More Strange Seven Jewish Children Coverage

This time from Bloomberg. The coverage is mainly an opinionated summary of one performance/discussion of the show at NYTW.  Like me, the writer's "baloney detector" goes off when work is overly contextualized and thus somewhat "defanged".  And he has some interesting things to say in charting his own reactions to the piece (he's not a fan, but there's clearly something about the intensity of the writing that he finds appealing).

But there's a strange part of the article where Jeremy Gerard discusses the post show conversation thusly:

As fodder for a public forum, however, it was a dud. The “conversation” was led by Laura Flanders, a feminist writer and cable television host who made an unconvincing stab at neutrality (“It’s really a play for all of us”) before urging the conversation toward a pro-Palestinian point of view. She was abetted by an audience plant, identified as “Connie,” who helpfully described the U.S. as “the most rapacious empire the world has ever seen” and Israel as “an unsinkable aircraft carrier for U.S. imperialist policy” as if she were reading the menu from a nearby restaurant in Alphabet City.

Trying to be charitable here for a moment, I'll just assume that Gerard chose his words poorly and that his editor didn't catch it.  How else to explain describing someone in the audience as a "plant" when there's no evidence to back up the assertion?  Calling Connie a plant (and putting her name in scare quotes) makes it seem as if Laura Flanders and NYTW put her there for the purpose of speaking out for a specific point of view, something I highly doubt happened.  Furthermore, her having prepared remarks to say during the Q+A doesn't make her a plant; people do that sort of thing all the time.  Another question begged is... if she is a "plant", who planted her there and to what end?   

Describing her in such terms with no evidence to back up the opinion and then putting her name in scare quotes is a way of delegitimizing her opinion, because it makes it seem as if she's somehow being dishonest as opposed to expressing her viewpoint.  And this leads me to wonder... would Gerard use the same terms to describe her were she not expressing the beliefs she expresses?  Perhaps so, but it's odd to see such an evaluation of someone without any evidence provided to back up the assertion.

Comments

[Leslie Neanham]

America is really a more rapacious empire than the Third Reich?

As Connie may read in William Shirer's THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH, Hitler's plans for an occupied England were to ship its entire adult male population, as prisoners, to some vague location "on the continent." Comparable Nazi "relocations" usually found their destinations in chimneys. The US is planning to do that, where?

[Jeremy Gerard]

I don't need your charity. It was clear Connie was a plant from the fact that a) the moderator called on her by name and, b) the moderator made no attempt to curtail her moronic comments (though she did cut off someone who challenged Connie, after addressing him in the most derisive tone possible). And I have no idea what you mean by "scare quotes." I quoted Connie accurately, and anyone who was present Wednesday evening knows that I hardly distorted the thrust of her comments. They were impossible to further distort.

[James Nicola]

Just for the record. "Connie" was NOT a "plant."

NYTW had invited several special guests for the evening, but Connie was not amongst them.

We invited our guests to, hopefully, enhance the discussion, NOT to try and push the conversation in any direction.

[Jason Grote]

Jeremy Gerard: a fine journalist AND a prince of a guy!

[Edward Einhorn]

I wrote about this evening on my blog...I certainly believe James Nicola when he says "Connie" (was that her name?) was not a plant. But Flanders clear objective was to push people towards a certain point of view (her own) and I think her obvious lack of neutrality, I think, encouraged that sort of paranoia. The people she identified as special guests all came from a very anti-Israeli point of view. I think that there's nothing wrong about hearing from all points of view, but I think when one as an audience member feels the cards are stacked, it works against a free and open discussion. The moderator's job, in my opinion, is to be neutral (or at least convince the audience that he/she is listening to all sides), and if there are special guests, they should come with a balance of opinions.