The American (Zionist) Media and “Relative Calm”
Written by Haitham Sabbah on 27. February 2005, 2025hrs // Part of Haitham Sabbah's adventure in Bleeding Edge, Failures, Israel, Media, USA // Other posts by Haitham Sabbah
The LA Times’ notion of “relative calm”
(Excerpt from an article on Electronic Intifada by Alison Weir - Executive Director of If Americans Knew)
The headline proclaims: “Palestinian Suicide bomber Shatters Calm of late.” The lead sentence then goes on to state that this bomber “shattered a months-long period of relative calm…”
The fact is, however, that the truce and this “calm” were shattered long before this. The last suicide bombing against Israeli civilians was Nov. 1, 2004. It took three Israeli lives. Since that time, while Israelis have basked in “relative calm,” 170 Palestinian men, women, and children have been killed.
In an analysis of Israel/Palestine media coverage conducted by “If Americans Knew”, a sample of two newspapers shows that the San Francisco Chronicle reported 150 percent of the deaths of Israeli children and only 5 percent of the deaths of Palestinian children. While the San Jose Mercury News reported 70 percent of Israeli deaths and only 3.6 percent of Palestinian deaths in front-page headlines.
An old report dated December 2001 by “fair.org” came to the same conclusion regarding national Public radio (NPR). The report said that it is 81 percent likelihood that an Israeli death would be reported on NPR, but only a 34 percent likelihood that a Palestinian death would be. Detailed report here.
How can the American (zionist) media explain (if there any other way to understand) why did it miss the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians?
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February 27th, 2005 at 9:43 pm
I disagree about what you said regarding NPR. I have been living in America for the last 6 years and I am a NPR addict. I listen to it 2-3 hours a day and their coverage never seazed to impress me as fair and objective.
I am not trying to defend the American media but I think that the survey is too general and missing an important fact ” the novelty factor in media”. The Novelty factor, which is in this case leans heavely toward the Israels casualities. If somebody dies in Fracne, a place where there is a relative calm then the accident will get a wide coverage in the media in comparrison to the same casuality in Baghdad, where audience excepts to hear about Iraqi or American casualities to be reported in daily basis.
It is the same with the 9/11 victims
February 28th, 2005 at 6:28 pm
I don’t have too many good things to say about mainstream American media either, but NPR is better than the rest. Of course it isn’t perfect and some programs are better than others, but compared to FOX, MSNBC, CNN, etc. it’s okay. Even good shows like Democracy Now could improve their coverage. It simply means, it’s up to all of us to keep digging for the truth and put it out there.
February 28th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
Dear Issam and sume. Thank you for your insight.
Please note that’s not what I have said. That’s what Fair.org said:
In case you missed it, the full report is here: http://www.fair.org/research/npr-israel.html
Keeping in mind that that report is old (Dec 2001), so it’s good to hear that they have improved.
March 2nd, 2005 at 1:20 pm
An interesting article in the same subject on Common Dreams.
For US Media, ‘Calm’ Means ‘Calm for Israel’ : http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0227-22.htm
March 2nd, 2005 at 1:57 pm
Thank you for the link, Yenayer.