Honor Killings and The Press
I’ve been debating those subjects with Mark Steyn — if you click over to my latest post, links to the rest are provided.
I’m also putting up a half dozen posts a day at The Atlantic’s Ideas Blog. Please visit! It runs for another several weeks. After that you’ll see me back here a bit more for some non-political posts I am planning.
UPDATE: In comments, Mike Farmer writes, “I believe your campaign to bring down conservatives is causing a type of blindness which is morally selective and fails to express moral outrage over self-imposed limits to your discernment.”
Interesting, the assumption that I am engaged in an effort to “bring down conservatives” when my modus operandi is actually just to disagree publicly when a conservative writes something that I find to be wrongheaded or inaccurate. Imagine that I triumphed entirely in my exchange with Mr. Steyn — that I persuaded him of my position, that he issued a correction at National Review Online, and that his future efforts to draw press attention to honor killings proceeded from assumptions that I believe to be more accurate.
In what sense would I have “brought him down”? He would remain a well-paid, widely read writer. His success at effecting the change he wants to see w/r/t honor killings would be enhanced, not diminished. Forceful disagreements can leave even the loser better off. Discourse among professional writers isn’t a zero sum game.
It’s kind of hilarious to me that you are still sending out requests for corrections on others columns, when you have still, 5 months later, not corrected your Daily Beast column where you accused the military of three murders and a massive cover-up. Perhaps you don’t feel you owe a correction because of the weasel wording, but you also promised to follow-up on it. Seeing as how there’s been no coverage since, I’m guessing there’s been no additional evidence to make your case. Or are you still alleging conspiracy?
And even if you were right about the honor killings, it wouldn’t call for a correction. Steyn didn’t say that no articles were written about honor killings – it was basically a subjective judgment that they are not paying enough attention – and he specifically mentioned the NY times and WP. You can argue that judgment, but you haven’t shown any factual inaccuracy in Steyn’s post.
— Derek · Jun 18, 01:04 PM · #
At some point, you’ll have to realize that exceptions generally prove the rule. It diminishes your stature when you pick out a few exceptions and stubbornly ignore the weight of evidence against you in many of these battles. I believe your campaign to bring down conservatives is causing a type of blindness which is morally selective and fails to express moral outrage over self-imposed limits to your discernment. Perhaps you should consider the content objectively and forget whether the author is a Steyn or a McCarthy or a Limbaugh or a Palin.
— Mike Farmer · Jun 18, 07:43 PM · #
Oh, when you put it like that, it’s so simple. When you ignore all the newspapers covering honor killings, you’re quite right – newspapers are hardly covering honor killings at all!
— Chet · Jun 18, 08:03 PM · #
“I believe your campaign to bring down conservatives….”
Is he trying to bring down all conservatives or just conservatives he doesn’t like. If it is the latter is that wrong? Do conservatives have to support anyone who calls themselves conservatives. Does being a conservative means you to follow Rush Limbaugh lemming-like over the cliffs? Is dissent permited in the conservative party? Or do you follow the Stalinist model: whatever the dear leader says?
I think there are very interesting parallels between the history of the communist party and the modern conservative movement. I’m not talking ideology, I’m talking tactics, charateristics, and dynamics. It’s a lesson in sociology/anthropology.
— Jonah Ponuru · Jun 19, 12:34 AM · #
Ölümler olmasın artik.
Su Her Yerde sıkın ISTE onların kafasına koministler!
— sohbet · Jun 19, 10:20 AM · #
Red-baiting the ‘pubs? I’ll give you points for originality, Jonah!
My take is the ‘Pubs are suffering from the same disease I’ve struggled with, which goes by the long name “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”
In the ‘Pubs case, the tool is the (once remarkable) ability to present a unified front; to stay “on-message” I think is the way the media mavens say it. That ability gave them a remarkable run, and it’s not surprising that many of them, especially their leaders keep thinking, “If we can just get punks like Friedersdorf to shut the hell up, we can return to our former glory.”
But staying “on-message” isn’t governence, or even power. It’s a tool of governence or power; and it’s not the only one. But just like me I do when my back is up against the wall, you go with what you know; you keep banging the lag bolt – first with a 22 oz framing hammer, then with a sledge.
