International Media: Still Vilifying Sharon?

Tom Gross has written another important piece:

Compared to past international media coverage of Ariel Sharon, which on a number of occasions in recent years has gone beyond personal demonization to outright anti-Semitism, the reporting on Sharon since he suffered a massive stroke last week has been relatively benign. Sharon, the butcher, the bulldozer, the war criminal, the "successor of Hitler," has suddenly been humanized in several usually hostile quarters, such as the BBC.

But only up to a point. Even amid this improved coverage, as Sharon lies fighting for his life, many articles in the Western media have retailed untruths, almost in passing, as though they were incontrovertible historical facts: Sharon initiated the second intifada, Sharon ordered the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and so on.

According to a Google search, there were over 24,000 articles published on Sharon in the 24 hours following his stroke last Wednesday night. But it was only four days later, in Monday?s Washington Post, that there was the first mention of Sharon?s protracted and successful libel battle in the 1980s against Time magazine for its inaccurate suggestion that he had encouraged the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

Sharon's successful proof in court that Time lied about his involvement in the massacre has been incredibly reported by the mainstream media as an inversion of the truth. This because Sharon could not prove intention to defame by lying.

A note for sophisticated students of media bias: the MSM will sometimes portray their adversaries nicely in situations of personal tragedy such as this, but they will almost never allow facts to be publicized which might cause people to agree with "politically incorrect" policies. For example, Gross brings the example of al-Jazeera showing Sharon looking grandfatherly around Hanuka candles. Another common example is to praise him for having converted from a "bad nationalist soldier" to a "good uprooter of Jewish settlers." Conversely, the MSM may criticize their heroes to appear objective, but it will always be at the personal level. For example, Jay Leno's monologues chide Bill Clinton for his personal vices, but criticize Bush for policies that enrich his oil friends.