale tragedies such as the shootings in Virginia Tech and in Arizona, because less people are hurt there is already a difference. In terms of Israel though, there is always a bias and a political opinion that comes along with any article. I wonder if theoretically, G-d forbid, there was a natural disaster that caused a lot of harm in Israel what the reaction would be.
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