The LA Times and Temple Mount Provocations

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
28 October '12..

The Los Angeles Times' article today about a purported increase in attempts by Jewish worshipers to pray on the Temple Mount unnecessarily exacerbates an already tense situation with a provocative, misleading headline, and by publishing false Palestinian accusations as fact. As of this writing, the story by Jerusalem bureau chief Edmund Sanders appears on the top item of the Los Angeles Times home page and is accompanied by a bombastic, misleading headline:

The headline is provocative and misleading given that the site in question, the Temple Mount, is not simply a "site sacred to Muslims," but is also Judaism's holiest site, as the article itself makes clear.

Furthermore, the front-page blurb does nothing to clarify the fact that the site where Jews are seeking to pray is Judaism's holiest site. It says: "Israeli police and Muslim officials say prayers at the Temple Mount-Al Aqsa mosque site are a provocation. One rabbi responds: 'What is provocative about a person wanting to pray?'"

Those readers who bother to click on the headline in order to read the story will come to a page with a more balanced headline. It states "More Jews praying on site also sacred to Muslims" (emphasis added). The "also" makes clear that the site is holy to Jews, an essential point that the majority of Los Angeles Times Web visitors would miss.

(Read full "The LA Times and Temple Mount Provocations")

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