The American website The Intercept said, in a report published on Tuesday, January 9, 2024, that coverage of the war on Gaza by the American newspapers The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times revealed a consistent bias against the Palestinians, according to the findings of the American site’s analysis for major media coverage.

Major American newspapers focused disproportionately on Israeli deaths in the conflict, used emotional language when describing Israeli deaths rather than Palestinians, and provided unbalanced coverage of anti-Semitic activities within the United States, with a broad disregard for anti-Muslim racism in the wake of October 7. .

1000 articles

In addition, this open source analysis focuses on the first six weeks of the conflict, beginning with the Hamas attacks on October 7, and ending on November 24 with the beginning of the week-long “humanitarian truce.”

The Intercept collected more than 1,000 New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times articles about Israel's war in Gaza, then counted the number of times certain key terms were used and the context in which they were used. The statistics revealed a stark imbalance in the way Israelis and pro-Israel figures are covered, when compared to the way Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices are covered - with terms being used in a manner more biased towards Israeli narratives than Palestinian ones.

Coverage of the first six weeks of the war paints a bleak picture of the Palestinian side, according to the analysis, a picture that makes humanizing the Palestinians - and arousing American sympathy for them - a more difficult task.

To collect this data, all articles containing relevant words (such as “Palestinian,” “Gaza,” “Israeli,” etc.) were searched on the three news sites. Then, we analyzed each sentence that appeared in all the articles, then counted the number of times certain terms were used. All editorial articles and editor-in-chief letters were also removed for the purposes of this analysis.

In the survey process, four main results were reached.

Uneven coverage of deaths

The words "Israeli" and "Israel" appear more often than the word "Palestinian" in various forms in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, even though the numbers of Palestinian deaths far outnumber Israeli deaths. The Palestinians were mentioned once for every two Palestinians killed. While the Israelis were mentioned eight times for every Israeli killed - that is, 16 times more than the number of times a single Palestinian killed was mentioned.

The "massacre" is for Israelis only... not Palestinians

The use of highly emotional terms to describe the killing of civilians (such as “massacre,” “massacre,” and “horrific”) was limited almost exclusively to Israelis killed by Palestinians, and not the other way around. We removed from this analysis the instances in which these terms appeared in quotation marks because they were not included as part of the newspaper's editorial policy.

Editors and reporters used the term "massacre" to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians at a ratio of 60 to one, and they used the term "massacre" to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians at a ratio of 125 to one. They used the term "horrific" to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians at a ratio of 36 to 4.

Children and journalists

Only two headlines out of 1,100 news articles used the word “children” when referring to the children of Gaza. In a notable exception, the New York Times published a front-page story in late November reporting on the historic rate of killing of Palestinian women and children, but the headline did not mention either group.

Israel's war in Gaza is arguably the bloodiest war in modern history for children - almost all of whom are Palestinian -, but mention of the word "children" and other related terms was rare in the titles of articles reviewed by The Intercept.

The war on Gaza is also considered one of the bloodiest wars in modern history for journalists - the majority of whom are Palestinians - but the word “journalists” and its various forms such as “correspondents” and “photographers” appeared in only nine news headlines, out of 1,100. At least one article in this study. While Arab correspondents were mentioned in only 4 out of 9 articles containing the word journalist or correspondent.

Coverage of hate in the United States

Likewise, when it comes to translating the Gaza conflict into hate incidents within the United States, major newspapers have focused more on anti-Semitic attacks than on those targeting Muslims. There was a disproportionate focus on racism against Jews in general, compared to racism targeting Muslims, Arabs, or those who look like them. During the period of The Intercept's study, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times mentioned the term anti-Semitism more often than Islamophobia (by a ratio of 549 to 79).

When major newspapers fail

In general, it can be said that Israel's killings in Gaza do not receive coverage equivalent to the Israeli deaths on October 7, either in scope or emotional weight. The reported killings are often presented as abstract, high numbers without cause.

These killings are not described in emotional terms such as “massacre,” “slaughter,” or “horrific.” Hamas' killings of Israeli civilians are always described as part of the movement's strategy, while killings of Palestinian civilians are covered up as if they were a series of individual mistakes committed thousands of times, despite multiple evidence indicating Israel's intent to harm civilians and damage infrastructure. Civil infrastructure.

The result is that the three major newspapers rarely give Palestinians humanitarian coverage. Despite this disparity, opinion polls show Democratic sympathies toward the Palestinians and away from Israel, with huge gaps between generations resulting in part from the apparent difference in news sources.

Young people generally get their information about the conflict from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. While older Americans learn news from print media or cable news.

Biased coverage in major newspapers and popular channels affects public impressions of the war, directing viewers towards a distorted view of the conflict. This has resulted in “misinformation” on social networks being blamed for the spread of pro-Palestinian views, by pro-Israel pundits and politicians.

But an analysis of print newspapers and news channels shows that the media consumers who receive a distorted image are those who watch news through popular media in the United States.

Source: Arabic Post