Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Another Who Thinks Like Me on Media Bias

My faithful veteran readers are aware of my efforts to spot, analyze and complain about media bias, of the foreign media and of the local Israel media regarding issues they seem incapable, from a personal, political and ideological perspective, to cover in a fair, balanced and informative manner.

So, here are excerpts from Barry Rubin on the issue:

It's Worse Than a Crime, It's Blundering Analysis

...The problem, as we see repeatedly, with much media coverage of issues involving Israel is the way the story is defined. There need not be any sense of bias by a reporter. Merely copying what other journalists do or from a specific ideological framework—not because reporters have preconceptions but because they make far less effort than in the past to balance them—leads to a conception of the story that is skewed.

...There is an attempt to present the issue as involving a number of aspects. Yet the article mixes two very different things: the situation between Israel and Hamas regarding Gaza, and prospects for a comprehensive peace...The words “rockets” or the phrase cross-border attacks do not appear in the article. There is no hint that Hamas aggression is the cause of conflict, nor that the fighting started because Hamas unilaterally rejected the existing truce (which it wasn’t enforcing any way). Equally, there is no mention that the issue is not just opening the borders but what is allowed to go across them, nor that there is some problem with rebuilding things in order to benefit a radical and repressive Islamist regime to keep it in power.
Thus the story is this: Israel attacked and destroyed Gaza, let’s have a truce so it can be rebuilt...

...Yet next comes a truly terrible and profoundly misleading sentence:

“Getting Hamas and Fatah to reconcile is also key to the success of U.S.-backed Mideast peace talks, as it's unlikely Israel would sign on to a deal if moderates are in control of just the West Bank while militants rule Gaza. The latest news from Egypt is that the Hamas-Fatah talks are not going well.”

Well, where to begin?...

...As always, there is no mention of a peace deal that would: end the conflict forever, bring full recognition of Israel, or provide Israel with security structures and guarantees. This is the standard practice of AP and a lot of the media. What Israel wants in a peace deal is never ever mentioned.
The rest of the article discusses the prisoner exchange using such phrases as “Israel's crushing economic blockade of Gaza” and “bloody Israeli military offensive in Gaza.” No criticism of Hamas; no mention of rockets; no mention of repression and executions of oppositionists in Gaza...

...Can people really be writing this kind of drivel, the slightest examination of which shows its absurdity? Can the AP and other news organs sneeringly reject any criticisms and assert that this is fair and balanced and good and accurate coverage?


But is this fair, balanced, accurate, and accurate coverage?


Read the entire articleme.

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