Israel offensive launched - 8 July 2014
'Operation Protective Edge'
"Media coverage
Portrayals of the conflict have varied in different media outlets. In the English-speaking world, U.S. news sources were often more sympathetic to Israel, though commentators on both sides have stated that U.S. coverage of the conflict has failed to adequately provide context and background for the public to understand the issues involved. Commentators on both sides have also claimed that the media is biased either for or against Israel. British sources were more often critical of Israel. As the conflict progressed and Palestinian deaths increased, media became somewhat more critical of Israel.
ABC News received criticism when Diane Sawyer misidentified photos of rubble in Gaza as being in Israel. The progressive media criticism organization FAIR said that the mistake reflected a worldview in American media and a "false balance" between the two sides of the conflict, when in fact many more Palestinians have suffered than Israelis. Sawyer later apologized on-air for the error.
Investigative reporter Judith Miller criticized US media, and her former employer The New York Times in particular, for being unsympathetic to Israel and downplaying the context of the kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers.
Criticism of the BBC's coverage
In The Guardian, Owen Jones called the BBC's headline "Israel under renewed Hamas attack", "perverse as Mike Tyson punching a toddler, followed by a headline claiming that the child spat at him", and that "the macabre truth is that Israeli life is deemed by the Western media to be worth more than a Palestinian life".
In London, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, hundreds protested outside the BBC's offices accusing the corporation of "pro-Israeli bias" in its coverage of the ongoing conflict. It claimed that news coverage was "entirely devoid of context or background". An open letter to BBC director signed by 45,000 people including Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Ken Loach, Brian Eno and Jeremy Hardy said it would "like to remind the BBC that Gaza is under Israeli occupation and siege [and] that Israel is bombing a refugee population". The BBC has defended its coverage.
Building on research by the Glasgow University Media Group that examined the media coverage of recent Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Greg Philo, research director of the university’s media unit, described how senior BBC journalists have spoken to him about being unable to get the Palestinian viewpoint across.
Social media
In the eight days leading up to Operation Protective Edge, the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack was used over 375,000 times. Often the hashtag was used on tweets using photos that claimed to show how the people are suffering due to Israeli attacks. A BBC study showed that in some cases these photos were from previous Israeli attacks, or from wars in Syria and Iraq.
A false report circulated on social media and via SMS that a rocket from Gaza had hit a petrochemical plant in Haifa. These reports cited Haaretz as their source, but turned out to be false. Haaretz denies having issued such warnings.
A photograph published by Danish journalist Allan Sørensen on Twitter caused uproar online, gathering more than 8,500 retweets. It allegedly shows Israelis in Sderot gathered on top of a hill to celebrate and cheer as they watched Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. People reportedly brought chairs, sofas, popcorn, and hookahs with them. The scene was described as "something resembling a party". Similarly, according to The Jerusalem Post, Palestinians in Hebron cheered as Gazan rockets were fired at Tel Aviv."
SOURCE - Wikipedia - here.
------------------------------------------------
COMMENT
Hmmm... the BBC is at it again.
So check out what they've got to say -- and then look elsewhere to see what's going on.
Western media is HUGELY biased -- and it's not just limited to the situation in Gaza.
Follow up on Greg Philo (University of Glasgow Media Group):
--------------------------------------------------------
...extract below...
Mishal Husain (MH): ‘Are the protesters right? Have we been biased at the BBC in favour of Israel?’--------------------------------------------------------
Greg Philo: ‘I think actually the protesters are doing the BBC a favour. I think they will help the journalists to give a better perspective.
‘I’ve had many senior journalists at the BBC saying they simply can’t get the Palestinian viewpoint across, that the perspective they can’t say is the Palestinian view that Israel is a brutal apartheid state.’
MH: ‘As you watch news coverage on the BBC and other broadcasters, what’s the full picture you get of the coverage of this conflict?’
GP: ‘Well, the Palestinian perspective is just not there. The Israelis are on twice as much. But the Palestinian view and the historical analysis of the events is that they were displaced from their land, they are living under military rule.
‘People don’t even understand that it’s a military occupation that Palestinians are subject to. They don’t know about the economic blockade, they don’t know about the consequences of that on Palestinian life.”
MH: ‘We have, and we do have, many reports from Gaza…reporting on the casualties, reporting from the morgues.’
GP: ‘ The issue is the roots of the conflict. The problem with the coverage is that it doesn’t refer to the history of it. That the Palestinians are a displaced people, that they were forced to flee, that they lost their homes and lands, that the occupation and the way it is conducted is illegal, that they lose their water, that they had their lives, in effect, stolen from them.
‘Even if the BBC can’t give the Palestinian view, it should at least respect international law. The BBC should be reporting the international judgements on things like the Wall.’
…’Unless there’s a proper discussion of the root causes of this, unless the politicians are made to confront the history of this and confront seriously the conditions under which are they are reduced, unless they understand and are made to confront the history of it – the displacement of a people – until the politicians face that, how can we have a proper debate?’
...continued @ source...
SOURCE - Palestine Solidarity Campaign - here.
If you're interested in supporting Palestine Solidarity Campaign - the support link is - here.