And it might work, a little. But you’d be better off with a wrench.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 19, 10:49 AM · #
Being anti-Limbaugh or anti-Steyn or anti-Andy McCarthy or anti-Mark Levin does not make you an intellectual. It’s just a polemical device that untalented writers like Conor has to use to get any attention for his mindless rants. Conor takes himself more seriously than anybody else does. This guy is like your token colllege student….his opinions were the ones given to him by his leftwing college professors. He’s in the real world now, though, and in the real world, Mark Steyn may just respond to your incoherent comments, and that’s never going to end well for our hero Conor. I think it’s amusing how he’s appointed himself watchdog of National Review, which isn’t exactly “red meat” conservativism most of the time. Just in the last couple of months they’ve featured a guy trashing supply economics, another (Jim Manzi) sneering at global warming skeptics as “winguts”. I think they let John Derbyshire, Captain Bitter, trash Rush and Hannity all the time. They dont’ seem to know their audience at times. You think Conor could tolerate a few conservatives posting conservative ideas at National Review from time to time. It was, afterall, Buckley’s publication.
— Matt X · Jun 19, 03:40 PM · #
Dissent is allowed. Mark Steyn disagreed with Conny’s stupid assertions and took him to the woodshed with substance. Conor’s not going to win any debate with somebody as bright as Steyn. And Conor’s not a conservative…he’s an insecure leftwinger, he voted for Obama. He likes to call himself a lilberterian, but then again, so does Bill Maher. I understand why he wants to run away from the liberal labele, but the reason he has to run away from it is because people like him have done so much damage to it. :)
— Matt X · Jun 19, 03:45 PM · #
Conor,
Your article at the Atlantic was a good one and it told me some things I hadn’t thought of before. It’s great having you, and a handful of other conservative commentators, who dissent from the exaggerations and blather of the red-meat right. It reassures me that the honest center-right is still alive and kicking in America.
BTW, you write all over the place. Is there somewhere I could find an RSS feed for all your posts?
BTW2, thanks for turning me on to the Yelp app for the iPhone. I’ve loved it.
— David T · Jun 19, 05:07 PM · #
Chet, let me be perfectly clear — the ancillary insinuations, the coverage, like the pig farmer said to the dance instructor, is like putting mascara on a mannikin, but given the source it obviates the central point, allowing room for several interpretations and the possiblity that bias, being a four letter word, reigns in the original point, not central, but neither left nor right. So, the disingenuous side-door, taken all too often by palookas and philanderers, leads one to dirty back-alleys, unless the mascara is for you to cover a blush or unsightly blemish – but, nonetheless, it holds true that obsession is like wrapping water in paper, to borrow from Watts, which has nothing to do with lightbulbs or honor, but everything to do with epistemic hosiery.
— Mike Farmer · Jun 19, 07:27 PM · #
“Mark Steyn disagreed with Conny’s stupid assertions and took him to the woodshed with substance.”
He did no such thing. As pointed out on The Atlantic threads, there’s a zillion examples of major news media covering “honor killings.” There simply aren’t very many of them in the U.S. Like, 20 times more people get killed by lightning every year.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Jun 19, 07:46 PM · #
Usually when people say that, it’s to preface clarity. But, your subsequent post indicates instead that you were waiting for my permission. So, let me give it to you. You may be perfectly clear. Now, please go ahead and do so.
— Chet · Jun 19, 08:41 PM · #
“You may be perfectly clear. Now, please go ahead and do so.”
Clarification and perfection are twin soups on a menu for fools, but I’ll attempt once again to penetrate the miasma of peas between two lobes. What I meant to write was that media, being trilateral at times, is commissioned by the curious, with the fourth dimension being now, to satsify a sense of justice, but since justice is weighed by rusty scales, something fishy is up that’s coterminous with what you might call fair and balanced, although others more conspiracy-minded, would find two strokes short of exactness. Having said this, it’s also true that conundrums, ear drums, oil drums and the doldrums might have something in common, but that’s all. Thanks, Chet, it’s always a pleasure.
