Community Magazine August 2017

48 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Bias Against Israel Israel, too, receives unkind media bias on a daily basis. It’s no secret that various media outlets compete for who can bash Israel the hardest. The glaring misrepresentations, reckless reporting, lies of omission, and agenda-driven coverage has no limits. Inmid-June an original BBC report was published under the title: “Three Palestinians Killed After Deadly Stabbing in Jerusalem.” The problem is that the real story is this: Those three Palestinians were armed with knives and automatic weaponry. They carried out two attacks near Damascus Gate, and were neutralized as they tried to harm Israeli policemen. Staff Sgt. Maj. Hadas Malka was knifed to death in the altercation. But the focus then was only on the fact that three Palestinians had been killed. When an uproar ensued over the mischaracterization of events, BBC issued this ‘apology:’ “We accept that our original headline did not appropriately reflect the nature of the events and subsequently changed it. [The headline was later changed to “Israeli policewoman stabbed to death in Jerusalem.] Whilst there was no intention to mislead our audiences, we regret any offense caused.” On May 25, Washington Post journalists William Booth and Sufian Taha wrote a piece called “A Palestinian’s Daily Commute Through an Israeli Checkpoint.” This long feature highlighted the struggles of Palestinians who commute to Israel for work. It told a harrowing tale of tedious checkpoints, scrutiny, and suspicion, filled with emotional and angry contributions by local Palestinians, who are frustrated and tired of the situation. However, the piece contained zero contribution from Israeli officials, security experts, or checkpoint workers. There is no sense of balanced reporting. The overarching implication was that Israel maintains such vigilance just to be mean, when, in fact, there is hard evidence that these checkpoints save lives. Another example can be found in a May 18th New York Times article by Ian Fisher. Headlined, “Israeli Fires on Palestinian Protesters in theWest Bank, Killing One," the title conveniently leaves out that these ‘protestors’ were attacking IDF personnel and Israeli civilians with rocks. The lack of context makes the Israelis seem violent, unreasonable, and barbaric – when, in fact, they were simply trying to protect themselves. Putting Things In Perspective Has the mainstream media lost its credibility? On tight deadlines, it’s easy to make understandable errors, commit the occasional oversight, and miss a fact or two. Every media outlet has had its fair share of corrected stories. To tar the entire media industry with the same brush of “mistrust” or “bias” could be unfair. What’s important is to distinguish a mistake from an injustice, an inaccuracy from a bias. When a media organization makes a disproportionably high number of misrepresentations or omissions, and when those errors in reporting seem intentional, that’s when we can say that credibility has been lost. Dave Gordon can be reached at dave@landmarkreport.com “ …IN THE 18-39 AGE BRACKET, ONLY A THIRD OF THE PEOPLE POLLED SAID THEY TRUSTED THE MEDIA. ” American’s Confidence In Newspapers At New Low According to a Gallup Poll conducted in June 2016, 36% of Americans have a low level of confidence in newspapers. Only 20% think highly of them. % very little/None % A great deal/Quite a lot