Thursday, January 16, 2014

Soars? Or Falls Flat?

An AP story is headlined so:





There is no balance in the story for three reasons.

One, almost all objective reporting on "West Bank violence", which would deal with both sides, is missing.

This is the only reference to the daily rock-throwing and the more than occasional violent damage done by Arabs to Jewish agricultural property, bot to mention the official Palestinian Authority incitement campaign:

More than 1,700 Palestinians were injured by settlers or by troops in clashes, while 324 settlers and 37 soldiers were hurt by Palestinians in confrontations.
Palestinians also initiate violence, including throwing stones at Israeli motorists. In 2011, Palestinians stabbed to death five members of a family, including three small children, in their settlement home as they slept.

The motorist - and his infant son - in one incident was killed, murdered. 

Jews are not even statistics or numbers in that section.

Second, Arabs are mentioned by name (Qusra resident Abdel Hakim Odeh. its Mayor Abdel Azim Wadi)

Not so the Jewish residents or their representatives:

The Yesha Council, an umbrella for more than 550,000 Israeli settlers, said it opposes violence and has distanced itself from price tag.Settler leaders portray the vandals as hotheads...

The IDF gets a name as does the police.  The Haaretz correspondent is named. A critical former IDF "West Bank" commander is named.  The Jewish residents are nameless.
  
Third, there is the UN's OCHA and Yesh Din is included in the story as references but no Israel/Jewish NGO.

I call that media bias.

Soaring bias.

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