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The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 2, January 02-January 15, 2009

Media Bias Propaganda?

The Jerusalem Post argues that the independent Western media is running biased coverage of the Israeli government’s attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Tal Samuel-Azran, a communications researcher at Ben-Gurion University, says, "‘Alternative’ media in the West, particularly in the United States, have become a hub for the Arab or Muslim perspective on the region's conflicts, a perspective that is not shared or regularly represented by the mainstream media."

Reporter Haviv Rettig Gur writes that "relatively few civilian casualties" in the attack do not warrant the attention the American independent media has given to images of carnage. As of January 14, the Palestinian death toll is near one thousand, according to NPR.

Samuel-Azran says that the major American networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN) view Al-Jazeera as being "more like Fox, pushing a specific perspective."

Fox’s own commentator Mike Gallagher, for instance, says in an editorial on TownHall.com, "[The Daily Show’s] Jon Stewart, and others like him, should be ashamed of themselves. No right-minded, clear-thinking American should waiver in supporting Israel in its current battle with Hamas."

Yet outside the mainstream, Samuel-Azran argues, "There is a kind of connection or coalition developing between alternative media in the West and the large Arab networks [that is] born of necessity." He says that Al-Jazeera’s more graphic images feed the Western desire for more details beyond what the large networks tend to air, "particularly in countries such as Australia and Britain where Al-Jazeera is seen in a better light than the US."

Israeli officials who speak Arabic have been insistent in promoting the attacks on Israel, according to AntiWar.com. For instance, Tzipi Livni and Israeli Captain Avichai Adarai both asserted that Al-Jazeera’s broadcasts have not given equal time to Israeli suffering.

As reported in the Lebanese Daily Star, Arabs face stereotyping and biased coverage more often, and have less of an organized voice to counter this phenomenon.

Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi founded the Arab Media Watch (AMW) in 2000. He notes that all countries in the Middle East face image problems. However, while there are numerous Jewish and Zionist groups designed to counter anti-Jewish stereotypes and slant (such as the Middle East Media Research Institute) there were none in Britain when he formed AMW.

Nashashibi argues that this bias impacts world affairs and has been pervasive, particularly against Arabs. "I don't think any other people in modern history have been stereotyped for so long," he told the Daily Star. "These stereotypes don't just affect Western foreign policy but also Arab communities in the West. If you want to improve the situation, you need to improve the media, which has the power to change people's opinions."

Jeffrey Fleishman writes in the Los Angeles Times that Arab media portrayal of Palestinians is a "cinéma vérité of the underdog, an erratic landscape of martyrs and heroes and boys hurling white rocks at the enemy invader."

Fleishman writes, "Al-Jazeera and other Arab media outlets have grown more objective in reporting in recent years, but when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, balanced coverage is often outweighed by pathos and narratives of funeral corteges proceeding amid the sounds of explosions."

Fleishman comments however that Israeli and American figures are not the only ones mocked in the Arab press. Arab leaders, such as Egypt’s President Mubarak, receive criticism for keeping the Egyptian border closed to those fleeing Gaza.

Editor and Publisher (E&P) observes a lack of criticism from American media, particularly the New York Times. In addition to this noted absence of anti-invasion columns, the paper ran a decidedly pro-invasion column by William Kristol. The lack of coverage leading up to the inevitable invasion, E&P argues, would make any condemnation, however muted, too little too late.

Electronic Intifada reporter Shervan Sardar writes that the newspapers merely echoed the official American government line. "In the first three days of the Israeli offensive from 28-30 December, editorials and op-eds from five major US papers overwhelmingly adopted the official US and Israeli government talking points on the conflict - even where this version was clearly contradicted by the legal and historical record, widely available to the public."

Sardar adds that major newspapers’ editorial pages printed blatant inaccuracies. She deplores, "Overall, the commentary presented a disturbingly false and misleading picture of the conflict to the American public."

While the standard justification for Israel’s actions lies in Hamas rocket attacks, Sardar notes, "None of the media outlets examined Israeli fire on Palestinians in Gaza." A 2007 Human Rights Watch report entitled "Indiscriminate Fire" documented that Israel fired 14,617 artillery shells into Gaza compared to 2,700 fired into Israel.

Sardar adds that, "Writing in The Nation, United Nations Special Rapporteur Richard Falk explained that much of what was happening in Gaza could not credibly be called self-defense."