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CONCLUSION
The chronological review of “THE HARTFORD COURANT COVERAGE OF THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT” reveals a repetitive theme of flawed or biased reporting. To have a “leaning” [Webster] or “inclination” [Webster] is a human trait and an acceptable form of bias when presenting opinion in a fair and accurate manner. However, journalists that report on news events have a responsibility to restrain their inclination [bias] and report news objectively. Writers that intentionally utilize techniques to distort the truth is a “prejudicial” [Webster] form of bias – and unacceptable. Bias reporting can be unintentional when the journalist is uninformed or if it is simply an oversight. In either case, truth is damaged. A biased article can be subtle and relatively benign. But when repeated frequently will be accepted as truth, particularly by uninformed readers or casual scanners.
Flawed/biased reporting in the four month review was primarily found in news articles. Since the Courant does not maintain a foreign news staff, news events are selected from a wide range of wire services. Although the wire desk staff does not write news articles, they select the wire service story and photos, edit, create headlines, and determine the size and placement of the article. There are understandable difficulties that wire service editors have in meeting deadlines in a tense newsroom environment. But the responsibility for selecting fair and objective wire service news articles clearly rests where the “buck stops” – at the Courant’s wire service desk.
Flawed/biased news reporting was a repetitive feature. A terrorist who deliberately and indiscriminately kills innocent people was often described as a “militant” or a “gunman.” This usage creates a false and sanitized image of a murderer. A gunman – “a man armed with a gun – an armed gangster” [Webster], targets specific individuals such as members of other gangs or robbery victims. A militant is someone “serving as a soldier – combative – ready and willing to fight” [Webster]. The Webster dictionary definitions of militants and gunman do not remotely resemble the meaning of a terrorist. In an article that appeared in the Courant on January 8, 2002, the Al-Badr training camp in Afghanistan was referred to as “harboring terrorist militants.” The appropriate words, “terrorist militant,” have not been seen in the Courant articles describing terrorists that target innocent Israeli civilians.
Many news articles were found to be unbalanced. Palestinian positions were often not balanced with an appropriate Israeli rebuttal or response. Death counts almost always separately list the numbers of Israelis and Palestinians killed. In the absence of an explanation of separate listings, it would appear that the purpose of the comparison is to create a distorted image that Israel is the aggressor. When this distortion is combined with terms such as “excessive” and “provocative,” it clearly implies that Israel is responsible for the violence. There was no mention in the context of the number of Palestinian and Israelis killed since September 2000, that it was Arafat who initiated the lethal violence after Camp David. Nor was there mention that most of the Palestinians killed were terrorists and their organizers, or militants killed during exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers. Unfortunately, since terrorists live and operate in residential areas, innocent Palestinian civilians were also killed. When identifying the number of Israelis killed, there is no mention that the deliberate murder of innocent civilians and the exchange of fire between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers who are defending their people against terrorist attacks, account for the total Israeli death count.
During the recent two month bombing operation in Afghanistan of America’s War on Terrorism, 1000 to 1500 innocent civilians were regretfully killed. Rightfully, there were virtually no condemnations of “excessive” or “provocative” action. Nor were there deceptive death number comparisons, with its implied aggressive label.
Palestinian terrorist attacks, that are followed by an Israeli response, followed by a terrorist attack. . .and so on, were frequently described in news articles as “cycles of violence,” casting blame equally on both sides. Rarely, if ever, was there mention that the initiator of each “cycle of violence” is the terrorist who murders innocent civilians and that Israel has an absolute and unequivocal right to defend its people.
News articles have falsely identified areas of the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinian towns rather than Palestinian controlled towns that they are. References were often made to the 1967 war and that Israel conquered, seized, or captured the West Bank and Gaza. Rarely, if ever, was there mention that the 1967 war was a defensive war, or was there an explanation of the historical events that led to the capture (not conquered or seized) and the subsequent control of the territories.
In reporting the Palestinian position, that their grievance is Israel’s occupation of their land, rarely, if ever, was there an Israeli response to their alleged grievance that, in fact, a Palestinian state on virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza was offered by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The offer that would have eliminated the “occupation” was rejected by Arafat. Nor was there mention that “occupation” for many Palestinians, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and other Palestinian groups, is not limited to the West Bank and Gaza, but includes all of Israel. In 1993, the day that the Israel-PLO accords were signed, Arafat spoke on Jordanian television, assuring his people that the PLO’s 1974 “phased plan” calling for Israeli’s destruction is still intact. In 1995, in a speech in Johannesburg, Arafat compared the Oslo accords to Mohammed’s peace agreement with the Meccans, which he broke two years later when, militarily stronger, he attacked and conquered the city. Again in 1996, at a speech in Stockholm, Arafat said, “You see we are planning to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. . .”
