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Tag: New York Times

  • Media Hawks Make Case for War Against Iran

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    Original article by Gregory Shupak republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

    The Wall Street Journal (10/1/24) describes an Iranian missile barrage as a response to “Israel’s restraint”—rather than as a response to an Israeli terrorist bombing in Tehran, which went unmentioned in the editorial.

    The media hawks are flying high, pushing out bellicose rhetoric on the op-ed pages that seems calculated to whip the public into a war-ready frenzy.

    Just as they have done with Hezbollah (FAIR.org, 10/10/24), prominent conservative media opinionators misrepresent Iran as the aggressor against an Israel that practices admirable restraint.

    Under the headline, “Iran Opens the Door to Retaliation,” the Wall Street Journal editorial board (10/1/24) wrote that Iran’s October 1 operation against Israel “warrants a response targeting Iran’s military and nuclear assets. This is Iran’s second missile barrage since April, and no country can let this become a new normal.”

    The editors wrote:

    After April’s attack, the Biden administration pressured Israel for a token response, and President Biden said Israel should “take the win” since there was no great harm to Israel. Israel’s restraint has now yielded this escalation, and it is under no obligation to restrain its retaliation this time.

    ‘We need to escalate’

    “Bully regimes respond to the stick,” Bret Stephens (New York Times, 10/1/24) declared—citing the fact that Iran was reluctant to make a nuclear deal with the United States after the United States unilaterally abrogated the last deal.

    The New York Times‘ self-described “warmongering neocon” columnist Bret Stephens (10/1/24), in a piece headlined “We Absolutely Need to Escalate in Iran,” similarly filed Iran’s April and October strikes on Israel under “aggression” that requires a US/Israeli military “response.” And a Boston Globe editorial (10/3/24) wrote that Iran “launched a brazen attack,” arguing that the incident illustrated why US students are wrong to oppose American firms making or investing in Israeli weapons.

    All of these pieces conveniently neglected to mention that Iran announced that its October 1 missile barrage was “a response to Israel’s recent assassinations of leaders of [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], Hezbollah and Hamas” (Responsible Statecraft, 10/1/24). One of these assassinations was carried out by a bombing in Tehran, the Iranian capital. But we can only guess as to whether the Globe thinks those killings are “brazen,” Stephens thinks they qualify as “aggression,” or if the Journal believes any country can let such assassinations “become a new normal.”

    Likewise, Iran’s April strikes came after Israel’s attack on an Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers (CBS, 4/14/24). At the time, Iran reportedly said that it would refrain from striking back against Israel if the latter agreed to end its mass murder campaign in Gaza (Responsible Statecraft, 4/8/24).

    ‘Axis of Aggression’

    Bret Stephens (New York Times, 10/8/24) thinks we’d be safer if “cunning and aggressive dictatorships…finally learned the taste of defeat.”

    A second Stephens piece (New York Times, 10/8/24) claimed that “the American people had better hope Israel wins” in its war against “the Axis of Aggression led from Tehran.” The latter is his term for the coalition of forces resisting the US and Israel from Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon and Iran, which refers to itself as the “axis of resistance.” Stephens’ reasoning is that, since Iran’s 1979 revolution, the country

    has meant suffering for thousands of Americans: the hostages at the US embassy in Tehran; the diplomats and Marines in Beirut; the troops around Baghdad and Basra, killed by munitions built in Iran and supplied to proxies in Iraq; the American citizens routinely taken as prisoners in Iran; the Navy SEALs who perished in January trying to stop Iran from supplying Houthis with weapons used against commercial shipping.

    The war Israelis are fighting now—the one the news media often mislabels the “Gaza war,” but is really between Israel and Iran—is fundamentally America’s war, too: a war against a shared enemy; an enemy that makes common cause with our totalitarian adversaries in Moscow and Beijing; an enemy that has been attacking us for 45 years. Americans should consider ourselves fortunate that Israel is bearing the brunt of the fighting; the least we can do is root for it.

    This depiction of Iran as an aggressor that has victimized the United States for 45 years, causing “suffering for thousands of Americans,” is a parody of history. The fact is that the US has imposed suffering on millions of Iranians for 71 years, starting with the overthrow of the country’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. It propped up the brutal Pahlavi dictatorship until 1979, then backed Iraq’s invasion of Iran, helping Saddam Hussein use chemical weapons against Iranians (Foreign Policy, 8/26/13). It imposes murderous sanctions on Iran to this day (Canadian Dimension, 4/3/23).

    Given this background, suggesting—as the Journal, the Globe and Stephens do—that Iran is the aggressor against the US is not only untenable but laughable. Furthermore, as I’ve previously shown (FAIR.org, 1/21/20), it’s hardly a settled fact that Iran is responsible for Iraqi attacks on US occupation forces in the country. Stephens’ description of the Navy SEALs who died in the Red Sea is vague enough that one might be left with the impression that Iran or Ansar Allah killed them, but the SEALs died when one of them fell overboard and the other jumped into the water to try to save him (BBC, 1/22/24).

    Stephens went on:

    Those who care about the future of freedom had better hope Israel wins.

    We are living in a world that increasingly resembles the 1930s, when cunning and aggressive dictatorships united against debilitated, inward-looking, risk-averse democracies. Today’s dictatorships also know how to smell weakness. We would all be safer if, in the Middle East, they finally learned the taste of defeat.

    What Stephens is deploying here is the tired and baseless propaganda strategy of hinting that World War II redux is impending if America doesn’t crush the Third World bad guy of the moment. More realistically, the “future of freedom” is jeopardized by the US/Israeli alliance’s invading the lands of Palestinian and Lebanese people and massacring them. These crimes suggest that, in the Journal’s parlance, it’s the US/Israeli partnership that is the “regional and global menace.” Or, to borrow another phrase from the Journal’s editorial, it’s Israel and the US who are the “dangerous regime[s]” from which “the civilized world” must be defended.

    ‘A global menace’

    “Iran launched a brazen attack,” the Boston Globe (10/3/24) editorialized—brazenly ignoring Israeli violence toward Iran.

