Even after 20 years of dealing with the foreign press, I was disgusted to see the use BBC's Tim Franks made of the 15 hours he spent tasting the newest boutique Israeli wines, all produced in Yesha.
He asked each of the four winemakers with whom he spoke if their vineyards and wineries were not, in fact, just a political ploy to establish facts on the ground and grab land. Each of them replied that there are far better ways to grab land and that their vineyards and wineries are a tangible result of their love for the land and working the land as well as a passion for winemaking.
And, yet, of course, the slant of Franks' article is that the amazing, highly-ranked wines of Psagot, Gvaot, Tora, and Mt. Blessing, are a ploy to grab land from private Arabs. Conclusions from his investigation or pre-conceived notion...media bias?
He quotes Dror Etkes as saying that the vineyards grow on land taken from Arabs without mentioning that Etkes refuses to acknowledge state land as not being Arab lands. He ignores the fact that Arabs in these areas do not have a history of growing grapes or of winemaking when he quotes an elderly Arab as lamenting his withered vines.
Most people are not surprised to read such things at BBC. Their anti-Israel, pro-Arab bias is legendary. This particular article did inspire me to look around at what research has shown about media bias against Israel.
What is media bias? Media bias refers to the real and perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media, in the selection of which events and stories are reported and how they are covered.
A UCLA study, the University of California/Los Angeles hardly suspect for right-wing leanings, looked into the bias of the forerunners in the"news" world.
They reported that while the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.
These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.
"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."
Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.
One example of media bias was the Obama election. Media bias was claimed to be "more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history", by Time magazine's Mark Halperin.
"It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war," former CBS news political director Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."
"The greatest threat to America is not necessarily a recession, or another terrorist attack. The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias.” said said Rep. Lamar Smith (Texas) when he announced the creation of a new Media Fairness Caucus, telling NewsMax, “If the American people can’t get good information, can’t get the facts, and can’t make good decisions, then we simply don’t have a viable democracy.”
The Bias of Language
There often seems to be an unwarranted bias against Israel and in favor of Israel's opponents when covering events in the Middle East, a bias that ranges from blatant unfairness to much more subtle misrepresentation of Israel's situation.
Words are often chosen by reporters that bias the impression that news consumers will get from the account.
For example, Palestinian terrorist killers are called "activists" or "militants". An Israeli anti-terrorist military operation will be called an "invasion" or "incursion". The term "occupied territories" is almost always used to describe the West Bank and Gaza, even though under the Oslo peace process Israel has withdrawn so that over 90% of the Arab Palestinian population has been governed by the Palestinian Authority for years.
Even the nomenclature "West Bank" is misleading since that area that was historically Jewish Judea and Samaria until Jordan invaded and captured it during Israel's 1948 War of Independence.
News organizations and individuals have largely accepted the basic propaganda of the Palestinian Arabs.
They accept "facts" that are not facts, probably out of ignorance of the history of the region. They refer to the "Palestinian National Authority" even though no such institution exists (Yasser Arafat inserted the word 'National' with no official standing), they say Israel violates international law when no such law applies, they speak of crimes by Israel under the Fourth Geneva Convention even though this is a complete sham, they talk of Palestinian oppression and humiliation in the "occupied territories" even though most Palestinians were better off economically and politically before the Palestinian Authority took over in 1994. And they repeat the Palestinian version of the meaning of UN resolutions like Security Council Resolution 242, an interpretation that the authors of the resolutions have disputed.
More evidence that the media is biased against Israel from http://www.palestinefacts.org
"Journalists are supposed to be objective and independent, delivering reporting that is as close to the "real truth" as humanly possible. Journalists insist they belong to a profession that does just that. But, sadly, there often seems to be an unwarranted bias against Israel and in favor of Israel's opponents when covering events in the Middle East, a bias that ranges from blatant unfairness to much more subtle misrepresentation of Israel's situation.
