Deega good points, every one. I actually do have a journalistic background in the distant past that although not rising to the level of a NY Times reporter, and dealing with arcane subject matter such as we find on Avalon, none the less my job was journalism such as it was! I agree that the entire informational field is basically a mine field of disinformation sprinkled with bits of truth. I took on the Indybay piece as an example, as I was interested in seeing what 'facts' the article based their allegations on. Unless the articles printed in German or Arabic substantiated the serious allegations, which I could NOT verify, nor could the typical reader encountering this piece - the allegations are baseless. IF I were a lawyer, which I am not, I would have those pieces translated and if they contained no hard facts, I would initiate a lawsuit against the authors on behalf of my client for defamation of character with damages. With respect to the issue of footnoting back-up information provided in foreign languages, while that has the COLOR of proper attribution, inasmuch as the general English-speaking reader cannot determine for themselves the veracity of the allegations by reading the sources, especially when it comes to inflammatory and damaging allegations like these, that attribution does not meet high levels of journalism. (which are much lower than standards required of academic scholarship in my opinion) Of course I cannot vet the pieces in German and Arabic myself, not being a native speaker and not having access to anyone who can translate the articles. I know that you didn't post the piece because you agreed or disagreed with it and were posting it as information, period and I am not presuming you and I are in lock-step in our views. I welcome diversity of opinion in all things as long are certain core values (i.e. truth, freedom, the inestimable value of living things) is honored.Posted by Deega (here)
Thanks Ahkenaton for your indepth (?) analysis, here a few comments on your conclusion.
You must be a specialist in journalism to conclude "The Indybay article does not meet even the most rudimentary journalistic standards", are you such a specialist...? And how may you come to this conclusion if you were not able to read the Arabic Articles, think about it...!
You say that it is a "hack-job", don't we see, often, some of these in the formal journalistic world...?, and we tend to let it slide in, don't we...?
I'm not sure, you may conclude that the allegations are not factual if you were not able to read the Arabic Articles...!
I should point out that I opened up the Tread on "WikiLeaks 'struck a deal with Israel over diplomatic cables leaks l" as an informational gesture, I didn't qualified it, I felt that we were at the beginning of an interesting saga!
All my blessings.
Deega