New York Times 6 Month Study

The New York Times: April-September 2007 - Summary of Findings:

• Balance: Despite an evenly balanced selection of stories on Israel and the Palestinians, the New York Times gave far more weight to Israeli military incidents in text location, headlines and photo selection than to Palestinian attacks. More than 60% of images sympathetic to one side or the other favored the Palestinians.
• Consistency: Israeli and Palestinian actions were not treated consistently in choice of language. Israel or the Israel Defense Forces were the subject of strongly worded, direct headlines in 18 out of 20 cases (90%). However, in the 20 cases where the Palestinians were responsible for attacks, the language was mostly passive and the group responsible was only named in eight instances (40%).
• Context and Accuracy: Inaccurate statements or important context that would give readers a fuller picture of news events was often omitted. Terms such as "militants", "occupied territory," and "illegal settlements" were used without providing a proper explanation.

Findings in Depth:

I. BALANCE:

An important indicator of bias, balance means the news source gave equal weight to conflicting claims over a period of time. Both subject matter and style are important factors in weighing bias.

During the time period under review (April 1 through September 30, 2007), we analyzed a total of 121 articles whose dominant focus dealt with Israel or the Palestinians, including 40 that focused on a violent attack or military action by Palestinian terrorist groups or the IDF. Some described events between Israel and Palestinian groups and others described internal Palestinian fighting. We found that reporting favored the Palestinian side through both text priority and selection of images.

Text Priority:

In articles that reported on violent actions, Israeli moves were almost always reported first, regardless of whether they occurred prior to or in response to a Palestinian attack. Only later -- lower down in the article -- was there mention of the cause of the Israeli action. By placing accounts of Israeli military actions before those of Palestinian attacks, the Israeli actions seem to lack justification.

For example, the article "8 Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza Kill at Least 7" opens with this paragraph and photograph:

Israel moved a small number of tanks and soldiers over the Gaza border and hit Hamas with eight airstrikes on Thursday and early Friday, killing at least seven Palestinians.

Only after this does the reader see:

Some 14 rockets fired by Hamas militants in Gaza on Thursday landed in Israel, 6 of them near Sderot, a border town, the Israeli Army said. The government bused some Sderot residents to hotels in what it called a respite, not an evacuation.

While the reporting is technically accurate, the fact that Hamas fired rockets at Gaza is overshadowed by the description of the Israeli response. In fact, 20 out of 24 articles describing fighting between Israel and the Palestinians lead with the Israeli action, regardless of which action took place first. This style of reporting gives the reader the impression that the Israeli military attacks occurred much more frequently than the Palestinian ones. In truth, during this time period, there were weekly (and often daily) actions by both sides. Although Palestinian casualties were higher, the number of rocket attacks against Israel was far greater than Israeli responses. Proper balance would have made this clear.   

Photographs:

Editors have many choices which photographs accompany news articles. We looked at the photographs that ran with the New York Times' articles and found that there seemed to be an inappropriate and unbalanced emphasis on either Palestinian suffering or Israeli military operations. The Sometimes the photos which accompanied the articles did not even feature the primary content of the article. For example, on May 17, the Times published "Unity Fractures as Palestinians Battle in Gaza." The primary thrust of the article described fighting between the Palestinian Hamas and Fatah organizations. Yet, the photo chosen to accompany the story showed an Israeli attack. 

For our study, we focused on images that clearly favored one side or the other. Images of Palestinian suffering or Israeli attacks favor the Palestinian side. Images of Israeli suffering or masked Palestinian terrorists encourage understanding of the Israeli perspective. Of the images showing one point of view or the other, over 60% were pictures that evoke more understanding or sympathy for the Palestinian side. The viewer thus gets the impression that there are far more Israeli military strikes against Palestinian civilians than Palestinian rocket attacks.

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Comments

[soccerdad]

Colossus of Rhodey e-mailed me about that top picture. Look towards the upper right hand corner. What do you see?

[Gail]

Hooray for Pallywood
That screwy, ballyhooey Pallywood,
Where any little boy or young al dura,
Can create a furor, (as long as a camera is on the scene)
Where any propaganda, can be turned into slanda
Against the Israelis!

Hooray for Pallywood
Where you're terrific, if you're even good,
Where anyone at all from Yassir Arafat,
To an Iranian theocrat is equally understood.
Go out and try your luck, you might be Donald Duck,
Hooray for Pallywood!

(Apologies to Johnny Mercer)