UPDATED: A lesson for Anne Applebaum: Reporting versus Editorial Opinion
Anne Applebaum is confused, so what does a confused American liberal do? Blame American conservatives. Hey, read the DailyKos and you’ll conclude Bush is the enemy, not Al Qaeda.
Let me praise her first. Applebaum has clearly visited a few of those highly-politicized “art” (or so-called art) exhibitions. Her column of Wednesday, February 8 takes an effective swipe at the “hypocrisy of the cultural left.” She scalds several major newspapers that published Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ but have failed to publish the Danish cartoons. Her conclusion, which I endorse:
The moral: While we are nervous about gratuitously offending believers in distant, underdeveloped countries, we don’t mind gratuitously offending believers at home.
But alas, she has to be “fair and balanced.” She then proceeds to attack what she calls “the hypocrisy of the right-wing blogosphere.”
Let me explain her meta-game. She writes for a liberal paper with a liberal agenda. She knows the cultural left is packed with hypocrites and poseurs, but to make that point while keeping her “I’m a good liberal” credentials in order, she has to go after conservatives.
Fair enough– conservatives deserve to be blasted on a slew of issues. However, the subject she chooses — so-called “right wing” treatment of Newsweek’s phony Koran-flushing story–isn’t one of them.
Applebaum still doesn’t understand what Newsweek did and how Newsweek’s fakery is categorically different from Denmark’s editorial cartoons. I will agree that political Islamist’s and secular tyrants provoked riots using Newsweek’s story and the Danish cartoons, but those folks aren’t the “right-wing blogosphere.”
Here’s what she wrote:
But although that controversy was every bit as manipulated as this one, self-styled U.S. “conservatives” blamed not cynical politicians and clerics but Newsweek for (accidentally) inciting violence in the Muslim world: “Newsweek lied, people died.” Worse, much of the commentary implied that Newsweek was not only wrong to make a mistake (which it was) but also that the magazine was wrong to investigate the alleged misconduct of U.S. soldiers. Logically, the bloggers should now be attacking the Danish newspaper for (less accidentally) inciting violence in the Muslim world. Oddly enough, though, I’ve heard no cries of “Jyllands-Posten insulted, people died.” The moral is: We defend press freedom if it means Danish cartoonists’ right to caricature Muhammad; we don’t defend press freedom if it means the mainstream media’s right to investigate the U.S. government.
Powerline has already analyzed her column, and done a superb job of it.
Responding to Applebaum’s charge, the gents at powerline wrote:
This would make sense if we had demanded that Newsweek be shut down, or its editors beheaded. We didn’t. We criticized Newsweek for negligent reporting and anti-military bias. Maybe this is a hard concept to grasp at the Washington Post, but advocating freedom of the press–as we obviously do–is not inconsistent with criticizing newspapers and magazines when they screw up.
Read the entire post.
My Creators Syndicate column on The Cartoon War anticipated this line of guff, though not from Ms. Applebaum. I honestly expected better. (My column first appeared February 8 at StrategyPage– the same day as Applebaum.s It will run in the Washington Times on February 10, I suspect.)
“Phony facts” are not opinion. A couple of grafs from the column:
In May 2005 Newsweek ran its phony Guantanamo prison “Koran flushing” story –a story designed to embarrass the Bush Administration as well as sell copies of Newsweek. A good sales ploy? When riots began in Muslim countries the world got a lesson in information warfare. Indian military analyst Bahukutumbi Raman claimed that in Afghanistan the riots were incited by “well-organized agents of the Hizb ut-Tahrir terror gang.”
“The cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten are categorically different from Newsweek’s indefensible action. The cartoons, like Rushdie’s novel, don’t purport to convey fact but are opinion, in their case mild satire. The Danish editor argued many Muslim immigrants criticize Europeans but brook no counter-critique.”
UPDATE: This post has attracted some outstanding comments– and a “thank you” for that. As for the “liberal” and “conservative” tags, or “left wing” and “right wing”: Applebaum’s column uses that frame of reference. Anyone familiar with my work (in both non-fiction and fiction) should know I find those terms to be of limited utility.
