What were they thinking?

To quote from a much longer story:

The bizarre combination of Curry’s hostility towards the soldiers and her overt sympathy for Oren left me puzzled. What I realized, from watching her and other journalists like her, was that contrary to popular belief, most of these journalists are neither “pro” nor “anti” Israel. In fact, they are not exactly journalists at all, at least not in the sense that we have been taught to believe. They do not seem interested in reporting what is traditionally understood as news — that is, information that attempts to convey as complete and realistic an accounting of events as possible.

They can be more accurately described as entertainers, who stimulate their audiences with that which is factual and passing. The most striking thing about the producers and on-air reporters who show up in Israel is how deeply ignorant they are of the conflict and its history. This is not exactly their fault: It is the product of their job, which is to entertain rather than inform. The skills required of them are technical and theatrical, not historic or intellectual, and thus they do not approach their task with much in the way of rigor; they are looking for interesting personal stories and manufactured mini-dramas, whose correlation to reality is only occasionally discernable.

So, if you are ever left wondering what a reporter was thinking when they report about someone swallowed by grief, the answer is: they are not thinking. The war reporting is just an example, you will see it everywhere.

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On a different topic, for links to a free recorded teleconference on the Shangri-la Diet and a summary of the teleconference with Seth Roberts, you can visit Lani's Blog.