— Mike Farmer · Jun 19, 10:44 PM · #
This is the weirdest TAS comments thread ever. David T, I am actually going to put together an e-mail list that sends out my recent work once a week or so. And eventually I’ll have a Web site with an RSS feed too, but that will take longer. If you want to be on the former shoot me an e-mail at conor dot friedersdorf at gmail dot com
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 19, 11:19 PM · #
Oh, the pleasure is all yours.
— Chet · Jun 20, 12:00 AM · #
Actually comparing that, with the long NY Times series that considered any
WOT veteran as a potential criminal, we see the problem, just like any
case that involves Salafi militancy, they either ignore or excuse
— ian cormac · Jun 20, 02:20 AM · #
A little perspective:
Steyn is concerned about the lack of media coverage of honor killings in the States.
Our hero Conor is enraged that Steyn thinks the liberal press is too politically correct to cover the honor killings. If for not Steyn’s posts about them and the media’s lack of coverage, I had not heard about this. I had heard about Matthew Shepherd…he’s a househould name. Doesn’t it seem like Steyn’s point hold? I think so. Why be upset that some guy wants to get attention to something as horrific as honor killings? I will never understand liberals and self important journalists.
— Matt X · Jun 20, 04:41 AM · #
You are also more likely to get struck by lightning than get murdered if you happened to be gay like Matthew Shepherd. But the press amplied that story and most people have heard of him, and the reason is he was a Preferred Victim due to gay status. The media may have reported some on the honor kilings but if they did it was buried in the Sytle section. I think Andrew Sullivan basically stated in his column attempting to back up his boy Conor that some newspaper did cover honor killings in the Style or some other irrelevant portion of the section of the newspaper taht few people read. The point is not just the coverage, but the amount of coverage and the amplication of a message. It’s been clear for a long time that the liberal press doesn’t like reporting on Muslims in a negative light. Anybody that tells you otherwise is a fool or a liar. See how the liberal press covered the Muslim Fort Hood killer, for starters.
— Matt X · Jun 20, 05:08 AM · #
Andrew Sullivan’s take: “The reason that Noor Almaleki and Aasiya Hassan are less famous than Matthew Shepard is because almost no murder victim is as famous as Matthew Shepard – well, maybe Natalee Holloway. They’re white, Mr Steyn. That’s why they’re more famous. Unfair and wrong – but fame in America is often like that.”
White people are killed everyday in America, but Andrew Sullivan, genius that he is, wants us to believe that we know about Matthew Shepherd by name only because he’s white, not because he was gay. Does anybody think that liberals in the media would not do wall to to wall coverage if a white guy kills an innocent Muslim american? By Sullivan’s own logic, the answer has to be no, which is stupdity defined.
— Matt X · Jun 20, 05:26 AM · #
One sad casualty of your anti wingnut campaign, conor, has been the steady deterioration of tas threads. lately they’ve drawn fools like flies to bad meat.
— max · Jun 20, 05:27 AM · #
Max,
You can’t win any debate with a “wingnut” like me. For a guy that suppported a community organizer with 9-11 truther friends, it’s amusing you would call anybody a nut. I think the left has the monopoly on the crazy.
This is from a Conor F colum from last year: “Were the dread New York Times bankrupted tomorrow and the Ivy League dissolved next week, conservatives would still be plagued by a dearth of ideas, an unpopular brand, and atrocious leadership.”
How unpopular are conservative ideas these days, Conor? Hmmmmmmm. How popular are Obama and your leftwing ideas these days, Conor? Hmmmmmmmm. It’s also rather laughable that some 32 yeaer old “journalist” wants to knock anybody for “atrocious leadership”. What have you lead? You’ve got less experience at doing anything productive than even Obama, and yet no columns from you on Obama lack of leadership. It’s so easy to refute and mock your points that I’m starting to feel sorry for you even though I do so enjoy it. :)
— Matt X · Jun 20, 05:48 AM · #
How can there be a steady deteriotion of the threads if so few people ever comment on them? This guy barely breaks 10 comments even when I’m around. That reminds me of how he or Andrew Sullivan said Jim Manzi was “the most effective critic of cap and trade”, which is a joke, as vast majority of people, including people who read the National Review where Jim Manzi once did a cover story have never heard of Jim Manzi. Those that have heard of Jim Manzi have heard of the one that works for Lotus. :)
— Matt X · Jun 20, 05:52 AM · #
What are the Democratic ideas, outside of spend more money we don’t have, tax people more, and ignore Islamic terrorists? Marxists and appeasers have been around forever….I don’t see Democratics looking for new approaches that work. The Republicans do have ideas but they involve free market solutions, and I think it’s safe to say that Obama Democrats like Conor are not open to free market solution. In his fantasy world, the government and the liberal media are the answer to all.