Here’s her column’s metagame, one more time: Applebaum’s column includes the “right wing” critique because it creates a “balance” that provides social, personal, and political cover. It is, however, a false balance. Think of it as a rhetorical gimmick, typical of cocktail party conversation that says “though I took at shot at the leftish poseurs, I fired at the right, too. I still belong to the clique.”
Her shot at “the right wing” missed and ricocheted off reality.
Does Applebaum do great work? Of course–however, the column indicates she still doesn’t understand Newsweek’s error. Why? Don’t know– perhaps Applebaum and the rest of the WashingtonPost/Newsweek staff suffer en masse from instutional denial. Her conflation of Newsweek’s fake story and the cartoons is a mistake, and she turns that mistake into a political attack against “the right-wing.” Criticism of Newsweek’s phony report is not a critique of free speech.
She was close to having a good point. If she had solely concentrated on the silencein some quarters about how poorly some muslims behaved as a result of that Koran-flushing, and how suddenly some of us found time to criticize muslims for rioting this week, she would have probably had a point. The notion that criticizing the press is inherently lacking respect for the first amendment, or that slandering our troops with false allegations is the same as what’s going on here just sort of loses the whole point.
Comment by Dean Esmay — 2/9/2006 @ 8:16 am
Maybe it’s because I live in the land of the blue, but I thought that only a couple of the 12 cartoons (the bomb in the turban and “no more virgins” come to mind) rose to the level of even “mild satire.” Others, such as Mohammed’s face in the star and crescent, were really good illustrations whose offense, if any, was to portray the Prophet at all, not to portray him (or Islam) in a bad light. But I blame George Bush. And the Jews, can’t forget about the Jews.
Comment by Ronbo — 2/9/2006 @ 8:20 am
Anne Applebaum is wrong… Anne seems to have missed a big difference between the two situations: Newsweek was blamed because the story was wrong and because they rushed to print that story because it was critical of the Bush Administration. Newsweek wasn’t blamed, as she suggg…
Trackback by ThoughtsOnline — 2/9/2006 @ 8:36 am
As stunning as this is to some, it is old news to most. Many in the liberal camp (as happens in the right) refuse to understand the issue between the rights of humanity and their behavior. While it is acceptable to criticize a government of religion, to do so with lies and false evidence is wrong. The story of CIA prisons in Europe, which I predict, will turn out to be a red herring is another example of folks going to town on a false premise! The truth will out…now if only folks will recognize it.
Comment by Citizen Deux — 2/9/2006 @ 8:39 am
Yeah, the cartoons themselves hardly rose to the level of offense with a couple possible exceptions. Well, that is on a “reasonable person” standard, I guess we will have to modify that to a “reasonable jihadi” standardd. No detriment could accrue from that, could it?
Comment by megapotamus — 2/9/2006 @ 8:43 am
I think you are a bit too hard on Applebaum. I read her regularly as neither a liberal nor a conservative but as a foreign policy expert, and specificially one who has a deep understanding of totalitarian regimes. See for example her recent column on Iranian dissidents (http://tinyurl.com/85w6k), or of course her major study of the Soviet gulag. True, the Newsweek analogy overreached (but was there no grain of truth there, in that very little emphasis was placed on the Islamist fomenters during the Newsweek controversy?) But I wouldn’t write her off as just another know-nothing liberal on the WaPo editorial page. Ed note: Did you read the web log post? I said I expected more from her. I respect her reporting and analysis on dissidents. However, she clearly does not understand what Newsweek did. She lives and works in a Washington Post/Newsweek world. Her continuing confusion vis a vis the Gitmo Koran-flushing suggests several things, among them institutional denial.
