Biased Coverage
Recently, ‘The Intercept’ did a study and found that the US newspapers are biased in favor of Israel.
The Intercept analyzed the coverage of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times during the first six weeks of the Gaza war. They discovered that these newspapers consistently showed a bias against the Palestinians.
The report explained that these newspapers didn't pay much attention to the impact of the Israeli blockade and bombing on children and journalists in Gaza. Instead, they focused more on Israeli deaths and used emotional language to describe the killing of Israelis, while not doing the same for Palestinian deaths.
Accusations of Bias
People who support Palestine accused these newspapers of being biased towards Israel. They even protested in front of the New York Times headquarters. The analysis by The Intercept supported these accusations.
The Study
The Intercept collected over a thousand articles from these newspapers about the war in Gaza. They looked at how certain words were used and in what context.
Imbalance in Coverage
The study revealed a serious imbalance in how Israeli and pro-Israel figures were covered compared to Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices. This bias in the print media, combined with a similar survey of US television news, showed an even wider disparity.
The Risks
This biased coverage has consequences. It devalues Palestinian lives and makes it harder for people in the US to sympathize with them. With the US government supporting Israel, there are fewer political downsides to this biased coverage.
The main findings of The Intercept's study
Disproportionate Coverage of Deaths
The newspapers mentioned "Israeli" or "Israel" more often than "Palestinian" or related terms, even though more Palestinians died in the conflict. For every mention of a Palestinian death, there were 8 mentions of Israeli deaths.
Emotional Language
The Intercept found that highly emotional terms like "massacre" and "horrific" were mostly used to describe Israelis killed by Palestinians, not the other way around. The word "massacre" was used 60 times for Israelis and only 1 time for Palestinians.
Children and Journalists
The study also revealed that the newspapers rarely mentioned children and journalists in relation to Gaza. Even though many Palestinian children and journalists were killed, these terms were hardly used in the articles.
Gaza and Ukraine
While the war in Gaza was one of the bloodiest for journalists, most of them Palestinian, the newspapers only mentioned journalists in a few headlines. This shows a lack of focus on the impact on journalists in Gaza.
The Intercept's study showed that major American newspapers had a biased coverage of the Gaza war. This biased coverage can affect how people see the conflict and the lives of Palestinians.