— Matt X · Jun 20, 06:00 AM · #
Pretty much as unpopular as there were back then, given that conservatives can’t even get Tea Partiers behind smaller government.
— Chet · Jun 20, 06:47 AM · #
Matt X,
You are welcome to comment at TAS, and to be as critical of me as you’d like, but if you ever again post multiple times in a row without anyone else intervening — if anyone does that, in fact — I will ban you with a swiftness and satisfaction born from a disgust at the deterioration of TAS comments, and the folks responsible for it.
I’d like this space to stage a comeback, I’m hell bent on a lack of Matoko Chan, and I am years removed from the belief that hands of thread management is the way to go.
In fact, I’d so love to ban Matt X that I’m going to engage him just to see if he can keep himself to a single reply. Why, sir, are you strangely obsessed with calling me a 32 year old? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being 32, it just happens that I am thirty, and I am mystified that you’ve taken, in the e-mails you send me and the comments you leave, to stating otherwise.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 20, 10:53 AM · #
Conor, I wasn’t talking about this particular disagreement, I’m talking about what seems to be a campaign by you, one that you’ve proudly advertised. You’re taking a faction of conservatives and nitpicking their writing to find inconsistencies without addressing their positions as a whole — this causes you to miss the larger points, and it causes you to miss the criticism of modern liberalism which appears to be well tageted and valid. Reading what you write, objectively, gives the impression that you are defending liberalism against criticism from the conservatves, not with substance, but, rather with petty mistakes you find in what they offer. There’s nothing wrong with pointing out inconsistencies, but you ignore the larger isssue here of liberal bias in the media — liberal bias is so obvious, it makes one wonder why you are so obsessed trying to disprove it.
I hope you weren’t including my comments in the previous post about deterioration. If you can’t tolerate humor, then this is definitely not the place for me.
— Mike Farmer · Jun 20, 02:15 PM · #
Chet, you sound a little desperate for a talking point, bro. I’d suggest you come up with something better than that.
Conor, I don’t understand why you care how many times in a row I post? It’s not like I’m preventing anybody from posting while I am.
Complaining that calling you 32 when you are 30 as though there’s some sinister intent by me doing so is almost as laughable as you getting all worked up that Steyn would dare think that the media had ignored the honor killings, given the undeniable fact that few people have heard about them. If life is short, two years is but a second in time. You complain about such trifles.
— Matt X · Jun 20, 02:37 PM · #
To put a finer point on this, I read every Mark Steyn article at National Review because I like his style and the consistency of his positions. I feel confident I could go back a few years and find a sentence or two his, which weren’t well qualified, that seemingly contradict something he says today. Now, I can assume the sentences just weren’t properly qualified, or I can make a big deal of it and insinuate he’s a hypocrit. If I’m trying to be helpful, I can ask about the inconsistency so he can fix it. If I’ve read the body of his work, then I pretty much know where he stands, so unless I’m focused on denigrating Steyn, the discrepancies won’t be a big deal. What I intended in my comment is constructive criticism — you appear to be too focused on finding the inconsistencies and not focused enough on the general ideas and positions — this makes you look vindictive rather than engaged in a valid debate.
— Mike Farmer · Jun 20, 04:25 PM · #
Mike – the posts to which Conor has been responding were written last week. This is hardly an example of Conor deep-diving the NRO archives looking for stuff to spin in the worst possible light; this is about Mark Steyn getting ahold of a narrative he likes – “newspapers ignore Islamic honor killings because they care more about multi-culti kumbaya than they do about women” – and revealing that he’s simply not going to modify that position in the slightest, regardless of what the actual facts turn out to be.
