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Asbarez: New York Times' Shameful Breach Of Standards

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  • Asbarez: New York Times' Shameful Breach Of Standards

    NEW YORK TIMES' SHAMEFUL BREACH OF STANDARDS
    BY ARA KHACHATOURIAN

    http://asbarez.com/96267/new-york-times%E2%80%99-shameful-breach-of-standard

    The New York Times headquarters in Manhattan

    In a page four article in Wednesday's edition of New York Times,
    titled "'Frozen Conflict' Between Azerbaijan and Armenia Begins
    to Boil," reporter Ellen Barry describes in detail makeshift and
    government-sanctioned sniper schools teaching Azeri youth the fine
    art of sniper fire to fight Nagorno-Karabakh.

    In what can be described as a breach of simple journalistic standards,
    Barry provides a detailed account of Azeri "refugees" living in
    squalor and turning to the sniper schools to prepare for war against
    Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Her story is peppered with official
    and person-on-the-street accounts of how war is the only option to
    resolving the Karabakh conflict.

    It is ironic. After all it was Felicity Barringer of the New York
    Times who broke the news of the 1988 peaceful demonstrations in
    Armenia and Karabakh, prompted by Glasnost and Perestroika, that
    started what is now known as the "Karabakh conflict." Her newspaper
    diligently chronicled the savage Azeri pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad,
    Baku and Shahumian and the resulting war that Barry now references
    in her disheveled piece and attempt at reporting.

    Barry quotes a 34-year-old and a 15-year-old student, both of whom
    express their willingness-and readiness-to go to war and in one
    instance also talks of the young Azeris' shame for living in squalor
    as the impetus for their military outlook.

    It was also the New York Times that expressed outrage and condemnation
    at the Madrassas being operated in Pakistan that trained young Muslims
    to fight Osama bin-Laden's Jihad against the West.

    Barry's piece seems to endorse the Azeri belief that the only way
    out of the situation is to establish free sniper schools to teach
    the young to fight. One wonders how the same publication can have
    such divergent views on what is essentially the same approach.

    The reporter also discusses the matter with Azerbaijan's presidential
    adviser, Ali Hasanov, who tells Barry, "There is no guarantee that
    tomorrow or the day after tomorrow a war between Azerbaijan and
    Armenia won't start," adding, "If necessary we are ready to give our
    lives for territorial integrity."

    An obvious question for a presidential aide perhaps would have been:
    why isn't Baku spending all the riches it has amassed from oil and
    gas deals to provide better living conditions for these refugees,
    who Barry describes as "living along a dank, fetid hallway, on one
    floor of a former office building" with "three rough, foul-smelling
    holes in the concrete floor served as toilets for 21 families."

    Barry's attempt to provide clarity of the international context of
    the conflict also echoes the Azeri cries that they have been left
    alone to fend for themselves.

    "The United States, France and Russia do not do what they promised,"
    Barry quotes Hasanov. "America now thinks Afghanistan and Iraq are
    more important - and North Africa, and the missile defense shield in
    Europe - than such regional conflicts as Nagorno-Karabakh."

    There is no mention of the OSCE chairman's appeal-which Azerbaijan
    unequivocally rejected-to both sides to withdraw their snipers from
    what is known as the "line of conflict." No mention again of last
    week's statement by president Obama, Sarkozy and Medvedev calling on
    the sides to finalize the so-called "basic principles" and condemned
    use of force in resolving the conflict. Nor, was there any mention
    of the Azeri threats to down civilian aircraft. The latter threat
    was even condemned by the most pro-Azeri US diplomat, Matthew Bryza.

    The most incendiary part of Barry's article is her conclusion where she
    quotes Shafag Ismailova, a 34-year-old student at the sniper school
    as saying: "We had a genocide, and no one helps us. Not America, not
    Russia." The New York Times, which covered the Armenian Genocide as
    it was happening, should not allow such callous use of the word and
    must warn its reporters to be more sensitive in such matters.

    The timing of the piece is also suspect. During a period when
    international attention has been focused on Karabakh, including a
    meeting by Armenia's foreign minister with Hillary Clinton on the
    matter, the New York Times has mentioned the conflict in passing only
    once when reporting on Azerbaijan's victory in the Eurovision 2011
    song competition.

    Could it be that Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov's current
    visit to New York has promoted such a despicable piece in the New York
    Times? Or, has Azerbaijan's $35,000-a-month contract with Patton,
    Boggs, LLC. to promote its interests in the US finally breached the
    most impenetrable walls of the Gray Lady?

    Whatever the case, it is pieces such as Barry's and those editors
    who approve their publication that might bring this "frozen conflict"
    to a "boil."

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