NY Times euphemism: murderer becomes an activist.

The New York Times gets today’s prize for slanting the news by identifying a convicted murderer as a “controversial activist.” In a Nov. 13, 2017, story headlined “An Arab Bakery in Oakland Full of California Love”, reporter Rebecca Flint Marx writes: “Reem’s is one of a handful of Arab bakeries in the Bay Area — but it is likely the only one where you’ll find the children’s book ‘A Is for Activist’ on the shelves and an enormous mural of the controversial Palestinian activist Rasmeah Odeh on the wall.”

Rasmeah Odeh, an activist???? I’ll say, she sure was active when she was part of a gang that murdered two university students in a supermarket bombing in Jerusalem in 1969. After getting out of prison in a prisoner exchange, she lied her way into the United States and even became a citizen. But this year she was deported to Jordan for concealing her bombing conviction and lying about her criminal record when she applied for a visa and later for U.S. citizenship. The Times story doesn’t say what was “controversial” about her. Well, she did fight deportation for three years.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) contacted the New York Times about the “controversial activist” label. This prompted a Times Editors’ Note. Here’s what CAMERA.org wrote:

“Nov. 14 update: After CAMERA staff and members contacted The New York Times, the newspaper updated its story and appended an Editors’ Note acknowledging that the story had “lacked context about the Palestinian activist Rasmeah Odeh.” The story now explains: “In 1970, Ms. Odeh was convicted by Israeli courts for her role in the murder of two students. In 2014, she was convicted of immigration fraud in U.S. federal court and deported to Jordan in 2017.”

But in that editor’s note, Odeh is still an “activist.” Not a murderer, a killer, a convicted criminal, or, heaven forbid, a Palestinian terrorist. She’s not even identified as a liar.

File under: All the news that fits the NY Times’s slant.

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