Indeed he’s got a steady stream of sycophants like yourself, prepared to argue that the abundance of newspaper coverage of honor killings, far in excess proportion to their actual occurrence, is somehow the “exception that proves the rule”, a popular bit of nonsense that attempts to turn evidence that flatly contradicts a proposition into evidence in support of it. It’s a good judo trick if you have absolutely no brains whatsoever.
— Chet · Jun 20, 05:35 PM · #
Conor and his one discipline here, Chet, are just Muslim terroist apologist. That’s par for the course with liberals these days.
Chet keeps saying that the newspapers cover these honor killings, but the fact is, nobody has ever heard about them. What’s the point in denying it? If you had brains, I dont’ think you would be making a case that’s so easy to observe as not being true.
— Matt X · Jun 20, 05:45 PM · #
I think you meant “disciple”, and you may want to ask Conor about whether or not he perceives me as being his supporter. (Head back to his coverage of O’Keefe’s ACORN investo-fraud if you think I’m his supporter. To his credit, Conor ultimately came around to my position.)
Nobody who? Which honor killings haven’t they heard of? From what basis do you say “nobody has ever heard about them”? I’m curious how you would even measure whether or not “nobody’s ever heard of them.”
I don’t know a single person who’s not aware of the phenomenon of “honor killing”, it’s been dramatized on a dozen police procedurals, including NCIS, CSI Miami, Law and Order SVU, and the like. Conor’s shown dozens of examples of high-profile newspaper coverage of domestic honor killings, well out of proportion to the fact that they happen a tenth as often as death by lightning strike. (When was the last time you read a newspaper article about someone who was struck to death by lightning? Please be specific.)
Your response up above was “well, that just proves it; if you ignore all the times the newspapers cover honor killings, it becomes obvious that newspapers don’t cover honor killings. Um, except for all the times they did. But ignore that.”
I searched Google News for “honor killing” and returned over 2500 articles. The idea that they’re not being covered is an absurdity, but just like Steyn it’s such an attractive narrative that you’ve made it impermeable to reality.
You mean, like Steyn’s case that “newspapers don’t cover honor killings”?
— Chet · Jun 20, 06:11 PM · #
I dont’ watch tv drama shows. I didn’t know that where you went to get informed on things. I have never heard of honor killings, and hell, I’ve heard of Conor F, who’s not exactly a big household name.
I don’t think Steyn said that the newspapers NEVER covered the honor killings. His point is they didn’t make a big deal about them, as compared to Matthew Shepherd….most everybody has heard of Matthew Shephered, and you don’t even have to watch television crime dramas. Could it be that the liberal media is more interested in doing wall to wall coverage on gay victims of crimes, hence we know about Matthew Shepherd.
Your point is so stupid in your premise is that if the newspaper does anykind of obligatory coverage of a story, that means they made a big deal out of it. They obviously didn’t make a big deal out of the honor killings, guy. What’s do you want to deny this? I don’t get it. Do you work for Comedy Central. Don’t want to offend those radical Muslims?
Earlier you said that the tea party people are for big government, which is about the most stupid thing I’ve ever seen any liberal say. WHy should anybody take you seriously on anything? You obviosly are not in touch with reality.
— Matt X · Jun 20, 06:19 PM · #
As I pointed out before, you are also more likely to get struck by ligtning than get murdered because you are gay like Matthew Shepherd. That didn’t stop the liberal media from doing wall to wall coverage on Matthew Shepherd, so much so that he’s a household name.
Oops, two posts in a row possibly. Our “liberterian” hero Conor, champion of free speech that he is, will have to ban me now, for I have violated his rather bizarre rule that I’m pretty sure is not a violation of posting on forum. :)
— Matt X · Jun 20, 06:26 PM · #
Right, but you’re an idiot.
Matthew Shepherd is the most famous murder victim ever, and to say that the media covered “Matthew Shepard” is to conflate coverage of many separate issues – the murder itself, the motivations of the murderers, their trial and the “gay panic defense”, the picketing of his funeral by the Westboro Baptist Church and the successful, transformative counter-picket by gay activists, Kaufman’s popular play “The Laramie Project” and the award-winning film based on it, and so on. The media didn’t “drum up” anything; the murder of Matthew Shepard was a cultural touchstone that set off one of the most important battles of the culture wars. There was an enormous popular interest and a profound reaction from all quarters; the media coverage is simply a reflection of that.
