Talk:Emma Brockes

NPOV dispute - Chomsky controversy

1) The article claims that Brockes implies Chomsky denied the Srebrenica massacre. This is inaccurate. According to the text of the website of the interview as it appears on the website "www.chomsky.info", she does not claim he denied it altogether; merely that he said it was "probably overstated" and that he disagrees with the use of the term massacre, and that he highlighted his disagreement by putting the word "massacre" in quotation marks. Although Chomsky has correctly pointed out that he never put the term "massacre" in quotation marks, yet he has never denied having told Brockes that it was "probably overstated". Thus, it is untrue that Brockes implied Chomsky had denied the Srebrenica massacre; rather, the essence of their dispute was over whether and to what extent Chomsky had minimised the massacre. The Wikipedia entry should make this clear.

2) The article claims that "Kamm and his associates have since proven unable to produce any evidence that Chomsky has ever denied the massacre or questioned the death toll at Srebrenica". This is simply untrue. In one interview to which Chomsky's critics have linked, he seems to imply that the death-toll at Srebrenica was "much lesser" than the Indonesian massacre of 5-6,000 East Timorese in 1999. See the following link:

http://www.hagglundsforlag.se/forfattaredok/Johnstone/ChomskyDararnas.htm

Chomsky's words are, arguably, open to different interpretations, but the article does not make this clear. Furthermore, the same link shows him praising Diana Johnstone's book 'Fool's Crusade', a book that comes as close as possible to denying the Srebrenica massacre without formally doing so. Again, there are different ways one can interpret Chomsky's words, but the Wikipedia article gives only the pro-Chomsky point of view.

The Wikipedia article appears to be a polemic in defence of Chomsky and against Brockes, Kamm and Chomsky's other critics, rather than an attempt accurately to portray both sides of the dispute. This is an abuse of Wikipedia's purpose.

Update: Since I posted the above criticism, the article had been edited, though it is still a partisan piece.

1) It claims "Kamm and his associates have since proven unable to produce any evidence that Chomsky has ever denied the propriety of the term massacre or questioned the death toll at Srebrenica, while any mentions Chomsky has made of Srebrenica in his writing says he agrees that a massacre took place."

This represents the viewpoint of the pro-Chomsky party to the dispute; members of the pro-Brockes party feel that such evidence has indeed been provided. At issue is a difference in interpretation, and the author should present both sides of the argument.

2) The article portrays Chomsky's defence of Johnstone as solely concerning her right to free speech. Yet Chomsky praised her book as an 'outstanding work' based on 'fact and reason'. This does not necessarily mean that Chomsky himself questioned the Srebrenica massacre, but it does mean that he praised a book that does.

3) The article fails to mention that the external ombudsman John Willis, asked by Kamm, Aaronovitch and Wheen to adjudicate in the dispute, criticised the Guardian's Readers Editor Ian Mayes for responding to Chomsky's complaint by removing Brockes's interview from the website and for running a comment piece by Johnstone. Willis felt that Mayes had 'overcompensated' and that this was 'not completely fair to Emma Brockes'.

Update: Many efforts have been made to include all of the material above in the body text of the Wikipedia entry, with the goal of representing opposing sides of the controversy. If that goal is now met to the satisfaction of the dissenter(s) to the article, let this dispute section now be removed. If anything else need enter the article, let it be entered at this point so that the matter can be put to rest.

I don't know if the edits referenced above are the cause, but this article, currently, is cack... "on the one side this, on the other side that" is not NPOV.

The facts (as far as I can see) are these:

a) Emma Brockes interviewed Noam Chomsky

b) This interview received numerous complaints regarding misrepresentation of Chomsky's views,

particularly with reference to the war on Bosnia.

c) The Guardian reader's editor decided that Chomsky had been misrepresented.

d) An appeal to an outside ombudsman decided that the readers editor's decision was correct, but

he may have "over-compensated" by deleting the article etc etc.

If anyone has any evidence to counter the above schedule of events, then say so or forever hold

your peace... otherwise, I propose changing the article along these lines. Ms Brockes and her

supporters may wish otherwise, but independent arbiters have ruled, and encyclopedias are supposed

to report on "accepted fact", not form an ongoing battleground for competing viewpoints.

There's an argument that Ms Brockes isn't even worth an entry anyway, it's only the notoriety she

accrued following this that mitigates against such a view, hence the need for a section.

Grmdy (talk) 21:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

You're All Missing a Point

True, Noam Chomsky has never denied Srebrenica massacre; the only thing he denied is Srebrenica genocide. Do you get the point? Of course you don't. There is a difference between the massacre and genocide. Go figure. Bosniak (talk) 07:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

BLP rework

I have drastically reworked this article, after concern was raised at the BLP noticeboard. The reasoning is as follows.

• This is a biography of Brockes. She is a journalist and author. On that basis, she is notable for our purposes. In BLPs, we should must be careful to provide balance and not use them only to highlight specific controversial incidents. As it was, this article has minimal information about Brockes and lots of information about the Chomsky profile incident. This was clearly giving the incident undue weight, especially given Brockes is notable notwithstanding this incident and the incident quickly expanded beyond Brockes' profile and became a pissing contents between various intellectuals.
• Therefore I have pruned the detail of this incident, leaving a balanced summary, and tried to expand a little more about Brocke's career. Even now, I would argue in terms of content, this incident has still been given slightly undue weight, but it is difficult to summarize the incident (which clearly is notable) in any less words.
• If the incident itself is notable, then the pruned content can be moved to an article about the incident.

