It’s true that when people die, those who eulogize tend to exaggerate to make the person seem better. But when you are a dictator and the world’s top sponsor of terrorism whose followers chant “Death to America,” and you murder possibly 30,000 or more of your own people for protesting, American media should be accurate in the obituaries they write about you.
The Washington Post and The New York Times should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.
We first saw this absurdity when Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah was assassinated by Israel. The Times called Nasrallah a “gifted orator” who “wanted equality for all religions.” While the first part may be true, the second part is not. Describing him as a “potent adversary of Israel” is pretty cute. The whitewashing of Nasrallah may have been a foreshadowing of how Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated on February 28, would later be written about. The Times referred to him as a “hard-line cleric” who made his country a regional power. This is a total mockery of the truth and even the people of Chelm could not have written such an absurd title. There is no defense of this callous stupidity.
Yet, in response to the outrage expressed by Libs of TikTok, the Times had this message: “The Times’s obituaries report and reflect lives in full, illuminating why, in our judgment, they were significant. We fairly and accurately include the newsworthy details of each life and death, and don’t treat them dishonestly to score points like you’re trying to do here.”
What a pathetic response. It’s hard to imagine this is real life.
Even more bizarre is that both The New York Times and The Washington Post referred to Khamenei as “avuncular.” Normal people rarely use that word. I’ve heard it uttered less than 10 times in my life.
The Merriam–Webster Dictionary defines it as “suggestive of an uncle, especially in kindness or geniality…jovial.” I’d like to ask both writers if any of their uncles ever sent terrorists to kill journalists, murdered thousands of their own people, imprisoned anyone who spoke against them, and fomented terrorism around the world. I get that uncles wear odd sweaters and sometimes say the wrong thing at family gatherings, but none of my uncles have done any of the aforementioned things and if they did, I doubt they’d qualify to be described as “avuncular.”
It’s clear that there should be an attempt to be as impartial as possible, but that means writing the truth. Hitler certainly was a gifted orator, but I have to look to see if that was in the title of his New York Times obituary. I’d have no problem if that characterization was in the body of the article, but it should not be in the title or first few sentences. Did they include that Hitler was kind to dogs and loved his mother?
The Washington Post went even further. It described the late Iranian leader as having an “easy smile.” What is an uneasy smile? Perhaps the writer is describing someone he wants to set up on a date with a sister? He could have put it as “his followers were energized by his smile” which would be less biased and more factual.
To all those reading this article, I would like to ask if you’ve ever been described as “avuncular” or having “an easy smile?” I highly doubt it. And I’d guess you have never murdered anyone. How much would you like to bet that when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer with us, The New York Times and The Washington Post will not call him handsome or write anything about his smile. I guarantee they won’t call him “avuncular.” And I’m not saying they should.
In this attention economy, one has to wonder if there is a possibility that these writers are told to purposely produce absurdity to get clicks. That would not make it right, but is more understandable within the bounds of sanity.
The Times rightfully included that Khamenei had referred to America as “The Great Satan” and Israel as a “cancerous tumor that must be removed.” This should have been in the title or the lines right underneath. But the obituary seeks to pretend there is no objective truth. Khamenei was a dictator. But The Times has it as: “Many Iranians viewed him as the dictator of a corrupt and repressive regime whose policies had killed thousands of Iranians and forced countless others into exile.”
So maybe he wasn’t a dictator? Maybe he didn’t have thousands killed? Maybe it was only the Iranians who viewed it as such, but in actuality, the tooth fairy was committing the murders. Of course, the Times doesn’t use the word terrorism, because that doesn’t exist in its vernacular, only “militants.”
The obituary quotes only President Trump calling him evil, and not any Iranians.
This effort to whitewash evil is sickening. Again, the desire to be impartial is understandable, but that doesn’t mean you ignore the facts. Shame.