Hold the front page! UK media biased against Palestinians…
JVL Introduction
It will come as no surprise to our readers that much of the UK media is biased against Palestinians.
But how biased is still a shock.
This New Arab study focuses on four newspapers with a substantial readership: The Times, The Telegraph, The Sun and the Daily Mail, which play a significant role in shaping public opinion.
We should not overgeneralise from this study: the BBC and the Guardian in particular express bias in far more subtle ways as we have often had cause to remark (see links to further reading below the article).
Nothing in this article is unexpected, yet the overall effect is still deeply shocking. Your world-weary web editor, who thought he knew it all, is still appalled at the blatant partiality expressed in these newspapers.
RK
This article was originally published by the New Arab on Fri 22 Mar 2024. Read the original here.
In numbers: How UK right-wing media's pro-Israel Gaza war coverage dehumanises Palestinians
The New Arab’s research reveals how the UK media’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza is a case study in dehumanisation and war mongering.
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I’m disappointed they didn’t scrutinise the Guardian and BBC! The i newspaper and even Metro have not been too bad, and have good letters pages. Belatedly and cautiously Private Eye is stating the facts clearly, has rowed back on the satire and allowed the occasional letter in. ITV and Sky news have both been better than the BBC, unsurprisingly considering the government’s threats to the BBC’s licence fee. I frankly hate both BBC news and the Guardian at present, though I don’t want to enter a tunnel where I watch only Al Jazeera and read only JVL’s blog, however much I respect them both!
Even though it is not a paper, the BBC and their inherent bias in favour of the racist, apartheid, and now genocidal State of Israel, should also have been included because it is so influential.
We all know this instinctively from the mainstream media we read and listen to but it is very helpful to have it measured and analysed here. True these are only 4 publications but they are unlikely to differ much from others of their ilk, and their reach is wide.
I also find BBC bias desperately disappointing. Especially in programming such as Question Time. Every comment is prefaced with the words “Hammas, designated by the British government as a Terrorist organisation” never contextualised as the elected government of a brutalised population living under Apartied as bad as and possibly worse than The South African apartied in the 60’s. And totally imprisoned from which they escaped briefly on Oct 7th.
It is the ‘two sides to everything’ strategem that dominates all human discourse. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Yes, there are two sides to everything, viz. an informed side and an uninformed side. Noone should be entitled to comment seriously without having read at least two thirds of the relevant historiography, which comprises, at least (in alphabetical order) Blumenthal, Chomsky, Finkelstein, Greenstein, Khalidi, Pappe, Said, Shlaim.
Yes, anyone is perfectly entitled to call this a one-sided reading list, but they are then duty-bound to check and engage with the multiplicity of pertinent sources cited by the authors.