Because you had never even heard of them? Do you even read newspapers? Most people don’t. That sort of shoots your premise full of holes, now doesn’t it?
Yet, it’s true. Despite their retarded, second-grade English signs, Tea Party protesters overwhelmingly support an agenda of increased government spending across every polled category and cuts in taxes – precisely the agenda that drives up the debt.
It’s an amazing failure of conservativism that even the people who protest big government are actually in support of the growth of every sector of government; the very people who complain about government debt support an agenda of spending and tax cuts that will inevitably explode the government debt.
We have this thing called “Google”, now, where you can look up facts to see if your assertions are true. Of course, using it in the first place demands that you substitute truth for “truthiness.”
In fact, stupid, over 600 people were the victims of hate crimes where sexual orientation was a factor; 24% of gay men reported being victimized as a result of their sexuality more than 10 times in the previous year. That more than dwarfs the 60-odd deaths by lightning strike per year.
— Chet · Jun 20, 06:50 PM · #
I dont’ know who appointed your spokesperson for people at tea parties. You obviously get your info from the two liberal clowns at Comedy Central, even borrowing their not so witty “truthiness” stupidity. You are an Obama hack, guy. The tea parties are actually for big government! Double down on your stupidity. I didnt’ know being for tax cuts meant you were for big government. I smirk at you Obamabots that want to somehow suggest support of higher taxes is actually the small government position! We stupid fools! The reality is that power to tax is the first and most often power that any government abuses. I haven’t seen any poll that suggests the tea party people are for MORE government spending. You need to find some intellectual honesty, my man. :)
I think being innocent people being murdered for any reason is a bad thing. But I dont’ think there’s been a whole lot of gay people murdered for simply being gay….that’s one of those liberal talking points that fits your politics but just isn’t true. Gay people can be killed for other reasons having nothing to do with their sexual orientation. I know, pretty shocking stuff to your leftwing dogma.
There were not 600 people killed because they were gay last year. We were talking about killings, so it helps if you compare apples to apples.
— Matt X · Jun 20, 07:06 PM · #
What drives up the debt is spending, not tax cuts. Liberal politicians that you support like Obama like to then use the deficits and debt they’ve amassed with their entitlment program spending sprees as a prop to get people on board to support more taxation, as though we are not overtaxed as it is. If citizens fall for this smarmy premise, we will only be encouraging politicians to spend even more. Taxpayers shoudl not be held accountable for the irresponsible spending practices of Democrats and some Republicans.
— Matt X · Jun 20, 07:13 PM · #
Okay, Matt X, that’s two additional instances of multiple posts in a row, in a row. You’re banned.
Mike Farmer,
I certainly wasn’t talking about your comments.
As for your substantive point, I’ve read a lot of Mark Steyn too — in fact, I very much admire his stuff on free speech, and his personal defense on it in Canada — and w/r/t honor killings, it is exactly his larger position that I am disputing. He says that American newspaper writers and editors are too politically incorrect and multi-culturalist to cover the subject in the United States (that’s his newly narrowed position, mind you — I take it you’ve seen him go farther if you’re a regular reader).
In contrast, I think the media has demonstrated its willingness to cover honor killings, and that political correctness and multiculturalism are unconvincing explanations for the overall level of coverage.
When it comes to Mark Levin, I have also taken issue with his big picture thesis: that American politics is divided between those on the side of liberty, and those on the side of tyranny, with liberals playing the role of statists.
It’s true that I also critique inaccuracies, but if you name me a figure I’ve criticized regularly I’ve definitely articulated objections to the larger thrust of their work.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 20, 07:33 PM · #
Hey Conor, I’ve got a problem here. Say I post one comment responding to Chet, another comment responding to you, another comment responding to Mike Farmer, and I post them an hour apart starting at 3am New York time in the USA which is 5 o’clock in the afternoon in my timezone, so no-one else is posting on that thread at that time.
So I have to wait until you guys wake up before I post, but then I’m asleep.
