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The Coverage--and Non-Coverage--of Israel-Palestine
Our findings are disturbingly decisive as they reveal a pervasive pattern of distortion. For every time period, for every news source, for every category except one, one population’s deaths were covered at significantly higher rates than the other—in one case 13 times greater. The favored population was the Israeli one. We found that the only category in which Palestinian deaths were reported at similar rates to Israeli deaths was cumulative reports—“200 Palestinians/Israelis have been killed”—and this only during the first months of the first year. After that, even cumulative reports disproportionately covered Israeli deaths over Palestinian deaths. In addition, we were startled to find that not only was daily reporting profoundly skewed, but that in 2004 not a single network even once reported the kind of full, two-sided cumulative report one would expect to be a regular feature of news coverage: the number of people killed among both populations since the intifada had begun. Let us look at what was going on, and then at how this was reported. In the first year of the current uprising, Sept. 29, 2000 to Sept. 28, 2001, 165 Israelis and 549 Palestinians were killed. In 2004—a period that the media reported as a period of decreased violence—107 Israelis were killed and 821 Palestinians. In other words, the media were using a highly Israeli-centric index for measuring calm/violence. As I will show later, this is common. This pattern was found to be even greater for children killed in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. In the first year, 28 Israeli children and 131 Palestinian children were killed. In 2004, eight Israeli children and 176 Palestinian children were killed. In other words, during our second study period, over 22 times more Palestinian children were killed than Israeli children. Many people have reverse impressions of these death rates and of their trends. Perhaps even more significant, many Americans believe the chronology of deaths in this conflict to be the opposite of its reality. A survey two years after the intifada had begun found that 90 percent of respondents either had no idea which children were killed first in the conflict or thought them to be Israeli children, despite the fact that at least 82 Palestinian children were killed before a single Israeli child—and that this killing of Palestinian children had gone on for three and a half months before a single loss of life occurred among Israeli children. The single largest cause of these Palestinian deaths was gunfire to the head. Our studies show why so many Americans have such diametrically incorrect impressions. In the first year of coverage, The New York Times headlines and first paragraphs reported on Israeli deaths at a rate almost three times greater than Palestinian deaths. This 2.8 to one ratio was the closest to parity that we found in all of our studies. Perhaps that is why some pro-Israeli groups allege that the Times is “pro-Palestinian.” ABC, CBS, and NBC covered Israeli deaths at rates 3.1, 3.8, and 4.0 times greater, respectively, than they covered Palestinian deaths. What does this mean for people who relied on these sources for their understanding of the conflict? One of the most noteworthy aspects of this type of coverage is that it creates an illusion that roughly the same number of Israelis and Palestinians have died in the conflict: all of the media outlets reported similar numbers of deaths on both sides. ABC reported on 305 Israeli deaths and 327 Palestinian deaths. The Times reported on 197 Israeli deaths and 233 Palestinian deaths in headlines and first paragraphs. CBS and NBC both reported on more Israeli deaths than Palestinian deaths. Hence, they were all giving the impression of balanced coverage of a balanced violence during a time when 3.3 times more Palestinians were being killed. For children, the disparity in coverage was even larger for all four outlets. The New York Times reported prominently on Israeli children’s deaths at a rate almost 7 times greater than Palestinian children’s deaths. Significantly, we found that while the number of New York Times prominent reports on Israeli children’s deaths, through follow-up stories, exceeded 100%, prominent reports on Palestinian children’s deaths represented a small fraction of the number actually killed. As a result, Times’s coverage gave the impression that more Israeli children were killed than Palestinian children during a time when 4.7 more Palestinian children were actually killed. Most of the networks were even worse: ABC reported Israeli children’s deaths at a rate 13.8 times greater than Palestinian children’s deaths, CBS at a rate 6.4 times greater, and NBC at a rate 12.4 times greater. Again, we saw a pattern among the networks in which there were numerous follow-up stories on Israeli deaths, while only a small fraction of Palestinian deaths were being similarly covered: In 2004, these distortions were amplified. The New York Times reported prominently on overall Israeli deaths at a rate 3.7 times greater than Palestinian deaths, and on Israeli children’s deaths at a rate 7.5 times greater than Palestinian children’s deaths. ABC, CBS, and NBC reported Israeli children’s deaths at rates 9.0, 12.8, and 9.9 times greater, respectively, than Palestinian children’s deaths. A chronological graph of actual and reported deaths can be found on our website www.ifamericansknew.org. In all four news outlets (The New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC) for both years of study, Palestinian deaths were reported along a curve that closely resembled the Israeli death rate, when in reality the actual curve for Palestinian deaths is far higher and slopes upward far sooner. This provides a striking illustration of the difference between the reality, in which deaths are heavily concentrated on one side, and the impression created in the major American media of a balanced conflict.
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