Comment by Dale West — 2/9/2006 @ 8:54 am
Wow! Anne’s a “liberal”? Sure comes as a surprise to me, since she was editor of the very conservative Spectator before returning to Washington. Her books aren’t particularly “liberal” in their outlook, either. Take a look at her 2003 Gulag. I think some commentors are simply assuming her liberalness from her relationship with the Post. [Disclaimer: I first met Anne during her days at Spectator in London, in the early 90s.] ED NOTE: Fair enough. Ask her to identify the “right wing” her column fingered. At that point we can move the discussion forward– and it could be a very fruitful conversation.
Comment by John Burgess — 2/9/2006 @ 9:55 am
I think your criticism is right on. I, too, was disappointed by her comments, having recently read her absolutely amazing Gulag study and being a frequent reader of her columns. It is amazing to me how quickly the MSM can redefine reality and turn it into conventional wisdom. I expect it from the Usual Suspects - Dionne, Krugman, etc. - but not from Applebaum.
Comment by Mike — 2/9/2006 @ 10:07 am
If you trouble yourself to find out who Applebaum’s husband is, you will no longer puzzle over her real agenda. She is a “clash of civilization” Likudnik, just like Flemming Rose (who sponsored the cartoon contest). Her “outrage” at the riots is only surpassed by her joy at their taking place. Free speech is just a canny pretext. I note that Pope Benedict, that notorious lefty, deplored the cartoons. He believes, as do I, that giving deep offense to people, even when entirely legal, is no virtue. It is the stuff of tub thumpers who get off on “sand nigger” talk. Applebaum masks the same sentiments behind polite talk.
Comment by skip — 2/9/2006 @ 10:22 am
A very serious question: If the Koran-flush story had proved 100 percent authentic (it’s only about 60 percent authentic, based on the military’s own admission of “mishandlingâ€), would Newsweek still have been wrong to publish it? In other words, if you were editor of Newsweek, and you were certain of the validity of the Koran-flush report, would you have printed it? Yes, or no?
Comment by Jonathan Miller — 2/9/2006 @ 10:36 am
We should not be afraid to offend those who embrace murder, terror and violence. I see no virtue in kowtowing to them.
Comment by George — 2/9/2006 @ 10:40 am
Applebaum’s flaw, and what made her column wrong as well as poorly articulated, is in the parallel she uses to criticize conservatives. On the Right, we bashed Newsweek because it printed factually UNTRUE allegations without making the slightest attempt to verify them (flushing a book down a commode? Can’t happen, especially with the Al Gore toilets), ignoring the Army’s denial, and doing so in a naked attempt to delegitimize the nature of the military’s holding of terrorist prisoners in Gitmo Bay. In other words, we bashed Newsweek for horrible and credulous reporting done in an attempt to simply make the military look bad. But we also bashed Muslim radicals for stirring up their ovine followers based on a report that was so facially inaccurate only the most willfully gullible could believe it — a fact that Applebaum elides because it is contrary to her “plague on both their houses” argument. Our reaction to the recent cartoon-stoked riots is based upon the Muslims’ barbaric reactions to mere opinions, their attempts to squelch all views of Islam and Muslims that diverge from their own worldview and their intolerance for other cultures and religions while concurrently demanding exalted respect for their own. The 12 cartoons that the Danish newspaper printed are not fact issues — they are opinions of the Danish cartoonists (although three other, more defamatory cartoons drawn by Muslims for radicals seeking to inflame their followers against the Danes — see yesterday’s WSJ article). I expected better from Applebaum.
Comment by The Monk — 2/9/2006 @ 10:46 am
Hate to say it, but you might have missed the pitch calling Anne a “confused American liberal”. Her husband, Radek Sikorski, was until recently a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. There’s either a staggering amount of cognitive dissonance in that household, or Anne has a more balanced view than you give her credit for. ED NOTE: Thanks for the note and info. Please read the update. “Labeling stigma” cuts both ways. I’m delighted to discuss it, too, in another post. Applebaum’s “Newsweek and the right-wing” comments are the core of the criticism.
