In Journalism, Context Matters
Journalism is not just about words. Those words need to be put into some sort of context, so the reader (or watcher if it’s cable news or listener if it’s radio) has some point of comparison. That’s why the “five Ws” were invented. You know, the who, what, when, where and why. We’re leaving out “how” because it’s not a “W”.
When you satisfy most or all of the “Ws” in a news story, the reader has some context to understand what they are reading.
Apparently, not all reporters at The New York Times were paying attention in journalism school that day.
Case in point, an article that ran yesterday entitled “A flight carrying Americans lands in Florida, in an evacuation DeSantis approved.” The article attempts to explain that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis approved private flights to evacuate mostly Florida citizens from Israel who were caught up in the war.
The flight was organized by an international rescue nonprofit organization.
According to The Times: “Mr. DeSantis indicated that seven other evacuated passengers had arrived in Orlando, Fla., and that there would be more flights from Israel carrying as many as 700 to 1,000 Floridians overall. He said that many of the evacuees had ‘no help’ and had been unable to get out of Israel on their own.
‘The state of Florida stepped up and answered the call,’ he said.”
That’s all well and good. And even makes DeSantis look like he actually does have a heart.
But what’s missing is the context.
The article makes it seem like Pres. Biden and the administration are not doing anything to help Americans trying to get out of Israel. And that Gov. DeSantis (who despite a terrible campaign is still running for president) is stepping up to fill the void.
In fact, just three days earlier on Oct. 12, CNN ran an article on its web site stating that The Biden Administration would begin rescue flights out of Israel on Oct. 15, two days before the DeSantis flight was to take place.
“The Biden administration said they’ll begin chartering flights on Friday [Oct. 15] from Israel to destinations in Europe, as officials scramble to get Americans stranded in the war-ravaged country back home to the US,” the CNN article noted.
The Times reporters writing the story could have easily checked the CNN web site and plucked a sentence or two from it to add context to their story.
Noting that Gov. DeSantis has criticized both Pres. Biden and former president Donald Trump for different actions, The Times says:
“Mr. DeSantis has blamed Mr. Biden for providing $6 billion in humanitarian aid to Iran, an ally of Hamas, as part of a prisoner deal and chastised Mr. Trump for making critical comments about the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Again, the context, which is critical to understanding what’s going on here, is missing.
Yes, Gov. DeSantis did criticize Pres. Biden for “providing $6 billion to Iran,” which he assumes they used to finance the Hamas attack on Israel.
But, as usual, the governor is wrong. Pres. Biden did not “provide” the money to Iran, which makes it sound like he took taxpayers’ money and gave it to Iran to use however they liked. The money came from frozen Iranian assets that were unfrozen and were given to humanitarian organizations that operate in the region, not directly to the government of Iran.
But The Times does not mention any of this.
In fact, late last week the Administration refroze the money due to Iran’s suspected role in the Israel-Gaza war.
So even if Iran was “provided” with $6 billion from the U.S. (which it was not), it no longer would have access to that money anyway.
Apparently reporters at The New York Times write their stories in a vacuum and are unable to use Google to do a little research. If the reporters had read their own paper, they would have had some context for the article and they could have included it.
But I guess that does not fit their narrative that Gov. DeSantis is the air-apparent to MAGA and will yet take on Donald Trump for the nomination, despite his campaign’s implosion on the trail.
“While both Democratic and Republican politicians in the U.S. have pledged support for Israel during the conflict, DeSantis said the question is whether President Joe Biden and other Democrats will have the ‘moral clarity to say there’s no equivalence between Hamas terrorists and Israelis fighting to defend themselves,’” according to an article in RawStory.
The answer, Ron, is yes. They do have the “moral clarity” to distinguish between the two. And they have said so. You apparently have not been paying attention.
By the way, DeSantis is not one who should be criticizing others for not having “moral clarity.”