From the horse’s mouth: For fear of\u00a0upsetting readers, the\u00a0paper silenced\u00a0any commentary\u00a0in the first days after the Paris attacks that might have suggested there was\u00a0a\u00a0causal relationship\u00a0between\u00a0western foreign policy in the Middle East and those events.<\/p>\n
Instead, writes the\u00a0Guardian reader’s editor Chris Elliott, the paper waited several days before\u00a0giving some limited space to that viewpoint:<\/p>\n
On the Opinion pages, one factor taken into consideration was timing \u2013 judging when readers would be willing to engage with an idea that in the first 24 hours after the attacks may have jarred. The idea that these horrific attacks have causes and that one of those causes may be the west\u2019s policies is something that in the immediate aftermath might inspire anger. Three days later, it\u2019s a point of view that should be heard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In other words, the liberal Guardian held off offering a counter-narrative about the attacks, and a deeply plausible one at that,\u00a0until popular opinion had hardened into a consensus manipulated by the rightwing media: “the terrorists hate us for our freedoms”, “we need to bomb them even harder”, “Islam is a religion of hatred” etc.<\/p>\n
Excluding legitimate analyses of profoundly important events like those in\u00a0Paris when they are most needed is not responsible, careful journalism. It is dangerous cowardice. It is most definitely not a politically neutral position. It provides\u00a0room for hatred and bigotry to take root, and allows political elites to exploit those debased emotions to justify and advance their own, invariably\u00a0destructive foreign policy agendas.<\/p>\n
In the paragraph above, Elliott happily\u00a0concedes\u00a0that this is the default position of mainstream liberal media like the Guardian.<\/p>\n