Comment by Ed — 2/9/2006 @ 11:35 am
Applebaum isn’t confused in the least. She knows exactly what she’s doing. The Guantanamo/Abu torture mythology is now firmly fixed in the public mind. It doesn’t matter any more what actually happened. The same scenario has played out with the Katrina aftermath story—the Assertions of a racist, incompetent response by Fema is “real”, even though subsequent investigation has clearly shown most all of the reporting during the crisis was woefully in error. The fact that these cartoons were printed months earlier in an Egyptian newspaper staffed by Muslims and resulted in no outrage at all is now meaningless in the face of the “conventional wisdom” that they are offensive, blasphemous, and violate some Islamic rule that no one can specify but it must be, because look at how upset the “spontaneous” demonstrators in Damascus are. The danger of a global media world is that reality becomes what the MSM says it is, and facts become disposable.
Comment by veryretired — 2/9/2006 @ 11:39 am
Danish Muslim Cartoons: Blogger Hypocrisy? Anne Applebaum has an interesting look at the cultural subplots that have unfolded vis-a-vis the Danish cartoons of Mohammad and the subsequent violence in the Muslim world. The one sure to get the most attention in the blogosphere, since it focuses …
Trackback by Outside The Beltway | OTB — 2/9/2006 @ 2:09 pm
Johnathan, You’re off by an order of magnitude. The Koran story was about 6 percent authentic, not 60 percent - unless you see no difference between flushing down a toilet and not wearing gloves. Hard to ask serious questions when your premises are seriously faulty. But if the Newsweek editor was “certain,” as you say, what level of firings and/or resignations are appropriate for this institutional failure: just the editor, the reporters, the fact-noncheckers, or all of the above? And since none of the above, what does that say about the level of certainty?
Comment by Kelly — 2/9/2006 @ 2:58 pm
As is so often the case, Applebaum’s right on this one. As someone who long ago lost his initial enthusiasm for the blogosphere, I find this controversy not a matter of “right” vs “left” but real journalists vs those increasingly partisan bloviators known as bloggers. I support the US military and voted for Bush in 2004. I also expect my nation’s journalists to investigate– yes, thoroughly and aggressively– ANY administration, including allegations of abuse and torture by our nation’s military. Do they go overboard at times? Maybe. But they’re *real*, *professional*, *serious* journalists. They’re paid to be tough, to ask uncomfortable questions that may well show our military and our president in a bad light. This is the price of having a free press. When Bush and Cheney and Gonzales screw up– as they have, massively, again and again in their prosecution of a war that I supported and nonetheless still support– I expect our press to call them on it. As to Anne A., she’s a top-notch professional journalist, one of the best writing today. That means that, unlike the bloviator-sphere, she doesn’t simply spout opinions; she digs, and sifts, and digs deeper and deeper and then evaluates, carefully and fairly, what she has found. So if she sets out to write about the gulag, for example, she doesn’t merely drop a few artful sentences and link to Robert Conquest or someone else’s book on Amazon. She actually goes to the Lena River area to see the camps herself, and interview people herself, and investigate and accumulate and sift through massive amounts of secondary evidence as well– all before she writes even a page about it. That’s what real journalists do. And that is what the Newsweek journalists are doing each day. As with the Bush administration, they screw up sometimes. Most of the time they do a pretty good job. In the wake of all the noise by fundamentalists of one variety or another about perfidious and blasphemous journalists, my respect and appreciation for the good ones– a large group that includes most of those writing for WaPo and Newsweek– is increasing. Can’t say teh same for that online equivalent of pro wrestling that is blogger-world.
