Email to NY Times correspondent Ethan Bronner

Today I submitted an email to New York Times correspondent Ethan Bronner. Bronner is the Times' Jerusalem bureau chief and has been the Times' primary correspondent covering the war in Gaza. In the Week in Review section of today's Times, Bronner had this defense of his reporting of the war. What disturbed me about the piece was this:

"...and how the war of language can confound a reporter’s attempts to narrate — or a new president’s attempts to mediate — this conflict in a way both sides can accept as fair."

Reporting so that both sides view it as fair is not the point of journalism! The point of journalism to report events accurately. This statement really summed up for me Bronner's reporting. Generally, it has been good, but at times particularly early on in the war, Bronner seemed to equate the destruction wrought upon Gaza with what the Hamas rockets were doing to Israel. I wish I had the quotations to show this, but I haven't yet found them after a quick look at the large number of articles by Bronner on the war. If I get a chance to review the articles, I'll post examples of I'm writing about here.

Below is the email. It's okay. I was in a bit of a rush, because I had to meet somebody soon after writing it. I don't know if I'll get a response to my bullet in his in-box. He may be getting a whole lot more after this piece.

Dear Mr. Bronner,

Earlier today I read your "The Bullets in My In-Box" opinion piece. I understand that there are difficult challenges in reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I was quite disturbed by the one that you mention, that "the war of language can confound a reporter's attempts to narrate - or a new president's attempts to mediate - this conflict in a way both sides can accept as fair". Certainly, a new president must mediate this conflict in a way that both sides can accept as fair. However, mediating and narrating are two quite different things. What a reporter should be concerned with is that the narration is accurate, not with how both sides view the narration. This attempt to narrate fairly in the eyes of both sides explains to me your reporting on the war in Gaza. At least a couple of times I detected an equating of the suffering experienced by the Israelis with the suffering experienced by the Gazans. I will paraphrase, but there was one article where you wrote that there was suffering on both sides, and I found this to be a highly inaccurate way of characterizing (or to use your term "narrating") the suffering. As everyone knows, the Gazan suffered so much more than the Israelis: for now a 100 to 1 ratio in terms of deaths, who knows how many injured Gazans, and a wrecked infrastructure endangering the health of Gazans and furthering their suffering. So when you justify your reporting as an attempt to narrate fairly in both sides' eyes, then I find that to be very misguided. You do not need to worry about how the two sides view your reporting. With all due respect and knowing your years of experience, your goal should be to report accurately no matter what the sides think. If it paints a picture of one side more negatively than the other, then so be it. If the reporting is accurate, then that is what happened, and both sides must accept the truth and how it reflects upon them. Sometimes, it is like reporters seem to feel like their reporting must put them in the middle, thinking that they will then be viewed as impartial. But when one side is clearly in the wrong (as Israel was killing many more Gazans than Hamas killing Israelis), then reporters should not be trying to justify its views. I hope your future reporting more accurately conveys the suffering in any such future conflicts.

Regards,