    Corporate media commentators didn’t stop at Iran’s direct strikes on Israel, casting Iran as, in the Journal‘s words (10/1/24), “a regional and global menace”:

    It started this war via Hamas, which it funds, arms and trains to carry out massacres like the one on October 7, and it escalated via Hezbollah, spreading war to Lebanon. Other proxies destabilize Iraq and Yemen, fire on Israeli and US troops and block global shipping. It sends drones and missiles to Russia and rains ballistic missiles on Israel. All while seeking nukes.

    Stephens’ column (10/1/24) similarly argued that “Iran presents an utterly intolerable threat not only to Israel but also to the United States and whatever remains of the liberal international order we’re supposed to lead.” The Globe editorial (10/3/24) wrote that “the threat posed by Iran extends beyond Israel’s borders.” Both cited the Houthis in Yemen, among other alleged Iranian “proxies.”

    Painting Iran as the mastermind behind unprovoked worldwide aggression helps prop up the hawks’ demands for escalation. But the US State Department said there was “no direct evidence” that Iran was involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, “either in planning it or carrying it out” (NBC, 10/12/23).

    As FAIR has shown repeatedly (e.g., FAIR.org, 4/21/21, 8/26/20), it isn’t true that Hezbollah is an Iranian puppet. The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, likewise aren’t mere proxies (Democracy Now!, 2/1/24)—and don’t expect the media hawks to tell you that the Houthis began attacking ships they understand to be Israel-linked in response to the US/Israeli assault on Gaza, and say that they will stop if the US/Israeli war crimes in Gaza end.

    Moreover, it’s clear that the Journal has no problem with US arms exports, including when they are used to carry out atrocities against civilians, so its posturing about the harm done by Iranian arms sales to Russia cannot be taken seriously (FAIR.org, 1/27/23).

    Propaganda goes nuclear

    Uriel Hellman (LA Times, 10/17/24) writes that “the responsible nations of the world have tried myriad methods to thwart this doomsday scenario” of Iran making a nuclear weapon, including “negotiated agreements.” The US has tried making deals with Iran, it’s tried violating those deals—nothing seems to work!

    As usual, those who are itching for a war on Iran invoke the specter of an Iranian nuclear weapon. Stephens (New York Times, 10/1/24) wrote:

    This year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Iran was within a week or two of being able to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb. Even with the requisite fissile material, it takes time and expertise to fashion a nuclear weapon, particularly one small enough to be delivered by a missile. But a prime goal for Iran’s nuclear ambitions is plainly in sight, especially if it receives technical help from its new best friends in Russia, China and North Korea.

    Now’s the time for someone to do something about it.

    That someone will probably be Israel.

    By “something,” Stephens said he also meant that “Biden should order” military strikes to destroy the “Isfahan missile complex.” “There is a uranium enrichment site near Isfahan, too,” Stephens wrote suggestively.

    The LA Times published two guest op-eds in less than two weeks urging attacks on Iran based on its alleged nuclear threat. Yossi Klein Halevi (10/7/24) wrote:

    Today, Iran sits at the nuclear threshold…. The culminating moment of this war to restore Israeli deterrence against existential threat will be preventing Iran’s nuclear breakout.

    Ten days later, Uriel Heilman (LA Times, 10/17/24) argued: “With Iran’s belligerence in overdrive, the US and its allies should seriously consider a military option to take out Iran’s nuclear sites.”

    The first question posed by CBS‘s Margaret Brennan in the vice presidential debate (10/1/24)—”would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran?”—was premised on the claim that Iran “has drastically reduced the time it would take to develop a nuclear weapon. It is down now to one or two weeks time.”

    ‘Threshold’ is a ways away

    If this New York Times piece (10/2/24) seems to have a different, less alarmist tone than other corporate media reports, perhaps that’s because its author, William Broad, is a science reporter and not someone whose beat is foreign policy.

    Readers who aren’t versed in the technical terms used to discuss nuclear proliferation can be forgiven for thinking that a country at “the nuclear threshold” is mere days away from being able to use nuclear weapons against their enemies, as these media warnings seem to suggest. But in reality, as the blog War on the Rocks (5/3/24) explained:

    Three distinct elements distinguish a state that has achieved a threshold status. First, the conscious pursuit of this combined technical, military and organizational capability to rapidly (probably within three to six months) obtain a rudimentary nuclear explosive capability after a decision to proceed. Second, implementation of a strategy for achieving and utilizing this status. And third, the application of this status for gain vis-à-vis adversaries, allies and/or domestic audiences. Nevertheless, a threshold state remains sufficiently short of weapons possession and even from the capacity to assemble disparate components into a nuclear weapon within days.

    According to a Congressional Research Service document (3/20/24) published in March, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports “suggest that Iran does not yet have a viable nuclear weapon design or a suitable explosive detonation system.”

    Estimates of how long it would take for Iran to develop nuclear weapons vary. US intelligence said that Iran could enrich enough uranium for three nuclear devices within weeks if it chose to do so (Congressional Research Service, 9/6/24). Yet as noted by Houston G. Wood, an emeritus professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering who specializes in atomic centrifuges and other nuclear issues, it “would take Iran up to a year to devise a weapon once it had enough nuclear fuel” (New York Times, 10/2/24).

    Siegfried S. Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory, likewise told the New York Times that “it would likely take many months” for Iran to develop nukes, “not weeks.” As the Times noted, CBS‘s question in the vice presidential debate “conflated the time it would most likely take Iran to manufacture a bomb’s worth of highly enriched uranium with the overall process of turning it into a weapon. ”

    What’s more, US intelligence continues to say that Iran “is not currently undertaking nuclear weapons-related activities” (Congressional Research Service, 9/6/24). In 2003, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa against building nuclear weapons that has not yet been rescinded (FAIR.org, 10/17/17).

    ‘Iran won’t stop itself’

    “Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments,” the IAEA (3/5/18) said in March 2018. Two months later, the same could not be said to the United States.

    Even if Iran were pursuing nuclear weapons, nothing under international law supports the idea that Israel and the US therefore have the right to attack Iran. India would not have been within its rights to attack Pakistan to prevent its rival from building a nuclear weapon.