This discussion does not include partisan publications that obviously advocate for one side or another. No one expects the Tehran Times (Iran) to have anything postive to say about Israel. Rather, the concern is with the elite media, the New York Times, CNN, and the BBC, among others, organizations that should represent the highest journalistic ethics but frequently fail to do so.
Some examples:
ABC's Nightline, in covering the March 27, 2002 suicide bombing in a Netanya hotel that had occurred just hours earlier, reduced the Israeli dead and wounded to mere statistics, while they gave Arab spokesmen free rein to portray the Palestinians as the real victims of terror attacks. Reporters rarely make clear that most Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism are innocent civilians, while most Palestinian casualties have been killed with weapons in their hands as a result of their participation in violence against Israel.
Andrea Koppel of CNN, in a report about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process which aired on October 16, 2000 said, "When Camp David ended without an agreement, Palestinian despair eventually led to violence." The reference to "dispair" implies little was offered by Israel at Camp David, when in fact most of the Palestinian demands were met. Reporters almost never ask Palestinian representatives, "Why did you resort to terror when an agreement was so close?" They rarely mention that President Clinton blamed Yasser Arafat for the collapse of the Camp David talks.
These examples are only the tip of a massive iceberg of biased reporting against Israel. Reasons have been advanced for such media bias and the best explanation would seem to be some combination of the following factors, operating in a different mix in the case of each individual journalist:
A three-month investigation of the foreign press in Israel concluded that some foreign correspondents do impose their private sympathies on the news they report
Palestinian intimidation of journalists and manipulation of the journalistic process in the areas they control has been rampant, although not well reported. In March 2001, Marwan Barghouti, leader of the PA's Tanzim militia, warned outright that any Israeli journalist who entered PA areas would be killed. Since then, most Israeli journalists either stay home or make sure to be accompanied by well-connected Palestinians. In 2003, Dr. Riyad Al-Hassan, the director general of the PA State Information Service (SIS), admitted in an interview that newspapers and journalists can be subjected to, "Sometimes a little punishment, [laughter] sometimes."
Ignorance of history erases the context of events and makes it easy to accept bogus claims.
Palestinians are perceived as the underdog, skillfully portrayed that way by propagandists. "Children with rocks against Israeli tanks" is a popular image, ignoring the rifles, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, and more that are utilized against Israeli troops by Palestinian fighters lurking in the background.
The open, democratic Israeli society includes vibrant debate that uncovers weaknesses, failures and contradictions. Instead of seeing this as a strength, and a mirror of American values, the press often uses it against Israel. The autocratic, media-suppressed Palestinian Authority has been more successful in "controlling the message".
Because Israel is a western, secular, democratic society, the press and the public have higher expectations of Israel and therefore find fault more quickly when Israel is less than perfect.
Sources and additional reading on this topic:
Honest Reporting
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA)
The media and the Middle East
The Chicago Tribune as a Provocateur
CNN's Chain of Bias
What is bias?
Addressing Anti Israel Media Bias
European Media and Anti-Israel Bias
Media Bias Against Israel: Perception or Reality?
Media Bias and Israel
Media Bias
Exposing the Bias of the Associated Press
Stepping Out of the Ring
Bad News: Why Israel is losing the media war
Why are they saying all those terrible things about Israel?
Reporters Back Down From Jenin "Massacre" Reports
Why I won’t talk to the BBC
My Meeting With Dan Rather
Plus ca change ... Journalists fail to confront Lies against Israel
Why does the left support the Palestinians?
I was threatened by a Palestinian official for a story in the 'Post'
Department of Corrections
Back to the Future: NPR Rewrites Israel’s War of Independence
We Must End Media Bias Against Israel
Fix NPR
NPR: National Palestinian Radio
How Biased is NPR?
The Humanity Gap
Senior Palestinian Concedes Punishment of Journalists
All The News That’s Fit to Print? The New York Times and Israel.
Mis-reporting Palestinian Fatalities
