Bad News from Israel

Just came across this study about media coverage from the Glasgow University Media Group.

This is a study of TV new coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of how this coverage relates to the understanding, beliefs and attitudes of the television audience.

Here are some of their conclusions:

There is a preponderance of official ‘Israeli perspectives’, particularly on BBC 1, where Israelis were interviewed or reported over twice as much as Palestinians. On top of this, US politicians who support Israel were very strongly featured. They appeared more than politicians from any other country and twice as much as those from Britain.

In news reporting there was a tendency to present Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as vulnerable communities, rather than as having a role in imposing the occupation. But as the Israeli historian Avi Shlaim has written, they have a key military and strategic function. They have been built on hilltops to give a commanding position and their occupants are often heavily armed. The Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, has pointed to its role in attacking Palestinians in attempts to seize land. Most viewers knew very little of this - one describes his surprise at learning that the settlements controlled over 40% of the West Bank

This study provides an interesting contrast to people such as Melanie Phillips who argues strongly that the media in general, and the BBC in particular are biased against Israel. She responds to the claims of pro-Israel media coverage:

This is surely the media equivalent to saying that the sun revolves around the earth. It is a truly staggering conclusion, which appears to rest upon such things as the number of times Israelis are interviewed rather than Palestinians

Her counter argument does seem to be quite poor, and is based on the "argument from incredulity" (that Richard Dawkins says creationists use when dismissing evolution). It is essentially: "I can't believe that X is so, therefore it is not so".

She dismisses out of hand careful research showing that Israeli spokespeople are given twice as much air time as Palestian spokespeople on BBC1, saying: "It is a truly staggering conclusion, which appears to rest upon such things as the number of times Israelis are interviewed rather than Palestinians". She seems to imply that such things are trivial. Surely if one side in a conflict has twice as much air time as another in an allegedly neutral forum this demonstrates bias in favour of one group.

The full study is available here, and includes some excellent links and excerpts.