A post at Just Journalism, and cross-posted at Harry's Place, highlights a column by Michael White in which the longtime Guardian journalist lists some of the easy and preferred targets of Guardian writers. They include Israel - which should be no surprise to anyone, and has been often enough noted here at normblog, though it is good to see an awareness of that particular obsessive focus on the part of at least some at the Guardian. But, in any case, in one point the Just Journalism post is mistaken. It concerns the following passage from White's piece:
The blogger at JJ glosses this as follows:Nor has it been easy to smuggle anything creditable about Tony Blair into the paper for several years now, though tyrants with more convincing leftwing credentials sometimes get the benefit of the doubt.
White... also alleges that positive stories about Tony Blair are rarities despite other 'tyrants' being granted positive coverage.
There is no warrant for the claim that White regards Blair as a tyrant, relative to whom there are other tyrants; 'other' isn't his word but is thrown in by his interpreter. It's a forced and uncharitable reading. All White need be saying, all he is likely to have been saying, is that Blair sometimes gets a tougher deal in that journalistic quarter than do 'tyrants with more convincing leftwing credentials'. How genuinely convincing a leftwing credential can be for someone who's a tyrant, that's another question.