The Times memo outlines guidance on a range of phrases and terms. “The nature of the conflict has led to inflammatory language and incendiary accusations on all sides. We should be very cautious about using such language, even in quotations. Our goal is to provide clear, accurate information, and heated language can often obscure rather than clarify the fact,” the memo says.
“Words like ‘slaughter,’ ‘massacre’ and ‘carnage’ often convey more emotion than information. Think hard before using them in our own voice,” according to the memo. “Can we articulate why we are applying those words to one particular situation and not another? As always, we should focus on clarity and precision — describe what happened rather than using a label.”
Despite the memo’s framing as an effort to not employ incendiary language to describe killings “on all sides,” in the Times reporting on the Gaza war, such language has been used repeatedly to describe attacks against Israelis by Palestinians and almost never in the case of Israel’s large-scale killing of Palestinians.
In January, The Intercept published an analysis of New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times coverage of the war from October 7 through November 24 — a period mostly before the new Times guidance was issued. The Intercept analysis showed that the major newspapers reserved terms like “slaughter,” “massacre,” and “horrific” almost exclusively for Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, rather than for Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli attacks.
Despite the memo’s framing as an effort to not employ incendiary language to describe killings “on all sides,” in the Times reporting on the Gaza war, such language has been used repeatedly to describe attacks against Israelis by Palestinians and almost never in the case of Israel’s large-scale killing of Palestinians.
Thank you for bolding it because it is the only relevant part of the article. If they wanna use scaled back language then fine, I have no real issue with that but if you’re breaking those rules for one side and upholding them for another then you’re just a hot pile of biased bullshit.
The banning of the terms Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing and Occupied Territory are also really important. The big difference is of course that the words slaughter, massacare etc can apply to both Palestinians and israelis. But their selective usasage does signify a massive double standard which proves the New York Times’ bias in favor of israel.
And it confirms earlier suspicions such as NLP reports from Holly Jackson written about a month into the Genocide that this selective usage of loaded terms against Palestinians was not accidental. It is a deliberate propaganda campaign for israel.
Another important fact here is that New York Times was not alone in this significant propaganda effort. Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Guardian, Reuters, and more. All of them had this very obviously skewed usage of language biased in favor of israel. Passive vs active tone, Palestinians “died” and israelis were “brutally slaughtered”.
This is one particular instance where I’d be okay with a politician going back on his word/ folding from a threat. Gaza already has Biden in hot water, and getting our troops involved in a direct conflict with Iran, after FINALLY getting out of Afghanistan, is just gonna make things worse, dammit. Put more money into green energy so we can finally stop getting involved in the middle east, PLEASE.
We’ve got to contact our elected representatives and tell them we don’t want them to support ‘The Lobby’ and/or Israel! They often get financing for election runs from that organization, so are beholden to them, not their electorate in most cases.
A backdoor is very distinct from a vanilla vulnerability. Heartbleed was a vulnerability, meaning the devs made a mistake in the code, introducing a method of attack. XZ was backdoored, meaning a malicious actor intentionally introduced a method by which he could exploit systems.
Both are pretty serious vulnerabilities, but a backdoor, especially introduced so high in the supply chain, would have been devastating had it not been caught so early.
Fascinating read - interesting that the origin of the hack is not yet known (or at least, released). I wonder what the stats are on these sorts of exploits in OSS - the concept relies so much on trust and individuals.
Ken Thompson talked about this back in 1984, his talk/article “Reflections on trusting trust” is a short but scary read. cs.cmu.edu/…/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingT…
In the end, what can we trust?
At least 15 officers who benefited from U.S. security assistance have been involved in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror, according to a series of reports by The Intercept.
The list includes military personnel from Burkina Faso (2014, 2015, and twice in 2022); Chad (2021); Gambia (2014); Guinea (2021); Mali (2012, 2020, 2021); Mauritania (2008); and Niger (2023).
Not all U.S.-trained African coup leaders hail from the Sahel. Before Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi deposed Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in 2013, he underwent basic training at Fort Benning, now Fort Moore, in Georgia and advanced instruction at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania.
The numbers are pretty meaningless without total numbers.
E.g. if it’s 70 out 1,000,000 it’s a different scenario than 70 out of 100.
And also some context would be nice: historical context - were coup attempts a continuous theme before us or this new? Any other nations getting involved in training in their facilities, and their outcomes?
Of course Pentagon’s silence is deafening but it’s probably to be expected if no good (for them) would come out of it.
The people are possibly more relevant than the amount that got trained. After his training in America Sisi did a coup in 2013 and is now the president of Egypt running a brutal dictatorship.
He receives 1 billion dollars a year from America in weapons to surpress his people. The guy really loves israel too. All very convenient.
This is just one of the more obvious links, but America overthrowing governments in Africa and the Middle East is extremely common if their current president does something that goes against American interests.
theintercept.com
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