How NPR lost the public's trust

[Dill]

(04-23-2024, 07:07 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: What frustrates me about some of his comments, and it is really what frustrates me about the conversation as a whole, is that there seems to be little room being given by some to criticize Netanyahu and his handling of this. When more than half of the reported casualties in Gaza appear to be non-combatants and, if the most recent reports are true, there are mass graves with Palestinians murdered with their hands tied, those are not acceptable. I don't care who it is. There are no excuses. But that is seen by so many as somehow anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic. All it is really is being against the killing of innocent people.

I know some will snicker here, but I agree.  I think the problem is that a very large percentage of the people who voice criticism of Netanyahu also couple their points with very slanted views of Hamas and their "plight."  One need look no further than this very board, in which a thread, started by you, on the conflict has literally zero posts about the actions of Hamas from left leaning posters, they are all about Israel and the claims of their actions (withb the exception of one, very recent, both sides do it post of an article by someone else).  One can only hear, "yeah, Hamas is bad too" so many times without any posts about them before the claim starts to lose any legitimacy.

Where are those posts with the "slanted views of Hamas"?  Can you quote them or at least give the post #s?
I'm wondering if such posts will turn out to be "coupled" with nothing but critique of Israeli policy.

And how can one say "Yeah, Hamas is bad too" without posting about them? One would have to say so in a post.

The "balance" between Israel and Hamas posts in our forum depends in great part on the "agenda setting" of US media, and what they
think US citizens need to know about the conflict, as well as what forum members think is important.

Israel, unlike Hamas, receives a deal of US aid and is supposed to be a close ally. Their leaders visit us. So there is really a lot of news to be shared about that--much of which they themselves provide for us--if news is really what one is interested in, and a lot to consider from the policy side, if one is interested in policy. US voters have some influence over their president who has some influence over Israel. What is happening in Gaza, and in Israel, tends therefore to be of great interest. Americans disagree about what Israel is doing. So a lot to talk about there.

Biden isn't conferring with Hamas leaders. We aren't voting on aid to them. They aren't on Fox or CNN. We don't have any editorials from Gazan newspapers about what Hamas leadership should or should not be doing, as we do for Israel. So we get little news of them, much of that inadequately vetted and filtered through the IDF.  Mostly same old same old. (E.g., I've asked for info on Hamas stealing aid trucks, but haven't gotten any response yet). Just not much there. Further, despite accusations otherwise, the forum isn't divided about Hamas; no one is defending, mitigating, or "excusing" Hamas' policies/actions.  So not much there to discuss, at least for the people interested in news and policy. 

So the result is a forum imbalance, with many fresh posts about what Israel is doing, and an occasional post still repetitively asserting what "dogs" Hamas are, which just seems unenlightening, especially when coupled with denunciation of those who don't participate.