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Media
bias in reporting Palestinian victims of Israeli terror,
As
submitted to the New York times, September 20, 2002
Editor
The
New York Times
New
York, NY
Dear
Editor:
Subject: Media bias against covering Palestinian victims of Israeli
terror.
On
quo, your paper joined many
US media outlets to quickly declare that two suicide bombings in
Israel on September 18 and 19, in which eight Israelis were killed, had
brought an end to a period of "calm" simply because there had
been no similar attacks for six weeks and few Israelis had been victims of
Palestinian violence.
The terrorist bombings occurred after an especially bloody period in which
69 Palestinians were killed by
Israel
occupation forces. In effect, the definition of "calm" or a
"lull in violence" inherent in these reports is “only
Palestinians are being killed”. It is utterly maddening that there is a
widespread tendency in the
US
media to simply ignore or marginally report on violence when its victims
are Palestinians, while making it "breaking news” by focusing intensely
on incidents when the victims are Israeli.
Your
editor gave a lame reason as an explanation for the disturbing and
persistent phenomenon of devaluing Palestinian life and death. It is
argued that since most
US
news organizations, for security and technical reasons, base their
reporters in Tel Aviv or west
Jerusalem
. By default and because of
Israel
media restrictions, reporters are rarely there to provide gavel to gavel
coverage on Palestinian victims of
Israel
terror. The truth is that this decision is based on deliberate structural
geographic bias.
I would argue that these geographical basing decisions in themselves may
reflect an inherent anti Palestinian bias:
Israel
lives are more important and newsworthy than anything else in the
conflict, including Palestinian lives.
Respectfully,
Aref
Assaf, Chairman, Media Committee
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