Comment by thibaud — 2/9/2006 @ 3:44 pm
Deliberately giving offense is no virtue, even when giving it to your enemy. It is possible (not to mention morally required) to wage war without dehumanizing your enemy and yourself in the process. Support for a cause should be based on it’s rightness, not ginned up with ridicule, hatred and unreasoning predjudice. That’s what the jihadistas are all about. That’s what the “information war” is all about. Since emotion is easier to influence than intellect, those who seek only to enrage rather than engage have the early upper hand. The Far Left (I said “far”, I don’t mean the ordinary guy/gal that support unions, healthcare for poor children and housing for the homeless) specializes in this kind of distraction that attmepts to inflame the ignorant masses without contributing to the cause of truth or justice. (ie. almost anything Sen. Kennedy says) They merely seek power, and are perfectly willing to see their own people debased and/or exploited in that cause. It is the cause they purport to represent that is supreme. People (in whose name they exercize their power) have no value except in their use, and when used, are fit only to be discarded. The parallel between CartoonGate and KoranGate is the reactions to both by the Far Left (Throw stones, damn the consequences) and the Jihadistas (Fan the flames of unreasoning hatred, increase ignorance by undermining legitimate religeous dialoge, laying the groundwork for the next invented outrage)
Comment by Scott Sterling — 2/9/2006 @ 4:09 pm
Appelbaum is indeed an exceptional journalist. Her masterpiece - on the Soviet Gulag system - is a must read for anyone interested in 20th century totalitarianism. But I think you are correct that, at least from this column, she has lost a crucial distinction. Commentator ‘Thibaud’s gratuitous “online equivalent of pro-wrestling that is blogger world” sounds, in form and syntax, precisely like something a journalistic “professional” would write. It’s got a bit of Pajamas (remember Klein?) disdain that, silly enough on its own, is especially absurd given where he is posting, and the near-certainty that he has used this blog for valuable information on goings on in Iraq and strategy generally. There’s no reason why people can’t enjoy and appreciate Austin Bay as much as they do Anne Applebaum. I for one certainly do.
Comment by Sergio — 2/10/2006 @ 12:54 am
Of Moral Equivalency and Intellectual Bankruptcy Well of course. Because we all know that there’s no difference between a cartoon depiction of Mohammad that may be insulting to some people, and a blatant damned lie about the murder of 6,000,000 people.
Trackback by Presto Agitato — 2/10/2006 @ 1:06 am
It’s strange how we just adopt the enemy’s narrative without thinking twice. First on Koarn flushing, now even worse on the cartoons. They were not intended to be intentionally offensive. They came about because the Danish paper heard about a children’s book that couldn’t find an illustrator because everyone was afraid of Muslim (violent) retaliation. In order to protest this state of affairs, they held a contest for illustrators, thinking, apparently mistakenly, that giving the illustrators the cover of widelt accepted press freedoms would protect them. No such luck. Look, if you want to believe that Mohammed should not be pictured, fine. Don’t picture him. Isn’t that the basic liberal, in the sense that we in the west are all liberals, argument? What gives anyone the right to dictate my beliefs on the matter, let alone to restrict press freedom with violent threats?
Comment by Bezuhov — 2/10/2006 @ 11:51 am
She was wrong. But lets not use this to deviate from the fact that the cartoons published were unnaceptable. “Bush is the enemy, not Al Qaeda” Wrong, they both are the enemy!
Comment by jamal — 2/10/2006 @ 3:10 pm
in response to thibaud, please point me to any evidence of Appelbaum’ extensive “fact checking,” or for that matter, any WaPo writer that spends their time searching for anything on the internet other than searching for a cute new way to say BushHitlerChimpyMcHaliburton. The fact of the matter is, bloggers are the ones who bear the brunt of the grunt work when it comes to “sifting through facts, etc. etc.” Tell me, to whom do you think a potential source is more likely to speak to: A well-known (though I don’t know why) writer named Applebaum, or an unknown internet blogger? The answer is of course, the well known writer. Thibaud, I’m not sure what you have against the increase of reliability of the American public on information found not in overpaid, under talented writers like Applebaums’ columns, but on websites such as this one, but you had better get used to it, because the more instances the print media shows blatant disregard for the facts in attempt to score cheap political points at any cost,(a la newsweek’s Q’uranGate), the more average people like me are going to see people like Appelbaum and others for the partisan hacks they are and turn on the computer to find our news. Veritas
Comment by Veritas — 2/10/2006 @ 6:06 pm