I'm happy to discuss this, in good faith, if there is disagreement. Rockpocket 05:49, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Further rewrites

Reading through the 2006 piece by Hoare (footnote added), I was appalled at The Guardian's apparent cowardice here.

It seems to me Chomsky - "self-taught", believing himself more of an expert in fields where he spends a little time than the established experts in those fields, "the best scientists aren't those who know the most data, they're the ones who know what they're looking for" (all from the original Guardian article also in the footnotes) - was caught out pontificating on a subject he knows little about. Then suddenly he's all bent out of shape at being held up as a genocide-denier, having just - "probably overstated", "probably not true" - been caught out doing exactly that. ("Probably not true", incidentally, applying to TV reporting by ITN, a major international news organisation of wide repute, reporting already *proven true* in a court of law in London), in ITN's action against Living Marxist or Living Marxism, or whatever they called themselves before going bust by being wrong.

My reading is that a sub-editor screwed up with The Guardian's sub-headline. Brockes does *not* say that Chomsky has ever written "massacre" in quotes wrt Srebrenica.

It seems to me that Mr. Chomsky, 76, has been caught out in intellectual dilletantism, casually commenting on something he knows little about, and has then been horrified to learn the truth about the incredibly painstaking and systematic effort that has gone into investigating Srebrenica, and just how wrong he has been. Then the great defender of free speech has gone on to muzzle The Guardian using all the power at his disposal.

Chomsky's made a nice career out of his fast-and-loose play with ideas. Do him good to see the view from the bottom of his ivory tower for once. Shame on you, Guardian, for *still* not having reinstated the original Brockes profile to your online edition. Blether (talk) 13:08, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

As for the origination of theis Wikipedia topic and its aggressive, belittling tone that has persisted for so long, well, the defenders of the downtrodden, spokesmen for the weak... ganging up on a new female journalist just leaving her twenties ? Not very edifying.Blether (talk) 17:59, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

---

Anyway, coming back to reason. The Guardian issued its unnecessary apology http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/nov/17/pressandpublishing.corrections acknowledging three issues:

1 - The "Q&A" format, "Supporting those denying Srebrenica / I didn't do it enough" sub-heading, in all likelihood under standard newspaper practice written and vetted by the editing team rather than the writer of the piece, is offensive of, inconsiderate to, and probably libellous of Chomsky. This sub-heading was clearly unjustifiable and should (a) never have been published, and (b) having been published, should have been withdrawn as soon as possible and an unreserved apology issued to Chomsky.

2 - Chomsky complained that Brockes mis-represented his support for Diane Johnston. He claims that his support for her was limited to support for her right to free speech. However, in his own open letter on Johnstone’s book, to which he refers in his letter to the Guardian of November 2, in relation to the atrocities Chomsky states: “... Johnstone argues - and, in fact, clearly demonstrates - that a good deal of what has been charged has no basis in fact, and much of it is pure fabrication.” - see paragraph 2) here http://birn.eu.com/en/15/10/751/ and be sure to have appraised the list of signatories at the bottom of the page before you form a view. For her part, Diane Johnston is eminently discreditable for her atrocity and genocide-denial, though - to my mind - perhaps more admirable than C for having the spine to acknowledge that that's what she says.

3 - "massacre in quotation marks" pseudo-controversy smoke-blowing. The Guardian apology says:

Principal among [Chomsky's complaints] was a statement by Ms Brockes that in referring to atrocities committed at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war he had placed the word "massacre" in quotation marks.

Brockes' article says:

This is, of course, what Chomsky has been doing for the last 35 years, and his conclusions remain controversial: that practically every US president since the second world war has been guilty of war crimes; that in the overall context of Cambodian history, the Khmer Rouge weren't as bad as everyone makes out; that during the Bosnian war the "massacre" at Srebrenica was probably overstated. (Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.)

Don't we call this "reported speech" ? It is not within quotations. It does not purport to represent the exact words of the person being portrayed. It characterises his or her expression. The last text here following "like" is an ordinary simile.

We recognise a way of saying a word - in a stylised higher pitch - that is the verbal equivalent of "putting between quotation marks". Had Brockes no record, or memory, of Chomsky doing this in speech ? It seems no record was found of him using the quotation marks in writing. As Hoare says, "... while Chomsky has indeed been highly ambiguous in his references to the Srebrenica massacre, he has never actually put the term in quotation marks; Brockes’s sentence accurately reflected Chomsky’s ambiguous view of Srebrenica..." - middle of first paragraph here http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2006/02/guardian-noam-chomsky-and-milosevic.html

In any event, Chomsky is quoted by Brockes saying that reports of Serb concentration camps were 'probably not true' and the Srebrenica massacre 'probably overstated'. The Guardian's "apology" says nothing of any complaint from Chomsky in objection to these quotes. His biggest complaint relates to punctuation marks. This is tendentious legalistic nitpicking at its most extreme.

In the years since, Chomsky has omitted to go on record saying that he retracts the 'not true' and 'overstated' statements - only denying that he ever said anything even remotely like them, and going to considerable trouble to suppress Brockes' speech pulling him up for it. One can only wonder at what shareholders' or well-connected-in-society threats, or poor-old-me pleas were made/entered to shock The Guardian into such abject submission. Blether (talk) 12:15, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Please read WP:NPOV, WP:RS and WP:BLP before contributing further. Thanks. 12:26, 6 February 2011 (UTC)