The Increasingly Narrow, Parochial Prism of Journalism
by Douglas Murray, Gatestone Institute:
Last month, immediately after fire had almost destroyed the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, the Washington Post ran a piece with the headline, “The Notre Dame fire ignites the West’s far-right.” The author, Ishaan Tharoor, used his piece to expand on that untimely and inaccurate claim. He wrote:
“A strange — though not altogether surprising — thing happened in the shadow of Monday’s tragedy. As many around the world watched an iconic cathedral in Paris go up in flames, others immediately set about trying to spark new fires. On both sides of the Atlantic, denizens of the far right took to social media to grind their culture-warring axes, locating in the calamity a parable for the political moment — or, at least, their understanding of it.”
Tharoor then went on to list the various people he wanted to grab at to make this prefabricated argument.
He attacked Fox News host Tucker Carlson for having commented, regarding the Notre Dame fire, that it was in “some ways a metaphor for the decline of Christianity in Europe.” You might agree with that or you might not, but it is not at all clear why Carlson saying this should be included in a piece claiming that the “far-right” have been ignited by the fire at Notre Dame. Unless you are willing to pretend that Carlson is “far-right”. Sure enough, this is what Tharoor does, or (perhaps distantly aware of the law) tries to do. He writes:
“Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a popular anchor accused by critics of openly embracing white nationalism in his broadcasts, said the Notre Dame fire was in ‘some ways a metaphor for the decline of Christianity in Europe.'”
So Tharoor introduces Carlson by referencing the most defamatory and untrue statement he can think of? Because some “critics” have said it?
Ordinarily this sort of thing would not be considered journalism. After all, if we all did it, it would become a race to the bottom.
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