    But media assume different rules apply to Iran. The editors of the Wall Street Journal (10/1/24) contended:

    If there were ever cause to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, [Iran’s October attack on Israel] is it…. Iran is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon and won’t stop itself. The question for American and Israeli leaders is: If not now, when?

    Recent history shows that Iran has been willing to “stop itself” from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran abided by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal, under which Iran limited its nuclear development in exchange for a partial easing of US sanctions. It stuck to the deal for some time even after the United States unilaterally abandoned it.

    Just before President Donald Trump ripped up the agreement in 2018, the IAEA reported that Iran was “implementing its nuclear-related commitments” under the accord. The year after the US abrogated the agreement, Iran was still keeping up its end of the bargain.

    ‘Provocative actions’ from US/Israel

    Responsible Statecraft (5/7/24): “Relations between the United States and Iran have been so damaged by Trump’s withdrawal that it does not appear as though the deal can be resurrected.”

    Iran subsequently stopped adhering to the by then nonexistent deal—often advancing its nuclear program, as Responsible Statecraft (5/7/24) noted, “in response to provocative actions from the US and Israel”:

    In early 2020, the Trump administration killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and soon after Tehran announced that it would no longer abide by its enrichment commitments under the deal. But, even so, Tehran said it would return to compliance if the other parties did so and met their commitments on sanctions relief.

    In late 2020, Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated near Tehran, reportedly by Israel. Soon after, Iran’s Guardian Council approved a law to speed up the nuclear program by enriching uranium to 20%, increasing the rate of production, installing new centrifuges, suspending implementation of expanded safeguards agreements, and reducing monitoring and verification cooperation with the IAEA. The Agency has been unable to adequately monitor Iran’s nuclear activities under the deal since early 2021.

    However, situating Iranian policies in relation to US/Israeli actions like these would get in the way of the Journal’s campaign, which it articulated in another editorial (10/2/24), to convince the public that “If Mr. Biden won’t take this opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, the least he can do is not stop Israel from doing the job for its own self-preservation.”

    Of course, the crucial, unstated assumption in the articles by Stephens, Halevi, Heilman and the Journal’s editors is that Iran’s hypothetical nuclear weapons are emergencies that need to be immediately addressed by bombing the country—while Washington and Tel Aviv’s vast, actually existing nuclear arsenals warrant no concern.

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    Original article by Gregory Shupak republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

  • Vance Dossier Shows Not All Hacks Are Created Equal

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    Original article by Ari Paul republished from FAIR under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

    Ken Klippenstein, an independent reporter operating on Substack and an investigative alum of the Intercept, announced (Substack, 9/26/24) that he had been kicked off Twitter (now rebranded as X). His crime, he explained, stemmed from posting the 271-page official dossier of Republican vice presidential candidate’s J.D. Vance’s campaign vulnerabilities; the US government alleges that the information was leaked through Iranian hacking. In other words, the dossier is a part of the “foreign meddling campaign” of “enemy states.”

    Klippenstein is not the first reporter to gain access to these papers (Popular Information, 9/9/24), but most of the reporting about this dossier has been on the intrigue revolving around Iranian hacking rather than the content itself (Daily Beast, 8/10/24; Politico, 8/10/24; Forbes, 8/11/24). Klippenstein decided it was time for the whole enchilada to see the light of day:

    As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been altered, but even if it was, its contents are publicly verifiable. I’ll let it speak for itself.

    “The terror regime in Iran loves the weakness and stupidity of Kamala Harris, and is terrified of the strength and resolve of President Donald J. Trump,” Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign, responded when I asked him about the hack.

    If the document had been hacked by some “anonymous”-like hacker group, the news media would be all over it. I’m just not a believer of the news media as an arm of the government, doing its work combating foreign influence. Nor should it be a gatekeeper of what the public should know.

    The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement that alleged Iranian hacking (9/18/24) was “malicious cyber activity” and “the latest example of Iran’s multi-pronged approach…to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process.”

    Where’s the beef?

    Ken Klippenstein (Substack, 9/26/24) argued that the Vance dossier ” is clearly newsworthy, providing Republican Party and conservative doctrine insight into what the Trump campaign perceives to be Vance’s liabilities and weaknesses.”

    The Vance report isn’t as salacious as Vance’s false and bizarre comments about Haitians eating pets (NPR, 9/15/24), but it does show that he has taken positions that have fractured the right, such as aid for Ukraine; the report calls him one of the “chief obstructionists” to providing assistance to the country against Russia. It dedicates several pages to Vance’s history of criticizing Trump and the MAGA movement, suggesting that his place on the ticket could divide Trump’s voting base.

    On the other hand, it outlines many of his extreme right-wing stances that could alienate him with putative moderates. It says Vance “appears to have once called for slashing Social Security and Medicare,” and “is opposed to providing childcare assistance to low-income Americans.” He “supports placing restrictions on abortion access,” and states that “he does not support abortion exceptions in the case of rape.”

    And for any voter who values 7-day-a-week service, Vance “appears to support laws requiring businesses to close on Sundays.” It quotes him saying: “Close the Damn Businesses on Sunday. Commercial Freedom Will Suffer. Moral Behavior Will Not, and Our Society Will Be Much the Better for It.” That might not go over well with small business owners, and any worker who depends on their Sunday shifts.

    ‘Took a deep breath’

    The Washington Post (8/13/24) suggested that Vance dossier was different from Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails in 2016 because of “foreign state actors increasingly getting involved” in US elections.

    Are the findings in the Vance dossier the story of the century? Probably not, but it’s not nothing that the Trump campaign is aware its vice presidential candidate is loaded with liabilities. There are at least a few people who find that useful information.

    And the Washington Post (9/27/24) happily reported on private messages Vance sent to an anonymous individual who shared them with the newspaper that explained Vance’s flip-flopping from a Trump critic to a Trump lover. Are the private messages really more newsworthy than the dossier—or is the issue that the messages aren’t tainted by allegedly foreign fingerprints? Had that intercept of material involved an Iranian, would it have seen the light of day?

