Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Report: NYTimes Deletes Reference To Pro-Israel Group

A reference to the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC was mysteriously cut from a New York Times article published online Monday and in print Tuesday, according to Hadas Gold at Politico.

The first version, published online Monday, quotes an anonymous administration official calling AIPAC the "800-pound gorilla in the room." The original article had two paragraphs worth of quotes from officials about the powerful lobbying group's position in the Syria debate: 
Administration officials said the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee was already at work pressing for military action against the government of Assad, fearing that if Syria escapes American retribution for its use of chemical weapons, Iran might be emboldened in the future to attack Israel. In the House, the majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, has long worked to challenge Democrats’ traditional base among Jews.  
One administration official, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing White House strategy, called AIPAC “the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” and said its allies in Congress had to be saying, “If the White House is not capable of enforcing this red line” against the catastrophic use of chemical weapons, “we’re in trouble.”
The newer version makes no reference to AIPAC and does not include an editor's note explaining any change, other than a typical note at the end of the story noting that a version of the article appeared in the Tuesday print edition of the Times.

But journalists and media critics took note of the change. Around 5:00 a.m. Tuesday, Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg tweeted, "Unless, I'm mistaken, all references to AIPAC cut from this story."

Goldberg told POLITICO the missing AIPAC piece is "strange" and suggested that someone from AIPAC or the White House complained.

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