{"id":242894,"date":"2023-08-28T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T11:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=242894"},"modified":"2023-08-25T04:25:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T03:25:58","slug":"six-tropes-to-look-out-for-in-western-medias-distorted-palestine-israel-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/08\/six-tropes-to-look-out-for-in-western-medias-distorted-palestine-israel-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Tropes to Look Out for in Western Media’s Distorted Palestine\/Israel Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

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22 Aug 2023 –\u00a0 <\/em>\u201cThis is quite something,\u201d remarked Nadi Abusaada in a May 8 tweet<\/a>. As many<\/a> of us have done, the Palestinian academic found himself experimenting with the seemingly boundless powers of OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT software. But during this activity, he uncovered something disturbing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked @OpenAI whether Palestinians deserve to be free,\u201d he said. The natural-language processing tool responded to Abusaada\u2019s query ambivalently:<\/p>\n

As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions, feelings or beliefs. The question of whether Palestinians deserve to be free is a complex and controversial issue with many different perspectives and opinions\u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But then he posed the same question about Israelis. This time, the chat box did not equivocate:<\/p>\n

Yes, like all people, Israelis deserve to be free. Freedom is a fundamental human right that should be protected and guaranteed for all individuals, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity or religion. It is essential that Israelis, like all people, are able to live their lives free from violence, oppression and discrimination\u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cExplanation?\u201d demanded Abusaada.<\/p>\n

The explanation lies in the overarching attitudes of the 570 GB<\/a> of data that ChatGPT scrapes from the internet. And, with news media being one of the primary<\/a> sources of information that the bot is trained on, Abusaada\u2019s experience is hardly surprising.<\/p>\n

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Do Palestinians deserve to be free? \u201cA complex and controversial issue,\u201d says ChatGPT (Twitter, 5\/8\/23). Do Israelis deserve to be free? \u201cYes, like all people.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

To say that US news skews pro-Israel raises many an eyebrow, since the public has been conditioned to believe otherwise. With outlets like NPR<\/b> vilified<\/a> as \u201cNational Palestinian Radio\u201d and papers like the New York Times<\/b> castigated by pro-Israel watchdogs for lending \u201cthe Palestinian narrative\u201d undue credence (CAMERA<\/b>, 10\/15\/13<\/a>), the myth of pro-Palestine bias appears plausible.<\/p>\n

Yet such claims have<\/a> been<\/a> litigated<\/a>, and the verdict is plain: US corporate media lean in favor of Israel. As Abeer Al-Najjar (New Arab<\/b>, 7\/28\/22<\/a>) noted: \u201cThe framing, sourcing, selection of facts, and language choices used to report on Palestine\u2026often reveal systematic biases which distort the Palestinian struggle.\u201d Some trends are more ubiquitous than others, which is why it is vital that news readers become acquainted with the tropes that dominate coverage of the Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n

1. Where Are the Palestinians?<\/b><\/h2>\n
\"+972:<\/p>\n

From 1970 to 2019, the New York Times<\/strong> and Washington Post<\/strong> ran 5,739 opinion pieces about Palestinians. Just 1.4% of these were<\/em> by Palestinians (+972<\/strong>, 10\/2\/20<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In 2018, 416Labs, a Canadian research firm, analyzed<\/a> almost 100,000 news headlines published by five leading US publications between 1967 and 2017. The study revealed that major newspapers were four times more likely to run headlines from an Israeli government perspective, and 2.5 times more likely to cite Israeli sources over Palestinian ones. (This trend was further confirmed by Maha Nassar\u2014+972<\/b>, 10\/2\/20<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Owais Zaheer, an author of 416Labs\u2019 study told the Intercept<\/b> (1\/12\/19<\/a>) that his findings call attention to \u201cthe need to more critically evaluate the scope of coverage of the Israeli occupation and recognize that readers are getting, at best, a heavily filtered rendering of the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its media resource guide<\/a>, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA) counseled reporters: \u201cFormer US diplomats, Israeli military analysts and non-Palestinian Middle East commentators are not replacements for Palestinian voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exclusion of Palestinian voices from corporate media reporting does not stop at sourcing. For example, contrary to its pro-Israel critics, NPR<\/b>\u2019s correspondents are rarely Palestinian or Arab, and almost all reside in West Jerusalem or Israel proper (FAIR.org<\/b>, 4\/2\/18<\/a>). Editors also overlook obvious conflicts of interest, like when the son of the New York Times<\/b>\u2018 then\u2013Israel bureau chief Ethan Bronner joined the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) (Extra!<\/b>, 4\/10<\/a>).<\/p>\n

When Times<\/b> public editor Clark Hoyt (2\/6\/10<\/a>) acknowledged that readers aware of the son\u2019s role \u201ccould reasonably wonder how that would affect the father,\u201d Times<\/b> executive editor Bill Keller rejected<\/a> this advice, saying that having a child fighting for Israel gave Bronner \u201ca measure of sophistication about Israel and its adversaries that someone with no connections would lack,\u201d and might \u201cmake him even more tuned-in to the sensitivities of readers on both sides.\u201d It\u2019s hard to imagine Keller suggesting this if Bronner\u2019s son had, say, signed up with Hamas.<\/p>\n