— Keid A · Jun 20, 07:52 PM · #
Keid A,
If multiple posts in a row are derailing threads I’ll issue a warning, as I did to Matt X and Matoko Chan. That should alleviate your concern. I’ve never observed any problematic behavior from you or most other commenters here. Also, I’ve just solicited input from my American Scene colleagues on overall guidelines for comments that can be articulated and regularly enforced, so stay tuned.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 20, 08:08 PM · #
Okay, then I’ve been incorrect in my observations. Carry on.
— Mike Farmer · Jun 20, 08:45 PM · #
That’s a weird pretext for banning someone. I went looking to see if there was something special about this particular version of multiple, sequential postings that could justify this kind of censorship, but they seem to be gone. Orwellian.
— The Reticulator · Jun 21, 03:03 AM · #
The Reticulator,
Yes, I’d prefer if the offending comments remained, but as far as I can tell, I don’t have that option. (Note to Matt Frost: Do we have that option?) And to tell you the truth, I don’t like banning much at all. There were many years when I thought that comments sections should be unregulated, and that authors couldn’t be trusted with the power to ban commenters without abusing it.
In the last couple years, however, I’ve changed my mind. I now think that unregulated comments drive away a lot of good people — authors and other commenters — and so while I acknowledge that any of us here at the Scene could go power mad and start banning people just for criticizing us, that doesn’t seem very like to me, and it certainly seems like a risk worth taking when the alternative is a shitty comments section that no one likes. I certainly hope you’ll keep commenting here, and that as various authors exercise discretion about comments you’ll give us feedback directed toward building the best comments section possible.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 21, 03:49 AM · #
Aha! I figured out how to display them. So there you go!
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 21, 03:56 AM · #
IMHO, the high dudgeon and demand for a correction obscured any possibility of constructive debate.
If I understand correctly:
1) Steyn wrote a piece where he claimed that “it is striking that not one of the major newspapers has done an investigative series on the proliferation of ‘honor killings’, not in Yemen or Waziristan but in the heart of the western world”
2) In response, Friedersdorf countered with a laundry list of articles about honor killings in the middle east, plus one or two brief articles about possible western honor killings.
3) Eventually, Friedersdorf conceded that Steyn is technically correct, but argued that a NYT piece on German honor killings, while not an investigative series, is the “equivalent” of an investigative series. (If I read the links correctly, the NYT piece about Germany wasn’t even in Friedersdorf’s initial attack, but I could have missed it).
It seems to me that if Friedersdorf hadn’t started with a maximalist argument – that Steyn is “epistemically closed” and that he must issue a correction (for saying something that Friedersdorf eventually conceded to be true if potentially incomplete), there was a possibility of actual discussion about the ultimate issues of disagreement – is western honor killing a phenomenon that merits an investigative series, and if so, has journalism done its job in that regard.
With respect, maybe assuming that your opponents are a bunch of idiots unable to read other people’s opinion is not a great idea when you are preaching to someone not already in the choir.
Certainly, quoting coverage of middle eastern honor killings in response to Steyn’s point, which specifically and clearly said it was not about that, would have required much more clarity to be convincing.
— J Mann · Jun 21, 02:02 PM · #
No, J Mann, a number of pieces were found covering the very, very, very few honor killings which have taken place in the United States.
These articles, alone, are on the Noor Almaleki case:
http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-11-05/opinion/1…
http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-504083_162-504083.h…
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/related/to/Noor+…
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/US/arizona-police-hunt…
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safar…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33550176/ns/us_news…
http://assets.browardpalmbeach.com/related/to/N…
http://www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=68992
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/11/02/Woman…
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2009/11/01/arizona-ja…
http://boingboing.net/2009/11/02/20-year-old-ir…
Again, you’re acting as if this is some amazing undocumented trend that the liberal media is covering up — when the fact is, they’re EXTREMELY rare. Like, 3 murders a year out of 300+ million.
“Investigative series” – what is there to investigate? There’s no secret conspiracy, no mass movement to legalize honor killings. Maybe you can convince “Inside Edition” to do something on it, but I rather think the ever-shrinking ranks of investigative reporters have more important things to look into — like corporate corruption, environmental disaster in the Gulf and a do-nothing Congress.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Jun 21, 07:39 PM · #
JMann,
You’re probably right that my initial post approached the conversation in a way that guaranteed sub-optimal results.