    In fact, the paper (8/13/24) explained that news organizations, including the Post, were reflecting on the foreign nature of the leak when deciding how deep they should report on the content they received:

    “This episode probably reflects that news organizations aren’t going to snap at any hack that comes in and is marked as ‘exclusive’ or ‘inside dope’ and publish it for the sake of publishing,” said Matt Murray, executive editor of the Post. Instead, “all of the news organizations in this case took a deep breath and paused, and thought about who was likely to be leaking the documents, what the motives of the hacker might have been, and whether this was truly newsworthy or not.”

    Double standards for leaks

    Politico (10/7/16) quoted a Clinton spokesperson: “Striking how quickly concern about Russia’s masterminding of illegal hacks gave way to digging through fruits of hack.” This was immediately followed by: “Indeed, here are eight more e-mail exchanges that shed light on the methods and mindset of Clinton’s allies in Brooklyn and Washington.”

    There seems to be a disconnect, however, between ill-gotten information that impacts a Republican ticket and information that tarnishes a Democrat.

    Think back to 2016. When “WikiLeaks released a trove of emails apparently hacked from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman email account, unleashing thousands of messages,” as Politico (10/7/16) reported, the outlet didn’t just merely report on the hack, it reported on the embarrassing substance of the documents. In 2024, by contrast, when Politico was given the Vance dossier, it wrote nothing about its contents, declaring that “questions surrounding the origins of the documents and how they came to our attention were more newsworthy than the material that was in those documents” (CNN, 8/13/24).

    The New York Times and Washington Post similarly found the Clinton leaks—which were believed at the time to have been given to WikiLeaks by Russia—far more newsworthy than the Vance dossier. The Times “published at least 199 articles about the stolen DNC and Clinton campaign emails between the first leak in June 2016 and Election Day,” Popular Information (9/9/24) noted.

    FAIR editor Jim Naureckas (11/24/09) has written about double standards in media, noting that information that comes to light through unethical or illegal means is played up if that information helps powerful politicians and corporations. Meanwhile, if such information obtained questionably is damaging, the media focus tends to be less on the substance, and more on whether the public should be hearing about such matters.

    For example, when a private citizen accidentally overheard a cell phone conversation between House Speaker John Boehner, former Speaker Newt Gingrich and other Republican congressmembers, and made a tape that showed Gingrich violating the terms of a ethics sanction against him, news coverage focused on the illegality of taping the conversation, not on the ethics violation the tape revealed (Washington Post, 1/14/97; New York Times, 1/15/97).

    But when climate change deniers hacked climate scientists’ email, that produced a front-page story in the New York Times (11/20/09) scrutinizing the correspondence for any inconsistencies that could be used to bolster the deniers’ arguments.

    When Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Michael Gallagher wrote a series of stories about the Chiquita fruit corporation, based in part on listening without authorization to company voicemails, the rest of the media were far more interested in Gallagher’s ethical and legal dilemmas (he was eventually sentenced to five years’ probation) rather than the bribery, fraud and worker abuse his reporting exposed.

    Meet the new boss

    Musk personally ordered the suspension of the account of antifascist activist Curt Loder, the Independent (1/29/23) revealed, noting that “numerous other accounts of left-leaning activists and commentators have been suspended without warning.”

    There’s a certain degree of comedy in the hypocrisy of Klippenstein’s suspension. Since right-wing billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter, he has claimed that his administration would end corporate censorship, but instead he’s implemented his own censorship agenda (Guardian, 1/15/24; Al Jazeera, 8/14/24).

    The Independent (1/29/23) reported that Musk “oversaw a campaign of suppression that targeted his critics upon his assumption of power at Twitter.” He

    personally directed the suspension of a left-leaning activist, Chad Loder, who became known across the platform for his work helping to identify participants in the January 6 attack.

    Al Jazeera (2/28/23) noted that “digital rights groups say social media giants,” including X, “have restricted [and] suspended the accounts of Palestinian journalists and activists.” Musk has likewise fulfilled censorship requests by the governments of Turkey (Ars Technica, 5/15/23) and India (Intercept, 1/24/23, 3/28/23) officials, and is generally more open to official requests to suppress speech than Twitter‘s previous owners (El Pais, 5/24/23; Washington Post, 9/25/24).

    Meanwhile, Musk’s critics contend, he’s allowed the social network to be a force multiplier for the right. “Elon Musk has increasingly used the social media platform as a megaphone to amplify his political views and, lately, those of right-wing figures he’s aligned with,” AP (8/13/24) reported. (Musk is vocal about his support for former President Donald Trump’s candidacy—New York Times, 7/18/24.)

    “Twitter Antisemitism ‘Skyrocketed’ Since Elon Musk Takeover—Jewish Groups,” blasted a Newsweek headline (4/25/23). Earlier this year, Mother Jones (3/13/24) reported that Musk “has been retweeting prominent race scientist adherents…spreading misinformation about racial minorities’ intelligence and physiology to his audience of 176.3 million followers.”

    ‘Chilling effect on speech’

    The message Ken Klippenstein got from X announcing he had been kicked off the platform.

    Now Musk’s Twitter is keeping certain information out of the public view—information that just happens to damage the presidential ticket he supports. With Klippenstein having been silenced on the network, anyone claiming X is a bastion of free speech at this point is either mendacious or simply deluded.

    Klippenstein (Substack, 9/26/24) explained that “X says that I’ve been suspended for ‘violating our rules against posting private information,’ citing a tweet linking to my story about the JD Vance dossier.” He added, though, that “I never published any private information on X.” Rather, “I linked to an article I wrote here, linking to a document of controversial provenance, one that I didn’t want to alter for that very reason.”

    The journalist (Substack, 9/27/24) claims that his account suspension, which he reports to be permanent, is political because he did not violate the network’s code about disclosing personal information, and even if he did, he should have been given the opportunity to correct his post to become unsuspended. “So it’s not about a violation of X’s policies,” he said. “What else would you call this but politically motivated?”

    Klippenstein is understandably concerned that he is now without a major social media promotional tool. “I no longer have access to the primary channel by which I disseminate primarily news (and shitposts of course) to the general public,” he said. “This chilling effect on speech is exactly why we published the Vance Dossier in its entirety.”

    UPDATE: Klippenstein (Substack, 9/29/24) reports that his publication of the Vance dossier is being censored not only by X, but by Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Google as well: “The platforms said that the alleged Iranian origin of the dossier — which no one is calling fake or altered — necessitated removing any links to the document.”