\"Hirsh<\/p>\n

Hirsh Goodman, the Israeli spin doctor married to the New York Times<\/strong>\u2018 Jerusalem bureau chief.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Isabel Kershner, the current Jerusalem correspondent for the Times<\/b>, also had a son who enlisted in the IDF (Mondoweiss<\/b>, 10\/27\/14<\/a>). Moreover, her husband, Hirsh Goodman<\/a>, has worked at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) (FAIR.org<\/b>, 5\/1\/12<\/a>), where his job was<\/p>\n

shaping a positive image of Israel in the media. An examination of articles that Kershner has written or contributed to since 2009 reveals that she overwhelmingly relies on the INSS for think tank analysis about events in the region.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When establishment media outlets privilege<\/a> one narrative over another, public opinion is likely<\/a> to follow<\/a>. Thus, the suppression of alternative viewpoints is among today\u2019s most concerning media afflictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. Turning Assaults Into \u2018Clashes\u2019<\/b><\/h2>\n

Reporting on Israel\/Palestine often relies on a lexical toolbox designed for occlusion rather than clarity, \u201cclashes\u201d rather than \u201cassaults.\u201d Adam Johnson (FAIR.org<\/b>, 4\/9\/18<\/a>) explains that \u201cclash\u201d is \u201ca reporter\u2019s best friend when they want to describe violence without offending anyone in power\u2014in the words of George Orwell, \u2018to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WaPo:<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/strong>\u2018s headline (4\/6\/18<\/a>) obscures the fact that it is Israel\u2019s \u201clive fire\u201d and not Palestinians\u2019 \u201cburning tires\u201d that are deadly.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

FAIR has documented the abuse of \u201cclash\u201d in the Israeli\/Palestinian context time and time again: In 2018 Gaza, Israeli troops fired at unarmed protestors 100 meters away. No Israelis perished, but 30 Palestinians were murdered. That was not a \u201cclash,\u201d as establishment media would have you believe; that was a mass shooting (FAIR.org<\/strong>, 5\/1\/18<\/a>). During the funeral for Shireen Abu Akleh, the reporter who was assassinated by Israeli gunfire, the IDF beat mourners, charged at them with horses and batons, and deployed stun grenades and tear gas. The procession was so rocked by the attacks that they nearly dropped Abu Akleh\u2019s casket. That was not a clash, that was a senseless act of cruelty (FAIR.org<\/strong>, 7\/2\/22<\/a>). This summer, when Israeli forces raided the West Bank and stood by as illegal settlers arsoned homes, farmland and vehicles, that was not a \u201cclash\u201d; that was colonialism (FAIR.org<\/strong>,\u00a07\/6\/23<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The choice to use \u201cclash\u201d\u2014and other comparably hazy descriptors of regional violence, like \u201ctension,\u201d \u201cconflict\u201d and \u201cstrife\u201d\u2014is bad journalism. Such designations lack substance, disorient readers and above all spin a spurious storyline whereby Israelis and Palestinians inflict and withstand equivalent bloodshed. (According to the Israeli human rights group B\u2019Tselem<\/a>, 3,584 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli security forces since January 19, 2009, while 196 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians during the same period.)<\/p>\n

AMEJA\u2019s media resource guide reminds journalists that the occupation \u201cis not a conflict between states, but rather between Israel, which has one of the most advanced militaries in the world, and the Palestinians, who have no formal army.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when such a power imbalance is inadequately acknowledged<\/a>, \u201cclash\u201d and its misleading corollaries will not sound out of place, and readers will not have the context necessary to separate the perpetrators from the victims of violence.<\/p>\n

3. Linguistic Gymnastics<\/b><\/h2>\n
\"AP:<\/p>\n

Who killed the two Palestinians? AP<\/strong> (8\/4\/23<\/a>) structured its headline to conceal that information.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The passive voice\u2014or, as William Schneider describes<\/a> it, the \u201cpast exonerative\u201d tense\u2014is a grammatical construction that describes events without assigning responsibility<\/a>. Such sentence structures pervade coverage of the Israeli occupation.<\/p>\n

In her 2021 investigation<\/a> into coverage of the first and second intifadas, Holly M. Jackson identified disproportionate use of the passive voice\u2014i.e., \u201cthe man was bitten\u201d rather than \u201cthe dog bit the man\u201d\u2014as one of the defining linguistic features of New York Times<\/b> reporting on the uprisings. The Times<\/b> used the passive voice to talk about Palestinians twice as often as it did Israelis, which demonstrated the paper\u2019s \u201cclear patterns of bias against Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Jackson\u2019s study only examined New York Times<\/b> coverage during the intifadas, passive voice remains a common grammatical cop out\u2014still permeating national newspaper headlines in recent months:<\/p>\n