Sunday, November 18, 2007

Fire HonestReporting.ca?

A website I read regularly, HonestReporting.ca, monitors Canadian media for inaccuracies and bias as it relates to Israel and the Mideast. It is generally an excellent monitoring group and provides a valuable service.

However, their inexplicable support and kudos to Douglas Smith over his firecracker/Halpoel story has forced FDS to take away 1302 points.

(Emphatic bold text has been changed to italics)

Calling Terror By Its Name

Cudos to Toronto Star sports reporter Doug Smith for using the Terror word and its variants twice in a report on a firecracker that was tossed on to an Israeli pro-basketball court in a game between Halpoel Jerusalem and Holon.

Couldn't agree more that acts of terrorism should be referred to as "terrorism" and not confusingly neutral language. That is not the focus of this blog. Oh, by the way, there was no act of terrorism here. It was hooliganism, remember? Also, how hard is it to spell "kudos" considering almost every word processor and Internet browser now includes spell check?



His report then discussed the broader security situation in Israel noting that:

"A frightening chain of events that ended with a security guard's hand blown up, two of his fingers severed, an arena of fans in panic and players fearing – momentarily – for their lives.

How does this statement discuss the broader security situation in Israel?

“A frightful scene in a Jerusalem gymnasium, when terror met sports, the worst nightmare for athletes normally inured to the possibility that danger from the outside could invade their world."

Hool. ig. an. ism.

“Even in Israel, where citizens live with the spectre of terrorist attacks hovering over them daily, it was too much. It was basketball. And basketball is supposed to be free of such horror”

Hooray. In a painfully misguided article, Doug Smith did not say "freedom fighting happy fun attacks" when he meant "terrorism." Cudos to you, sir. Cudos to Jason Capono. Let's go fly a cite to Candahar.

We shouldn't be afraid to use strong language to describe real situations. We also shouldn't overuse that language so that it loses its meaning, right?



Did y'all see the Golden State Warriors carry out a Holocaust against the Raps in the 4th quarter today?

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