Originally published on Youthradio.org, the premier source for youth generated news throughout the globe.
By Youth Radio-Youth Media International Editors
We noticed a curious discrepancy between this morning's New York Times online and print coverage of Helen Thomas's retirement.
In the print version delivered to an Oakland, California address, about two-thirds of the way through the story, "Reporter To Retire After Words about Israel," comes a graf describing Thomas's personal background: "A native of Detroit, her resume contains a litany of firsts: ..." A summary of Thomas's journalistic distinctions follows.
However, in the online version of the story, the same line has an additional clause. "A native of Detroit and the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, she had a resume with a litany of firsts: ..."
In a San Francisco print edition delivered this morning, the "Lebanese immigrants" clause is intact.
Our we-wish-we-were-a-fly-on-the-wall journo question is, what convinced Times editors to put the clause in the online and some print versions? Was the bit about Thomas's background in reporter Jeremy Peters' original version of the story?
The question of whether Thomas's Arab-American background is pertinent to these stories is a separate but important one, especially when you consider how a reporter contextualizes that information. The issue is touched upon in the video exchange with Rabbi David Nesenoff, after she issues her now-infamous "Get the hell out of Palestine" directive:
Thomas: "Remember, these people are occupied. And it's their land."
Nesenoff: "So where should they go?"
Thomas: "Go home. Poland, Germany."
Nesenoff: "So Jews should go back to Poland and Germany ."
Thomas: "And America, and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have been there for centuries?"
Nesenoff asks if she's familiar with the region, and Thomas replies, "Very much. I'm of Arab background."
Update: We talked to Jeremy Peters about the now-you-see-it, now-you-don't clause, and he says: "I believe what happened is, we were short for space and it just got dropped from (some print versions). When I realized that it got dropped, I had the copy desk add it back in. There was absolutely no editorial reason that it was dropped."
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