PBS reporter Woodruff recently felt compelled to apologize. What sin had this veteran, if vanilla, journalist committed to warrant her to do that?
While reporting from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, she said that Trump was “on the phone with [Netanyahu] urging him not to cut a [hostage] deal [with Hamas] right now because … it’s believed that would help the Harris campaign”.
A day later, she back-tracked: “[T]his was not based on my original reporting [by other credible news sources]; I was referring to reports I had read … I repeated the story because I hadn’t seen later reporting that both sides denied it. This was a mistake and I apologize for it.”
Goofy, cause-and-effect-scrambling syntax aside — she didn’t repeat the story because of later denials by Netanyahu and Trump; she repeated it without having seen them — she surrendered to two of the world’s best-known and confirmed liars. Authoritarians take note: no coercion of journalists necessary; they police themselves.
It took nothing more than a bark from Netanyahu, through his megaphone, The Jerusalem Post, to label Woodruff’s statement a “complete lie,” and an equally silly claim from Trump accusing PBS of “making up fake stories” for Woodruff to surrender. Curiously, neither leader denied that a conversation had taken place.
Woodruff’s back-track ignores extensive reporting from Israel for months, which has made a convincing case that Netanyahu has subordinated a hostage deal to his own political fortunes. Nor is it news that Netanyahu desires Trump’s return to the White House as Israel’s supreme foreign asset.
Second, Trump’s non-relationship with facts and his obsession with others’ success (which he sees as diminishing him) make his denial laughable. Of course he urged Netanyahu not to conclude a hostage deal with Hamas. Not that Trump cares about Gaza, or Hamas, or even hostages. It’s a Biden/Harris success that must be prevented.
Nor does Netanyahu need Trump’s advice. More likely, he humored his US fan-boy with assurances that Israel will not conclude a hostage deal, especially between now and November. He may have, of course, promised that, if Trump won, Israel would give him credit once in office, a promise unlikely to be kept in any event.
Woodruff’s apology is pitiable. All she had to say was: As follow-up to what I said yesterday about a Trump/Netanyahu discussion of a hostage deal, both sides deny the original reporting. Instead, she legitimized the “fake news” claims of two first-class peddlers of fake news. The need to show her virtue was more important.
