Correcting a self-proclaimed Bethlehem expert's fictional account in National Geographic - by Tamar Sternthal

..."Through the world’s best scientists, photographers, journalists, and filmmakers, National Geographic captivates and entertains a global community through television channels, magazines, children’s media, travel expeditions, books, maps," and more, boasts National Geographic. To this list of ostensible experts, National Geographic ought to add fiction writers, given that in this piece they favored a novelist over water experts on the very issue of water. So, while National Geographic may well be fulfilling in its mission to captivate and entertain, it is downright failing to deliver the facts.

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
15 January '18..

In time for Christmas, National Geographic published an interview with novelist Nicholas Blincoe which contains numerous factual errors about the holy city and surrounding area ("The Little Town of Bethlehem Has a Surprising History," Dec. 23). A note at the bottom of the piece indicates that the interview "was edited for length and clarity." Apparently, though, no effort was made to edit for accuracy. Over the last several weeks, CAMERA's Israel office prompted correction of some of the errors, resulting in an appended clarification, but other falsehoods remain, and the ongoing editing introduced new inaccuracies.

Blincoe, author of "Bethlehem: Biography of a Town," fancies himself an Bethlehem expert — "facts about Bethlehem a speciality" he boasts on Twitter, and in Christianity Today he presumptuously called himself Bethlehem's "biographer" — but in reality facts about Bethlehem are the author's undoing.

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