    FAIR’s work is sustained by our generous contributors, who allow us to remain independent. Donate today to be a part of this important mission.

    Original article by Ari Paul republished from FAIR under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

  • Trump’s Shooting Should Not Silence Warnings About His Threat to Democracy

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    Original article by JULIE HOLLAR republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

    Immediately after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, when little was known about the white male shooter (except that he was a registered Republican), right-wing politicians directly blamed Democratic rhetoric for the shooting.

    “Today is not just some isolated incident,” Sen. J.D. Vance wrote on X (7/13/24), just days before Trump named him as his running mate:

    The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.

    (That Trump might be considered a fascist did not always seem so far-fetched to Vance; in 2016, he privately worried that Trump might become “America’s Hitler”—Reuters, 7/15/24.)

    “For years, Democrats and their allies in the media have recklessly stoked fears, calling President Trump and other conservatives threats to democracy,” Sen. Tim Scott posted on X (7/13/24). “Their inflammatory rhetoric puts lives at risk.”

    Rather than denounce both the assassination attempt and these hypocritical and opportunistic attacks on critical speech, the country’s top editorial boards cravenly bothsidesed their condemnations of “political violence.”

    ‘Unthinkably uncivil’

    The Washington Post (7/14/24) described Trump’s exhortation to “remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness” as a call for “national unity.”

    In an editorial headlined, “Turn Down the Heat, Let in the Light,” the Washington Post (7/14/24) praised Donald Trump for appearing to call for national unity. The Post wrote that the assassination attempt offered Trump the chance to “cool the nation’s political fevers and set a new direction.”

    The editorial board quickly admonished both sides equally for “unthinkably uncivil” actions and “physical violence.” They pointed to protesters who “harass lawmakers, justices, journalists and business leaders with bullhorns at their homes,” universities that have “become battlegrounds,” and the “bipartisan hazard” of political violence, citing Nancy Pelosi’s husband and GOP Rep. Steve Scalise.

    (The link the Post inserted leads to an earlier editorial in which they condemned peaceful protests outside Supreme Court justices’ houses as “totalitarian,” and recommended that the protesters be imprisoned—FAIR.org, 5/17/22).

    New York Times editors, meanwhile, called the shooting “Antithetical to America” (7/13/24), a formulation clearly more aspirational than actual. “Violence is antithetical to democracy,” the editorial board wrote, acknowledging moments later that “violence is infecting and inflecting American political life.” They explained:

    Acts of violence have long shadowed American democracy, but they have loomed larger and darker of late. Cultural and political polarization, the ubiquity of guns and the radicalizing power of the internet have all been contributing factors, as this board laid out in its editorial series “The Danger Within” in 2022. This high-stakes presidential election is further straining the nation’s commitment to the peaceful resolution of political differences.

    It’s a remarkable obfuscation, in which responsibility is ascribed to no one and—as at the Post—everyone.

    ‘Leaders of both parties’

    Is the shooting of a political candidate really “antithetical” (New York Times, 7/13/24) to a country with more guns than people, and 50,000+ gun deaths every year?

    Curiously, the 2022 editorial series the Times cites (11/3–12/24/22) did make clear where most of the responsibility lay, explaining that “the threat to the current order comes disproportionately from the right.” It pointed out that of the hundreds of extremism-related murders of the past decade, more than three-quarters were committed by “right-wing extremists, white supremacists or anti-government extremists.” While there have been occasional attacks on conservatives (like the attack on a congressional baseball game that wounded Scalise), the Times noted,

    the number and nature of the episodes aren’t comparable, and no leading figures in the Democratic Party condone, mock or encourage their supporters to violence in ways that are common from politicians on the right and their supporters in the conservative media.

    But two years later, the Times, like the Post, carefully avoids bringing that much-needed clarity to the current situation and apportions responsibility for avoiding political violence equally to both sides:

    It is now incumbent on political leaders of both parties, and on Americans individually and collectively, to resist a slide into further violence and the type of extremist language that fuels it. Saturday’s attack should not be taken as a provocation or a justification.

    Of course, there’s a crucial difference between criticizing Trump and his allies for their anti-democratic positions and actions—which is what the Democrats and the left have done—and actually threatening and calling for violence, as the right has been doing.

    The list of examples is nearly endless, but would prominently include Trump’s incitement of violence at the Capitol on January 6; his personal attacks on prosecutors, judges and politicians who have subsequently required increased security protections; and his refusal to rule out violence if he loses the 2024 election: “If we don’t win, you know, it depends.” His supporters have repeatedly called for armed uprisings after perceived attacks on Trump, including immediately after the assassination attempt.

    That’s why it’s critical that leading newspapers push back against right-wing attempts to equate criticisms of Trump with calls for violence.

    ‘Grossly irresponsible talk’

    The Wall Street Journal (7/14/24), unsurprisingly, took this bothsidesism the farthest.

    Leaders on both sides need to stop describing the stakes of the election in apocalyptic terms. Democracy won’t end if one or the other candidate is elected. Fascism is not aborning if Mr. Trump wins, unless you have little faith in American institutions.

    We agree with former Attorney General Bill Barr’s statement Saturday night: “The Democrats have to stop their grossly irresponsible talk about Trump being an existential threat to democracy—he is not.”

    Readers of those top US papers would have to look across the pond to the British Guardian (7/14/24) for the kind of clear-eyed take newspaper editors with concern for democracy ought to have: “There must also be care that extreme acts by a minority are not used to silence legitimate criticism.”

    Research Assistance: Alefiya Presswala

    Original article by JULIE HOLLAR republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

  • Corporate Media Push Conspiracy Theories to Discredit Student Protesters

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    Original article by NAOMI LACHANCE republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

    Across corporate media, journalists and pundits introduced conspiracy theories to discredit the pro-Palestine student protest movement, particularly that they are funded by foreign countries or “outside agitators.”

    Joe Scarborough and Hillary Clinton on MSNBC‘s Morning Joe (5/9/24) to talk about “misinformation,” agreeing that student protesters are “extremists…funded by Qatar.”