However, your summary of Mr. Steyn’s point isn’t accurate. He went far beyond the claim that newspapers had never done a major investigation of honor killings in the west, arguing that:
1) “Multiculturalism trumps feminism, and so the media accept a two-tier sisterhood in which Muslim girls are run over, stabbed, strangled, drowned and decapitated for wanting to live like the women they read about in The New York Times and The Washington Post.” I’d reply that The New York Times, to cite one major newspaper, has written dozens of stories that lament the violent deaths of Muslim girls, that several of their columnists have taken the same position, including one, Nick Kristof, who crusades against honor killing, and that these facts — combined with the newspaper’s substantial coverage of honor killings abroad — are enough to rebut the assertion that, at that major American newspaper, “multiculturalism trumps feminism” in the matter of violent death by honor killing.
2) The media’s “silence on this issue” is “an especially ugly manifestation of how their news instincts have been castrated by political correctness.” In my initial post, I exhaustively showed that The New York Times — again, the example I decided to research — covers this issue exhaustively abroad. It makes no sense to me that editors, reporters and columnists would be willing to actively cover Muslims abroad for engaging in honor killings, but that faced with a woman killed the same way in the United States, they’d suddenly adopt an entirely different attitude — political correctness — to the same subject. In his followup, however, Mr. Steyn said that this is the case, arguing that his initial post referred to how newspapers react when honor killings happen in their “backyard.” In my response, I therefore focused on one of the honor killings that Mr. Steyn says was ignored, and listed a bunch of stories in the closest major newspaper, The Arizona Republic, that did anything but ignore it.
If you’ve read Mr. Steyn’s writing generally on this subject, you’ll see that he regularly claims far more than that newspapers don’t do major investigations.
I think the language in his first post alone justifies that conclusion. But even if you disagree, it’s difficult to contend, given the whole body of his writing, that he levels with his audience about how often this phenomenon is actually covered, and the attitude of liberals toward it, even granting that the coverage/response isn’t perfect.
To cite another example, go to the National Organization for Women Web site, search for honor killings, and familiarize yourself with their attitude toward the subject. Then see how Mr. Steyn characterizes their attitude toward the subject.
In hindsight, would I write my initial post differently, to be more persuasive, and less off-putting to those who disagree? Sure. At some level, though, I do think that there is a failure to give the conservative rank and file the whole story when it comes to important public controversies, and that position itself just offends people. If I knew a better way to go about this project I’d do it, and meanwhile I learn something new everyday.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 21, 07:53 PM · #
I do agree that, not only conservatives, but liberals as well, when writing a piece criticizing the other side, ought to acknowledge the exceptions and place them in context, and when writing about bias in the media establish the tendency to slant or spin or ignore stories rather than make absolute statements about bias — like the left makes absolute statements abot Fox, when in reality Fox is not nearly as biased as those on the left make it out to be. There is probably not absolute bias on either side, but the two visions of the world are clearly detectable.
— Mike Farmer · Jun 21, 08:07 PM · #
Thanks Conor,[*]
I think that’s the more interesting debate, and there’s a good chance that you’re right. (Ironically, one of Steyn’s weaknesses is that he is such a good stylist that it’s hard to conclude from one of his articles whether he’s actually right. Christopher Hitchens and Alexander Cockburn have, imho, the same problem, althought it may all be a matter of taste).I guess there are three related factual questions:
1) What is the extent of Western honor killing?
2) What is the extent of media coverage of Western honor killing?
3) Leaving aside the narrow factual question of whether there has even been a Pulitizer-bait investagative series on Western honor killing, has the coverage been so disproportionate as to justify Steyn’s column?
I’ll try to read through all the posts, but my intuition is that #3 will be very hard to resolve. Media bias is a little like discrimination in this regard — you’re working from counterfactuals. (Would Gates have been arrested if white? Would there be an investigative series if a similar number of western girls were killed as a result of Hindu cultural beliefs? Christian?). It’s very hard to say definitively that one side or the other is right wrt such questions, but maybe this is one of the cases where that is clear cut.
— J Mann · Jun 21, 08:46 PM · #