Wait, I Was Supposed To Bring Journalistic Integrity To The Job?

By Jodi Rudoren, NY Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief 

It’s been a challenging, exhilarating, fulfilling stint here at the Jerusalem bureau, and I’m grateful for all of you who helped make my time here so wonderful. It is a bittersweet departure for me, and not only because I’m leaving behind such fantastic people, but also because I’ve been harboring some nagging doubts over things I could have done differently. Was I supposed to bring any journalistic integrity to this job?

Clearly, you’d think, that if that were the case, the higher-ups in New York would have mentioned it when I submitted my candidacy for it all those years ago, so my exhibiting a total lack of it during my tenure as chief here wasn’t that big a deal. On the other hand, those nagging doubts keep insisting that the demand for integrity was self-understood, so maybe my performance in this position wasn’t an unqualified success? I don’t know.

Headquarters certainly gave me no indication they were displeased with my wholesale rejection of objectivity in favor of pushing the Palestinian narrative of absolute victimhood. I presided over the hiring of Diaa Hadid, who used to work for the antisemitic terrorism apologists at Electronic Intifada, and no one objected. Even Public Editor Margaret O’Sullivan never called me onto the carpet over my constant efforts to put Palestinian terrorism and Israeli self-defense on an equal moral footing, and she’s the one who directly faces the storm of irate readers. So I should feel pretty comfortable with that. But I can’t shake the feeling that I could have done something more, something different from all my colleagues in the Western news media, if I’d strayed, even just a bit, from the need to make Palestinian suffering the primary story.

I could have explored rampant corruption and abuse in Palestinian society; I could have examined the ongoing official Palestinian incitement to murder Jews; I could have written some hard-hitting pieces about how the UN agency for Palestinian refugees only perpetuates their misery and encourages rejection of Israel. Sometimes I paid lip service to integrity, cleverly couching my anti-Israel bias in terms of journalistic skepticism, as when prefacing all official Israeli claims with “police say” or “according to the IDF,” something I didn’t have time for when it came to Palestinian claims that contradicted actual physical evidence. You know, because of space considerations.

But you know what? I’ve been promoted to the International Desk back in New York. I guess they must have missed all those possible lapses. They are busy, after all. As I hope to be. So when my dear colleague Diaa submits another Hamas propaganda piece, she can rest assured we will respect her autonomy, just as my superiors did mine.