It is great news that Imam Anwar al Awlaki is teaching again after his long illegal and immoral incarceration in Yemen. This time Shaykh Anwar has gone all web 2.0 on us! He’s got a blog that he keeps updated and delivers some lectures via pal talk.
I have posted a few times about the bias reporting in the media and the effects certain words have on the general public. Interstingly, Arab Media Watch have just completed a very compelling report relating to British newspapers and their coverage of the Palestinain/Israeli conflict. Download pdf here
As you may have guessed, bias and unfair reporting isn’t just the domain of the BBC etc al, newspapers have been guilty of this major crime for years.
Whether people take notice of this report or not remains to be seen, but i for one, personally acknowledge its importance but more importantly the neccessity of these newspapers to answer some serious questions.
Below is a table comparing the usage of descriptive words between Palestinain attacks and Israeli attacks by major newspapers in the United Kingdom.
People in Europe and America are subjected to bias and whimsical news reporting. I don’t think i am writing out of place when i type that, because it is just so bloomin’ obvious and downright in our face.
If we consider the conflict in Occupied Palestine and notice how the media reports it, it would make you sick if you knew the full details. When a Palestinian dies it is reported as Palestinian “terrorist” or “militant” and that he “died”when the reality could be that he was a 14 year old boy throwing a stone and was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper.
When an Israeli dies it reaches front page news in papers and headline news all over the world and his death is referred to as “killed” or “murdered”
The reason i write this is i read on the BBC website the following:
It may not seem obvious to many but the psychology behind such reporting has a huge affect on people.
Notice how the deaths of three Israeli soldiers gets to be headline news, in bold and very prominent on the page.
Then notice, in a kind of, oh, by the way, four Hamas “militants” died too….
By placing the death of the Israeli’s in bold and in a prominent place on the website, it gives it importance and status and it tells us that it is something that we should care about. Then below in smaller, less prominent script we read about four Hamas brothers who were killed.
This may not be the perfect example of my point but when i read the report it did leave a nasty taste in my mouth. There is no context in much of the reporting, no mention that these battles are taking place on illegal occupied territory and there is absolutely no critical analysis of events. The only conclusion one can arrive at is that media organisations, like the BBC, support Israel and regard the death of an Israeli as more more important and more significant than the death of a Palestinian.
What else can you read into it? What other message can be read into it?
The video below describes how the media manipulates things and has a definite bias towards Israel.
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