    MSNBC‘s Joe Scarborough (5/9/24) went on a rant about the college students who have been staging the protests, suggesting to guest Hillary Clinton that they were influenced by China or Qatar:

    I’m going to talk about radicalism on college campuses. The sort of radicalism that has mainstream students getting propaganda, whether it’s from their professors or whether it’s from Communist Chinese government through TikTok, calling the president of the United States “Genocide Joe.” Calling you and President Clinton war criminals.

    Eventually, he called the students “extremists—I’m sorry—funded by Qatar.”

    Clinton responded: “You raised things that need to be vented about.”

    Scarborough’s claim that Qatar funds the students likely comes from a Jerusalem Post article (4/30/24), which called the protests “despicable.” The story reported, “Qatar has invested $5.6 billion in 81 American universities since 2007, including the most prestigious ones: Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Stanford.” Of course, funding  universities is not the same as funding student protests; the university administrations that actually received the Qatari funding have often been quite hostile to the protesters.

    ‘Mr. Putin’s message’

    Nancy Pelosi, interviewed by Dana Bash on CNN (1/28/24), accused protesters of being “connected to Russia” because “to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message.”

    House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) suggested on CNN’s State of the Union (1/28/24) that Russia has played a role in the protests:

    And what we have to do is try to stop the suffering and gossip….. But for them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message…. I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some I think are connected to Russia.

    CNN’s Dana Bash asked, “you think some of these protests are Russian plants?” Pelosi responded: “I don’t think they’re plants; I think some financing should be investigated.”

    Like MSNBC, Fox News (5/2/24) has also pushed the narrative suggesting that China is behind the protests: “China may be playing a significant role in the anti-Israel protests by using TikTok to foment division on college campuses,” Alicia Warren wrote.

    Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the far-right, anti-Muslim Gatestone Institute, told Fox that “China is using the curation algorithm of TikTok to instigate protests.”

    The presence of pro-Palestinian advocacy on TikTok has been cited by lawmakers as a justification for censoring the social media platform (FAIR.org, 5/8/24). But the messages on TikTok, which is popular among younger people, may simply reflect public opinion among that demographic. According to the Pew Research Center, “Younger adults are much less supportive of the US providing military aid to Israel than are older people.”

    In a story headlined, “Campus Protests Give Russia, China and Iran Fuel to Exploit US Divide,” the New York Times (5/2/24) described “overt and covert efforts by the countries to  amplify the protests.” The story included some speculation about foreign influence: “There is little evidence—at least so far—that the countries have provided material or organizational support to the protests,” Steven Lee Myers and Tiffany Hsu wrote. If there was any evidence, they did not present it.

    The journalists blamed the protests for having “allowed” these “foreign influence campaigns…to shift their propaganda to focus on the Biden administration’s strong support for Israel.”

    ‘Professional outside agitators’

    ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt on CNN (4/29/24): “There’s no rule that says the school needs to tolerate students or, again, outside activists dressing like they’re in Al Qaeda.”

    Beyond foreign influence, another conspiracy theory pushed by corporate media about student protesters is that they are influenced by “outside agitators.” While people who are not students have joined the protests, the term has long been used to delegitimize movements and portray them as led by nefarious actors.

    New York City Mayor Eric Adams was an early source of this claim, announcing at a press conference (4/30/24) that Columbia students have “been co-opted by professional outside agitators.” He made a similar statement in mid-April as well (4/21/24).

    On MSNBC (5/1/24), NYPD deputy police commissioner Kaz Daughtry defended the claim, holding up a bicycle lock with a substantial metal chain that police had found at Columbia. “This is not what students bring to school,” he said. In fact, Columbia sells the bike lock at a discount to students (FAIR.org, 5/9/24).

    CNN‘s Anderson Cooper (4/29/24) asked the Anti Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt about the outside agitators, “How many of them are actually students?” “A lot of them are not students,” Greenblatt replied, adding unironically: “You can’t even tell who’s an outside agitator and who’s an actual student.”

    CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod tweeted (4/30/24): “It will be interesting to learn how many of those arrested in Hamilton Hall at Columbia are actually students.”

    “I really believe they are brainwashed,” Donald Trump (Fox News, 4/30/24) said of student protesters.

    Former president Donald Trump made a similar claim on Fox (4/30/24). “I really think you have a lot of paid agitators, professional agitators in here too, and I see it all over. And you know, when you see signs and they’re all identical, that means they’re being paid by a source,” he told Fox host Sean Hannity. He continued: “These are all signs that are identical. They’re made by the same printer.”

    It’s worth noting that a political movement is not like an intercollegiate athletic competition, where it’s cheating for non-students to play on a college team; it’s not illegitimate for members of the broader community to join an on-campus protest, any more than it’s unethical for students to take part in demonstrations in their neighborhoods.

    “If you’re a protester who’s planned it, you want all outsiders to join you,” Justin Hansford of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center told PolitiFact (5/6/24). “That’s why this is such a silly concept.”

    That didn’t stop the New York Post (5/7/24) from publishing an op-ed by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey  headlined “Pursue Anti-Israel ‘Outside Agitators’ Disrupting Colleges—and End the Nonsense for Good.” McCaughey wrote, “Ray Kelly, former NYPD commissioner, nailed it Sunday when he said the nationwide turmoil ‘looks like a conspiracy.’” It looks like a conspiracy theory, anyway.

    Tents situation

    NYPD deputy police commissioner Kaz Daughtry (Fox 5 New York, 4/23/24): “Look at the tents. They all were the same color. They all were the same type of tents.”

    One key piece of evidence offered for the “outside agitators” claim was the uniformity of many of the encampments’ tents. When Fox 5 New York (4/23/24) invited two NYPD representatives to discuss the protests, NYPD’s Daughtry said: “Look at the tents. They all were the same color. They all were the same type of tents.” He continued: “To me, I think somebody’s funding this. Also, there are professional agitators in there that are just looking for something to be agitated about, which are the protests.”

    “Somebody’s behind this, and we’re going to find out who it is,” Daughtry said.

    That students might be observing the world and their role in it, and acting accordingly, was not considered.

