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Throughout our daily lives, events on a small and large scale occur. Important events that occur outside the parameters of our own worlds need a way to be reported back on; the role of media is therefore necessary. Reports and articles on paper, television, and online allow the dissemination of the news occurring outside of people’s personal lives. Consequently, due to people’s lack of capability to be all-knowing of what is occurring in the world, the reliability of those claiming to be reporting on the news is therefore essential. If news articles and reports contain distorted facts or biased language, the reader’s understanding of what is going on around them will be based on a false portrayal of reality. The danger with this is that subsequent responses to world events will be based on fiction, rather than fact.
The news delivered to consumers is authored by fellow opinionated individuals. The goal of complete neutrality is therefore almost impossible. However, a pattern of biased reporting in a news-oriented setting brings up the question of what is really going on behind the scenes. It also further questions the intentions of the reporter in the context of biased reporting. It is one thing if the reporter admits to his opinions, it’s another if he claims it’s factual.
In recent days, the Washington Post released a report titled “‘Tomorrow’s martyrs’: Inside a Palestinian militant cell in the West Bank”. The report was labeled ‘news’ in the “world” and “Middle East” sections of the newspaper. The piece reported on conditions and life in the Balata “Refugee Camp” where a terrorist organization of a branch of the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades is based in. The story focuses on an individual named Zoufi, who is a commander in the brigade.
The article claims that due to “no proper police force” existing in the camp, Zoufi is viewed as “an unlikely elder in the refugee camp.” Zoufi’s roles include settling internal disputes and directing many of their terrorist activities. The piece goes to the extent of portraying these “militants” as victims by saying, “The fighters, who inspire both fear and fealty, enjoy cultlike status in the camp. There are no sports teams here. Male unemployment is nearing 90 percent. With few role models of any kind, boys collect stickers, posters and necklaces bearing images of slain militants.” One of the brigade “fighters” remarked, “What else are they going to be, government ministers? The young ones take pictures with me. They say they want to be like me.”
Remember, these reporters are reporting on a terrorist organization that has been involved with numerous terror attacks in the past few decades, costing dozens of lives, including 5 lives last year in Tel Aviv! But for these reporters, labeling them as simply, innocent “militants/fighters” while portraying them as victims forced to fight for their existence in the face of unprovoked hostile attacks is considered unbiased news. These distorted facts, language, and biased style of reporting in a “news” section is once again another incident where the self-proclaimed media claims to be putting out a story totally unbiased.
In 2017, a student at George Mason University conducted a study on anti-Israel biased reporting in the media. The focus of her report was specifically based on over 400 articles written in a few mainstream media publications during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. In her report, she finds 77.5% of articles in the Associated Press, 58.2% in the New York Times, 49.5% in Reuters, and 42.8% of articles in the Washington Post were primarily based against Israel. The biased type of reporting included; biased wording, selective reporting, stylistic biased reporting, lack of discussion of terrorism caused by Palestinians, and a prime focus on Palestinian victims. The report advocates for more equal reporting in order to allow a more honest conversation in this historic conflict. The media, however, have allowed their own political interests to distort reality. This distortion of fact and reality has allowed for further division among the sides that disagree.
The media’s lack of respect for fact and unbiased reporting is a problem that infects society. Differing viewpoints will always be a reality, but the intensity of such disagreements will vary based on the amount of seriousness that sides feel. A major contribution to this is honesty or dishonesty in media outlets. The distortion of reality in Israel’s fight against active terrorist organizations, which are responsible for daily deadly attacks against citizens, is one of many examples where the media have injected their political propaganda into the global discussion. It is incumbent on news consumers and truth-seekers to therefore boycott organizations that synthesize fact and fiction!
