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Last Straw at the Los Angeles Times
by Arlene Peck

The worst so-called "journalism."

For years, I've been a working member of the press. There was a time when I looked with pride at my life's accomplishments. Of course, those were the days when such men as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Morrow were the role models. In recent years, I've become increasingly alarmed with the trend that I've seen among those who consider themselves 'reporters,' as well as those talking heads on the television's nightly news programs. We listen to dumbed-down, usually attractive, post-puberty 'experts' who can only speak in sound bites before they're interrupted by their co-anchor in the box. They talk about the Middle-East, but I'll bet if you put a map in front of them and asked them where that is, they wouldn't have a clue.

The CEOs of these companies wonder why their newspapers are going out of business. It's simple: it's the same as with the airlines. Lack of service.

When the newspapers began to invent the news instead of reporting the news, the public had nowhere to go but to the call in to talk radio stations, where there was, at least, a chance of hearing the truth.

The worst so-called "journalism," I believe, is practiced by the Los Angeles Times. For years, I've held on to my subscription only because I am a columnist and felt that reading the morning paper was the only way to keep up with what was happening in the world, so that I might give my opinion on it; which is what a columnist does.

A recent edition of the Los Angeles Times was the last straw. That Sunday's front page was covered with a picture of Jerusalem entitled, "The Struggle for Jerusalem." I'm surprised that they didn't use their resident anti -Semite, Tracy Wilkerson, to write the biased column against the Jewish state; nevertheless, it was pretty awful.

I'm not surprised when I see that the sympathetic slant of their series is for "the plight of the poor Palestinians." After all, that's what they do best. Everything, in my opinion, that they write has always been against Israel. For example, the Times reporter writes that Arab families are being "cut off for good from their city of birth" because of the "barrier," which Israel "insists" is aimed at keeping out suicide bombers. The concept that suicide bombers are homicidal mass murderers is foreign to the Times.

Their dumbing-down the issue is working. Israel was forced to build a fence to keep out the murderers that constantly came into Israeli cities to bomb their schools, pizza restaurants, buses and neighborhood markets at will. Prior to the barricade, we were reading in that same biased paper about how many Jews were being killed on an almost daily basis. Of course, why should I be surprised? This is the same paper that doesn't write about how the open borders with Mexico have turned California into Mexifornia and our cities into places resembling Third World countries. This same paper was also writing multi-page series about how the poor illegal immigrant families are being separated and forced to live in poverty. I wish our government had the foresight that Israel is now showing before our country got so out of hand.

Meanwhile, the LA Times reporters sat in their safe comfortable office, sipped lattes, and wrote about Jews and Arabs living bitterly apart. They wrote about how, "Their schism is one of the key obstacles to peace," and how the Palestinians have been "hemmed in by Israeli rule over their East Jerusalem neighborhoods."

Well gol-ly, this pampered bunch of so-called journalists write that "the status of Jerusalem remains one of the biggest obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement," and the issue was "a major stumbling block at the Camp David talks of 2000." I wonder how they might feel if any of the wonderful illegal aliens who have come across our border from Mexico were to build a shack without permits next door to their Starbucks. Would they write a column about how unfairly Gonzalez and his eight children were being treated when forced to tear it down? Actually, with the leftist, anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attitude that I've learned to expect from this bunch, they would probably write the same treasonous trash.

In addition to relating to poor Kamil Saou and his five children, they elaborated on how "scores of Israeli police officers converged on a bluff in East Jerusalem, surrounded his modest home and escorted a bulldozer to the door." They went on to lament that since Kamil had neglected to get a permit, "that gave the government the legal right to demolish the home." As well it should! Try that in Beverly Hills and see how fast the bulldozers come.

I wonder if, while the Los Angeles Times was publishing this four-day, three-page spread, they noticed that virtually every other page in their paper was filled with the violence and terror caused by Islamic terrorists elsewhere. Or is it just the "question" of Jerusalem that is causing the problems from Iraq to Dakar? The Islamist culture doesn't give a damn about living in peace, side-by-side, as the uninformed columnists write. I wonder if, in the effort to be fair and balanced, the LA Times reporters have spoken to non-Muslims from areas now controlled by the same Islamic fundamentalists who want to control Jerusalem.

I'm sure that they don't remember, but I'd like to remind the Times reporters that the town of Bethlehem was once about 86% hristian. That was until pressure from front page stories and an incompetent State Department caused that city to be turned over to Arab control. Since then, the city has become a wasteland of roaming terrorists who have brutalized, murdered and mutilated the Christians who had been living there for generations. They've done such a good job that Bethlehem's Christian population is now less than 5%. The LA reporters might want to pay more attention to the promise that once the Muslims are finished with the Saturday people, they will implement their plans for the Sunday people.

Call me silly. Call me a tad old-fashioned, but I take offense that this beacon of understanding, the Los Angeles Times, writes to the masses, "In the absence of peace, Israel and the Palestinians jostle for advantage, reshaping the holy city and further diminishing changes for an agreement." I do want to tell them, though, that the Jews maintaining control of the Jewish State, for which the deed was given to them 3,500 years ago, is not the reason for discord. It's because we are dealing with a barbaric mind-set intent on killing all who are not them.

The Times doesn't get it. None of the liberal press seems to get it. But giving these savages a hug or more land isn't going to bring peace. They understand death and destruction, and they want a martyr's death. I'm all for giving it to them.

Last Straw at the Los Angeles Times (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7187)

Well said. And the same thing is happening in Iraq and elsewhere. Sadly, our for the most part incompetent media just doesn't get it and probably won't until the bombs are going off in their neighborhoods. More sadly, most folks aren't interested enough to even read the poor job they do covering such issues.  They can't get past the latest hollywood gossip which now passes for "news". I dropped my newspaper subscription years ago and I have gotten, to the point I can no longer tolerate TV "news".

This is excellent!  It is rare today to receive unbiased factual reporting from any of the mainstream media.  They have lost all credibility with me.  There is a concerted effort to deceive and manipulate the American public.  The majority of so-called news is merely special interest propaganda.  I never thought the U.S. would resort to this.  But when you remove God from everything, lies and deception flourish.  A prime example is the distortion of the illegal immigration 'news.'  With the exception of a few news anchors willing to ignore political correctness by reporting the facts, the majority of the reporting is absolute offal.

Fortunately, the internet has become an excellent source for obtaining real news....that which the mainstream media wish to obscure.  However, it requires work to sift through the nonsense to become exposed to the truth.   

The incessant reporting of Paris Hilton as 'news,' clearly exposes our media.  Sadly, gone are the days when news actually meant something other than ratings from the intellectually challenged.