    Newsweek (4/23/24) quoted Daughtry’s claim with no rebuttal or attempt to evaluate its veracity, under the headline, “Police Investigating People ‘Behind’ Pro-Palestinian Protests.” Fox News anchor Bret Baier (4/23/24) also cited the tents as a smoking gun: “We do see, it is pretty organized. The tents all look the same. And it’s expanding.”

    The problem with this conspiracy theory is that the look-alike tents at most encampments were not expensive at all. As HellGateNYC (4/24/24) pointed out, the two-person tents seen at Columbia cost $28 on Amazon (where they’re the first listing that comes up when you search “cheap camping tent”), and the ones at NYU were even cheaper, at $15. While many Columbia students receive financial aid, the basic  cost of tuition, fees, room and board at the school is $85,000 a year. What’s another $15?

    ‘Soros paying student radicals’

    Fox News (4/26/24): “Progressive anti-Israel agitators across the country…are associated with groups tied to far-left groups with radical associations backed by dark money and liberal mega-donor George Soros.”

    And finally, some news outlets alleged that the student protesters are funded by financier George Soros. For example, Fox (4/26/24) reported that a group that funds National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) received a donation from an unnamed nonprofit that is funded by Soros. Fox was apparently referring to the Tides Foundation, a philanthropy that Soros has given money to; Tides gave $132,000 to WESPAC, a Westchester, N.Y., peace group that serves as a financial sponsor to NSJP in Palestine (PolitiFact, 5/2/24; Washington Post, 4/26/24). In standard conspiratorial reasoning, this three-times-removed connection means that, as Fox put it, protests attended by SJP members are “backed by dark money and liberal mega-donor George Soros.”

    The New York Post (4/26/24) published a similar piece, headlined “George Soros Is Paying Student Radicals Who Are Fueling Nationwide Explosion of Israel-Hating Protests.”

    On NewsNation (5/1/24), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also suggested Soros may be connected, saying that the FBI should investigate:

    I think the FBI needs to be all over this. I think they need to look at the root causes and find out if some of this was funded by—I don’t know—George Soros or overseas entities. There’s sort of a common theme and a common strategy that seems to be pursued on many of these campuses.

    “It looked pretty orchestrated to me,” NewsNation host Blake Burman agreed.

    Soros is a billionaire philanthropist who survived the Holocaust. He has come to represent an antisemitic trope among right wingers of a puppet master controlling events behind the scenes (see FAIR.org, 3/7/22). To put it simply, these supposedly antisemitic protesters are now on the receiving end of antisemitism.

    Featured image: New York Post graphic (4/26/24) alleging that Jewish billionaire George Soros is bankrolling “Israel hate camps.”

    Original article by NAOMI LACHANCE republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

  • As Corals Bleach Worldwide, Some Outlets Are Willing to Name the Cause: Fossil Fuels

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    Original article by OLIVIA RIGGIO republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

    NOAA (4/15/24) found temperature levels in every ocean high enough to cause coral bleaching.

    Record levels of heat in the ocean are causing once-colorful coral reefs around the world to bleach a ghostly white. In April, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the planet’s fourth mass coral-bleaching event on record—the second in the last decade.

    While they might look like plants, corals are actually invertebrate animals related to jellyfish. They get their vibrant colors from tiny algae that live on them and provide them with food. But when ocean temperatures become too hot, corals get stressed and expel the algae, losing their food source and color. Starving coral can recover if their environments improve, but the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that even with the Paris Agreement’s allotted warming of 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels, 70–90% of the world’s coral reefs will still die.

    Because coral reefs provide such vibrant ecosystems for sea life, mass coral death will impact economies and food security for humans as well. By protecting coasts, sustaining fisheries, generating tourism and creating jobs, it is estimated that coral reefs provide ecosystem services worth trillions of dollars each year (MIT Science Policy Review, 8/20/20; GCRMN, 10/5/21).

    ABC News (7/25/23) reported last year that “ocean temperatures have a strong connection to climate change”—but didn’t mention what climate change is connected to.

    In the past year alone, we’ve seen staggering and unprecedented ocean temperatures amid widespread heatwaves. Last summer, water temperatures of more than 100°F were recorded off the coast of Florida (ABC, 7/25/23). Scientists say the El Niño weather phenomenon, solar activity and a massive underwater volcanic eruption have played a role in recent supercharged ocean temperatures, but the biggest cause of this coral crisis is undisputed: climate change. The IPCC reports that it’s “virtually certain” ocean temperatures have risen unabated since 1970, absorbing more than 90% of excess heat from the climate system. We also know that the burning of fossil fuels changes the climate more than any other human activity does.

    Therefore, in order to give the public the most complete understanding of what’s going on—and how we can fix it—reporting on coral bleaching should not only link the phenomenon to climate change, but link climate change to its main culprit: the fossil fuel industry. While much reporting deserves credit for clearly making this connection, some reports from major outlets were still behind, implying the climate crisis might be some sort of act of God, rather than something humans have caused—and have the power to mitigate.

    Good news about bad news

    Coral bleaching is bad news, but I’d like to take a rare moment to highlight the good news, too: A lot of reporting on this crisis was thorough, setting a solid example of how the increasing number of climate change-related phenomena should be reported on.

    Vox (4/26/24) spells it out: “Ultimately, the only real solution is reducing carbon emissions. Period.”

    Vox (4/26/24) dedicated a whole piece to climate change’s effects on coral, making that fossil fuel connection. Senior environmental reporter Benji Jones wrote:

    Ultimately, the only real solution is reducing carbon emissions. Period. Pretty much every marine scientist I’ve talked to agrees. “Without international cooperation to break our dependence on fossil fuels, coral bleaching events are only going to continue to increase in severity and frequency,” [NOAA marine scientist Derek] Manzello said.

    The New York Times (4/15/24) made the fossil fuel connection, too, in an article by Catrin Einhorn: “Despite decades of warnings from scientists and pledges from leaders, nations are burning more fossil fuels than ever and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.”

    NPR dedicated an episode of All Things Considered (4/17/24) to scientists’ work to breed heat-tolerant corals and algae, in hopes that they can help restore reefs. The piece, by Lauren Sommer and Ryan Kellman, outlined this work’s promise—and its limitations. Heat-tolerant algae may not share as many nutrients with the coral, potentially causing the coral to grow more slowly and reproduce later. Regulators will need to assess whether these lab-grown corals are safe for wild populations and their ecosystems as a whole. Logistically, the sheer amount of heat-tolerant coral needed to replace affected reefs is vast, and it’s only a temporary solution.

