Never Forget the Power of the Mass Media to Distort Reality
[Name withheld] is one of the kindest and most generous people I’ve ever known. [Name withheld] is well-educated and is an open-minded liberal. [Name withheld] is not Jewish but is friendly to Israel. Yesterday there was a column in the Washington Postclaiming–on ridiculously distorted arguments–that Glenn Beck is an antisemite. For two years I’ve been listening to Beck on television and radio as part of a research project on understanding the new conservative debate (with special reference to the Middle East and Israel) and explaining it to Israelis. I know, then, that while Glenn Beck sometimes makes silly mistakes on details he often has a better grasp of Middle East issues than the mainstream media. The charge against him is not only profoundly false but based on such a distortion of everything he has said and done for many years that one can only assume that the Washington Post author was consciously lying.
To find out how the goodhearted individual and the badhearted lie come together, read more.
When someone described as a very intelligent and decent person accepts an opinion about which he/she knows little, and that is of a defamatory nature, he/she has a bounden duty to check the evidence for him/herself.
I would have to say that in this instance although the person described by Barry Rubin may well be an intelligent person and a decent person, in this instance that person is showing an appalling degree of intellectual laziness.
When a person reads an article in the mainstream media that is slanderous and untrue, he/she is bound to check the information personally.
It all comes down to the actual claim and the evidence in support of the claim.
You will often find that a claim made that disturbs you and that might run counter to your understanding, actually has very little to back it up, and when you seek to have the claim justified by evidence in support of the claim, more often than not you will get personal abuse, but no data to support the claim.
It’s unfortunate that too many people are intellectually lazy and not willing to examine claims made to check whether they can be substantiated and supported.