NEW YORK TIMES’ SHAMEFUL BREACH OF STANDARDS
by Ara Khachatourian
asbarez
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
The New York Times headquarters in Manhattan
In a page four article in Wednesday’s edition of New York Times, titled
“‘Frozen Conflict’ Between Azerbaijan and Armenia Begins to Boil,”
Moscow bureau chief Ellen Barry describes in detail makeshift and
government-sanctioned sniper schools teaching Azeri youth the fine
art of sniper fire to fight Nagorno-Karabakh.
In what can be described as a breach of simple journalistic standards,
Barry provides a detailed account of Azeri “refugees” living in
squalor and turning to the sniper schools to prepare for war against
Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Her story is peppered with official
and person-on-the-street accounts of how war is the only option to
resolving the Karabakh conflict.
It is ironic. After all it was Felicity Barringer of the New York
Times who broke the news of the 1988 peaceful demonstrations in
Armenia and Karabakh, prompted by Glasnost and Perestroika, that
started what is now known as the “Karabakh conflict.” Her newspaper
diligently chronicled the savage Azeri pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad,
Baku and Shahumian and the resulting war that Barry now references
in her disheveled piece and attempt at reporting.
Barry quotes a 34-year-old and a 15-year-old student, both of whom
express their willingness-and readiness-to go to war and in one
instance also talks of the young Azeris’ shame for living in squalor
as the impetus for their military outlook.
It was also the New York Times that expressed outrage and condemnation
at the Madrassas being operated in Pakistan that trained young
Muslims to fight Osama bin-Laden’s Jihad against the West. Barry’s
piece seems to endorse the Azeri belief that the only way out of the
situation is to establish free sniper schools to teach the young to
fight. One wonders how the same publication can have such divergent
views on what is essentially the same approach.
The reporter also discusses the matter with Azerbaijan’s presidential
adviser, Ali Hasanov, who tells Barry, “There is no guarantee that
tomorrow or the day after tomorrow a war between Azerbaijan and
Armenia won’t start,” adding, “If necessary we are ready to give our
lives for territorial integrity.”
An obvious question for a presidential aide perhaps would have been:
why isn’t Baku spending all the riches it has amassed from oil and
gas deals to provide better living conditions for these refugees,
who Barry describes as “living along a dank, fetid hallway, on one
floor of a former office building” with “three rough, foul-smelling
holes in the concrete floor served as toilets for 21 families.”
Barry’s attempt to provide clarity of the international context of
the conflict also echoes the Azeri cries that they have been left
alone to fend for themselves.
“The United States, France and Russia do not do what they promised,”
Barry quotes Hasanov. “America now thinks Afghanistan and Iraq are
more important – and North Africa, and the missile defense shield in
Europe – than such regional conflicts as Nagorno-Karabakh.”
There is no mention of the OSCE chairman’s appeal-which Azerbaijan
unequivocally rejected-to both sides to withdraw their snipers from
what is known as the “line of conflict.” No mention again of last
week’s statement by president Obama, Sarkozy and Medvedev calling on
the sides to finalize the so-called “basic principles” and condemned
use of force in resolving the conflict. Nor, was there any mention
of the Azeri threats to down civilian aircraft. The latter threat
was even condemned by the most pro-Azeri US diplomat, Matthew Bryza.
The most incendiary part of Barry’s article is her conclusion where she
quotes Shafag Ismailova, a 34-year-old student at the sniper school
as saying: “We had a genocide, and no one helps us. Not America,
not Russia.” The New York Times, which covered the Armenian Genocide
as it was happening, should not allow such callous use of the word
and must warn its bureau chiefs and reporters to be more sensitive
in such matters.
The timing of the piece is also suspect. During a period when
international attention has been focused on Karabakh, including a
meeting by Armenia’s foreign minister with Hillary Clinton on the
matter, the New York Times has mentioned the conflict in passing only
once when reporting on Azerbaijan’s victory in the Eurovision 2011
song competition.
Could it be that Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov’s current
visit to New York has promoted such a despicable piece in the New York
Times? Or, has Azerbaijan’s $35,000-a-month contract with Patton,
Boggs, LLC. to promote its interests in the US finally breached the
most impenetrable walls of the Gray Lady?
Whatever the case, it is pieces such as Barry’s and those editors
who approve their publication that might bring this “frozen conflict”
to a “boil.”