Apparently the reason that the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet decided to publish its false story about the IDF stealing the organs of Palestinians is because the paper’s editor wanted to verify the authenticity of the story. In the United States the rule of journalism is that you’re supposed to check you story before publishing it. (Not that American reporters don’t sometimes make stuff up, but no American editor would boast that he published an unverified story to test its veracity.
Actually I think that the reason that Donald Bostrom wrote the story is because it was a great career move. Look at Charles Enderlein. Not only was his story about Mohammed al-Dura shown to be false, he lost a court case. But now he gets France’s highest honor! There’s no libel of Israel that is too ridiculous to be dismissed and brings fame and fortune to the reporter. Surely Bostrom deserves a Pulitzer for his slander of the Jewish state.
No doubt it will bring him greater prestige than if he reported a real story, like that the Chinese execute prisoners to harvest their organs.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
I haven’t had any journalistic experience since I was useless information editor of the Oakland University Observer and that was (mumble mumble) years ago. Still, if I had been the editor and wanted to verify the story I could have first picked up a phone, called a doctor, and asked if it was possible to shoot people and then extract usable organs.
Caryl Churchill’s odious playlet, “Seven Jewish Children” and now this–in both cases it comes as close as makes no difference to the blood libel. The reaction of most western diplomats, commentators, and journalists seems to be ho, hum, the Jews are getting excited again.
By the way, anyone who has any sympathy for j Street or thinks it’s protestations of being pro-Israel have any connection to its actions should know that it endorsed a production of “Seven Jewish Children” and then said well, it didn’t actually endorse the sentiments there in but they hoped it would spark a conversation. So apparently J Street thinks whether or not Jews cynically use the Holocaust to mask their slaughter of innocent Palestinian children is a reasonable topic for discussing.
By the way, the writer of the original story admits that he didn’t have any idea whether it was true or not, and his verification was going back to his original sources who told him yes, yes, they were really sure about this.