Tropes that distort Israel/Palestine coverage
JVL Introduction
Supporters of Israel claim that the media is biased in favour of the Palestinians.
Fair (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) has produced an important analysis of how wide of the mark this claim is in the USA. The verdict is plain: US corporate media lean heavily in favour of Israel.
Here Lara-Nour Walton shows how bias operates in practice with examples from the New York Times, the Washington Post and more.
Starting with the virtual absence of Palestinian voices in the media (in fifty years just 1.4% of 5,739 opinion pieces in those two papers were by Palestinians), they
- strip Israeli forces of blame by describing “assaults” as neutral “clashes”, as part of a general policy of describing events without assigning responsibility;
- find Israeli deaths much more worthy of reporting than Palestinian ones;
- are incredibly reluctant to name Israel’s breaches of international law as such; and
- end up blaming Palestinians for their suffering and dispossession.
All these strategies are self-evidently employed in the UK and elsewhere as well…
RK
This article was originally published by Fair (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) on Tue 22 Aug 2023. Read the original here.
Six Tropes to Look Out for That Distort Israel/Palestine Coverage
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When I checked Chat GPT after reading the article, strangely, the answers it gave were the reverse of that claimed in the article. For Palestinians, it was unequivocally “Yes” – they deserve to be free. Not so for Israelis. After I asked, why the difference, Chat GPT amended its answers to an unequivocal “Yes” for both Israelis and Palestinians. You can change Chat GPT’s mind. I cannot question the rest of the article though.
I found this difficult to read, mumbling swear words most of the time. I was reminded time and again of the BBC’s reports on many an incident, they always report in a way that the the viewer with little knowledge will believe that Israel is under constant threat by aggressive Palestinians.
Palestinians have pathetic rockets, that rarely kill but when they do it’s headline news. Israel has Tanks, Warships, Fighter and Bomber Aircraft, HiTec Missiles and all the Armaments required for a long and protracted war with an opponent equally equipped. The Palestinians, I repeat have small pathetic rockets yet they are portrayed as the aggressors and the Israelis are just defending themselves. We should mention these facts often, in the hope that more people get to realise they are being lied to.