The frequent omissions in reporting the above events has egregiously distorted the truth.
In editorials, OP-EDs, and commentary, opinion that is inclined to be biased is acceptable, provided the fundamentals of flawed/biased reporting, such as inaccuracies, omissions, distortions, etc. are not violated. In our review of opinion articles, only glaring violations were analyzed. Many were intensely prejudicial.
News articles in the New York Times and the Hartford Courant were often reviewed in parallel. Numerous newsworthy items that appeared in the Times reflecting positively for Israel and negatively for the Palestinians were not reported in the Courant. At other times, there was simply no Israeli-Palestinian conflict coverage at all that day. Although some variation of coverage between journalists is expected, given the multitude of wire services available to the Courant, the frequency of the omissions on those days is troubling.
During the development of the four month report, several unedited wire service news articles were obtained and compared with the Courant’s edited version. The following disturbing differences were noted:
On July 10 Greg Myre of the Associated Press reported:
The Courant deleted Israel’s explanation as to why they were bulldozed and the fact that the structures were abandoned.
The Courant deleted the entire last sentence, that three Israeli soldiers were injured, noting only the Palestinian injuries.
“There was an immediate need to defend the soldiers,” the army said in a release.
The Courant deleted “the army said” in the first sentence and the entire second sentence, substituting its own erroneous version: “The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the incursion.” In fact, the deleted portion explains the reason for the incursion – a critical element of the news article.
On July 11, the New York Times reported on the same event, of Israel’s bulldozing homes in the Rafah refugee camp of Gaza. The article stated, “the demolitions, coming after what the army said were stepped up gunfire and grenade and bomb attacks on soldiers patrolling the border. . .”
This statement further reinforces the importance of including the reason for the incursion, and raises a troublesome concern as to why it was deleted from the Associated Press wire service report and replaced with the Courant’s erroneous version.
On August 5, the Associated Press reported:
The Courant deleted the portion of the wire service that explains why the target was not Barghouti but one of the bodyguards responsible for several attacks against Israelis. The absence of any reason for the missile attack, particularly against a prominent Palestinian leader, creates an egregiously false impression that Israel is now indiscriminately targeting political leaders, not just terrorists.
On August 14 the Los Angeles Times reported:
• The Israeli army issued a statement saying it had acted in response to “terror attacks,” including a suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 16 people.
The army said its troops did not return fire during their four hours in Jenin, in an effort to avoid hurting civilians.
Incursions are unavoidable because the Palestinian Authority has done little to prevent attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers.
Palestinians reported – Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers, backed by infantry had ringed Jenin. Israeli sources said – the tight blockade on the town is an effort to keep would be bombers from infiltrating Israel.
All of the above Israeli explanations that are critical for a better understanding of the reasons for Israel’s actions were deleted from the Courant’s edited version of the Los Angeles Times wire service report.
On August 26, E.A. Torrero of the Chicago Tribune reported:
The Courant deleted the reference to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade’s link to Arafat’s Fatah movement that claimed responsibility for the attack. Deleting the information that Arafat is linked to terrorism, denies the reader an important insight to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hindsight speaks with clarity. The brutal September 11 terrorist attack on our nation has removed the smokescreen from the evils of global terrorism. It is beginning to lift the burden of the “double standard,” one for good terrorists and the other for bad terrorists, that have plagued Israel’s war on terrorism.
There is one article in the comprehensive four month report that rises above all others, “AMY AND THE JEWS,” that appeared in the Northeast section of the Courant on July 15, 2001. The commentary revealed a disturbing element in the Courant’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the Jewish element.
From Colin McEnroe’s pen:
From Amy Pagnozzi’s pen as recapped by Ethan Felson:
The words are chilling. At best, it reflects an underlying, perhaps subconscious anti-Semitism.
The media is the communication link between the world and the public. It possesses enormous power in molding public opinion that steers public policy. Out of this concern and recognizing the awesome power of the media, the Society of Professional Journalists developed a “Code of Ethics,” that states in part: