See Amnesty Report: Who Covers it, what does it say? and Will the US Media Report the Amnesty Story.

We are continuing to monitor the reaction to Amnesty’s report. In a sample technorati search, most right wing blogs seem to be focused on the New York Sun, and a call from NGOWatch to “Scrutinize Amnesty International”. The Sun reports that Amnesty is losing “the halo that surrounds its reports and campaigns is beginning to fray, as the evidence of political bias and inaccuracy mounts.”

Recently, the Economist, published in Britain, noted that “an organisation which devotes more pages in its annual report to human-rights abuses in Britain and America than those in Belarus and Saudi Arabia cannot expect to escape doubters’ scrutiny.” Other critics, including law professor at Harvard, Alan Dershowitz, and the U.S.-based Capital Research Center, have been more pointed, providing evidence of Amnesty’s systematic bias and reports based largely on claims by carefully selected “eyewitnesses” in Colombia, Gaza, and Lebanon.

The report, written by the executive director of NGO Monitor, Gerald Steinberg, concludes:

Given this situation, the time is long past due for ending the “halo effect” that surrounds powerful groups such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. Their reports should not be given automatic credibility by journalists, diplomats, academics, and individuals genuinely committed to the universality of human rights principles.

Thankfully, this piece was filed in the “Opinion” section of the New York Sun. Though Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch has the flaws that come with being a charity-based NGO, that does not diminish the facts that it publishes. The standard tactic of denial through debasement is employed by the right, rather than any form of discussion of the matter.

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