    “It’s not our ‘get out of jail free’ card,” said Australian coral biologist Kate Quigley:

    Maybe that gets us to 2030, 2050, for a very few number of species that we can work with. If we don’t have an ocean to put them back in that’s healthy, no amount of incredible technology or money is worth it.

    The episode ended with an acknowledgment that these scientific mitigations are meant only to buy time while humans work to halt climate change, which will require “cutting heat-trapping emissions from the largest source—burning fossil fuels—and switching to alternative energy sources like solar and wind.”

    All Things Considered’s coverage of the scientists’ work was impactful because it took time to explain that creating these heat-tolerant corals was an important mitigation, but that the ultimate solution is to cut fossil fuels. Without the latter, the former would be in vain.

    Capable of accountability

    As a media critic for an organization that’s been at this since 1986, to me it’s heartening when news outlets’ work actually improves. It’s definitely not yet time to pop the champagne—there’s still a chronic lack of clear reporting linking climate disasters to fossil fuels, as FAIR has noted in coverage of last year’s wildfires (7/18/23, 8/25/23), climate protests (9/29/23), the potential breakdown of a crucial Atlantic current (7/31/23), overstating the potential of new carbon-capture technology (1/4/24) and more. But these few coral-focused pieces offer hope that some outlets might be improving their climate reporting practices to include accountability. At the very least, it proves they are certainly capable.

    Aside from the effects of the climate crisis becoming harder and harder to ignore each year, there is a commendable movement to train journalists on how best to report on climate through a number of initiatives and organizations. There’s a lot of work to do, but these stories indicate progress since Big Media was applauding Big Oil’s efforts to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 (Extra!, 3–4/90) and giving platforms to “scientists” on Big Oil’s payroll who asserted climate change was not occurring (Extra!, 11–12/04, 5–6/07).

    The new denial

    CNN (5/9/24) waited until the the 24th paragraph (out of 24) to tell readers that we “need to curb climate-warming carbon emissions.”

    Climate denial today is more nefarious. Due to the unanimity and widespread knowledge of the scientific consensus, respectable outlets can no longer parrot views that the Earth isn’t warming. What they can do is bury or gloss over information on its primary cause, who profits off of it, and what needs to be done to prevent it from getting much worse.

    In a piece on the potential of artificial reefs to mitigate this crisis that linked coral bleaching to climate change, CNN‘s Michelle Cohan (5/9/24) waited until the very last paragraph to mention the need to “curb climate-warming carbon emissions.” There’s nothing untrue about that statement, but it doesn’t tell you where those emissions come from, and leaves open the interpretation that “curbing” emissions can come from carbon capture and storage—a strategy that is largely industry greenwashing (FAIR.org, 1/4/24).

    Despite likely short-form word limits, a solutions-oriented piece like this does a disservice to readers—and the scientists working on saving corals—by giving such an incomplete sketch of the necessary long-term change. It would benefit from a clear explanation that a) we need to phase out fossil fuels and b) alternative energy sources already exist, are reliable, and are more affordable than fossil fuels already. It’s not arduous or wordy to do so. All Things Considered did most of it in one sentence.

    An ABC piece (4/15/24) by Leah Sarnoff and Daniel Manzo covered the coral-bleaching event, but only mentioned climate change in passing toward the end. Otherwise, “warming oceans” were just depicted as something that happened, with no clear connection or cause.

    In an article expressing the dire condition of the reefs, the Washington Post‘s Rachel Pannett (4/18/24) likewise made the link to climate change only once: “Climate change is the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef, and coral reefs globally,” said Roger Beeden, the chief scientist of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.  There was another quote from a research director with the Australian nonprofit Climate Council, who merely noted that the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef is “a disaster at our doorstep.”

    It’s important to express the dire condition the reefs are in, and the devastating risks it poses to ocean and human life. But by only mentioning “climate change” in passing, and not discussing its causes, it comes across as a natural but unfortunate phenomenon. Not highlighting its causes means not highlighting its solutions, either. The result is a potentially paralyzing doomsday narrative that is more likely to dampen than galvanize necessary climate action—especially against fossil fuels.

    ‘Heat stress’

    The word “climate” never appears in this Washington Post piece (4/15/24).

    Another Washington Post piece (4/15/24), by Amudalat Ajasa, mentioned the “heat stress” on corals, but not even climate change, let alone the culpability of fossil fuels. This piece quoted NOAA’s Manzello, saying that this global event should be a wake-up call, but didn’t elaborate on what that wake-up call would be for. Wake up to do what? This piece didn’t explain.

    The piece also took a grave tone, describing the ghastly reefs off the coast of Florida, Australia and the Caribbean island of Bonaire. It quoted Francesca Virdis, a chief operating officer at Reef Renewal Bonaire: “It’s hard to find a silver lining or a positive note with everything happening.”

    The article explained the role of El Niño—a naturally occurring climate pattern that warms areas of the Pacific every 2–7 years—and the hope that it will soon let up and give way to La Niña, its cooler counterpart, but did not explain that the phenomenon plays a smaller role than ongoing, human-caused warming. The aforementioned Vox piece also discussed the role of El Niño, but was sure to specify that reefs have been collapsing long before this current crisis.

    The feeling of alarm is justified, but journalists should remind readers that the coral bleaching crisis—and climate change as a whole—are not totally uncontrollable acts of nature. We know what is to blame. While it may be too late to avoid breaching the 1.5°C limit even if we cut emissions tomorrow, the sooner we cease burning fossil fuels, the more catastrophic impacts we’ll avoid.

    The message is urgent and dire, but there’s plenty that humans—especially those in power—can do, and there’s plenty journalists can do to make the public aware.

    FEATURED IMAGE: NOAA photos of a coral before and after bleaching. (This particular coral recovered from the event.)

    FAIR’s work is sustained by our generous contributors, who allow us to remain independent. Donate today to be a part of this important mission.

    Original article by OLIVIA RIGGIO republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.