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FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
ACTION ALERT:
In U.S. Media, Palestinians Attack, Israel Retaliates
April 4, 2002
The numbers will have risen by the time you read this, but more than 300
Israelis and 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the current
Intifada began in September 2000 (Boston Globe, 3/31/02). Thousands more
people have been injured.
U.S. media coverage of the conflict has been intense in recent weeks, as
the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) mounted a large-scale invasion of the
West Bank and Palestinian militants carried out several major suicide
bombings. Amnesty International (4/3/02) has condemned the targeting of
civilians by both sides, voicing concern over "flagrant human rights
abuses" by the IDF, including looting, mass detentions, the targeting of
medical personnel and possible extrajudicial executions. Israel has tried
to exclude the press from the entire area where the abuses are occurring;
the Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed alarm (4/2/02) over the
apparent targeting of reporters in "ongoing incidents in which IDF forces
have opened fire on, or in the direction of, journalists attempting to
cover events in the West Bank."
With thousands of lives at stake and reporters risking their own lives,
it's increasingly difficult-- but perhaps more urgent than ever-- to step
back and examine how U.S. media have framed the story. To this end, FAIR
has surveyed how the language of "retaliation" has been used on the
nightly news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC.
>From the start of the Intifada in September 2000 through March 17, 2002,
the three major networks' nightly news shows used some variation of the
word "retaliation" (retaliated, will retaliate, etc.) 150 times to
describe attacks in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. About 79 percent of
those references were to Israeli "retaliation" against Palestinians. Only
9 percent referred to Palestinian "retaliation" against Israelis.
(Approximately 12 percent were ambiguous or referred to both sides
simultaneously.) [Full data below.]
Both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict routinely present their
attacks as being retaliation for previous attacks or actions. Both sides
portray their struggle as essentially defensive. Whether one regards these
justifications as credible explanations or self-serving rhetoric, the fact
is that reporters make choices about whether to report them. The network
news shows have characterized Israeli violence as "retaliation" almost
nine times more often than Palestinian violence.
This disparity is meaningful. The term "retaliation" suggests a defensive
stance undertaken in response to someone else's aggression. It also lays
responsibility for the cycle of violence at the doorstep of the party
being "retaliated" against, since they presumably initiated the conflict.
Among the three major networks, ABC's World News Tonight was the closest
to being balanced, with 64 percent of its uses of "retaliation" referring
to Israeli actions and 21 percent to Palestinian actions-- a three-to-one
ratio. CBS Evening News came next, with 79 percent of its uses of
"retaliation" referring to Israeli actions and 7 percent to Palestinian
actions. NBC Nightly News was the most imbalanced, never once referring to
Palestinian retaliation.
The devastating human toll of such "retaliations" makes these imbalances
are all the more striking. According to the latest estimates from the
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, 897 of the Palestinians killed from
September 29, 2000 though March 30, 2002 have been civilians. Israeli
security forces killed 823 of those 897 people, including 192 children.
B'Tselem records that 253 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians in
the same period, including 48 children. At least 16 of those 253 people
were killed by Palestinian National Authority security forces or persons
reportedly linked to them. B'Tselem notes that these figures include
neither suicide bombers nor Palestinians who "died after medical treatment
was delayed" by Israeli forces. (See www.btselem.org.)
Figures like these, highlighting the targeting of non-combatants and even
children, make clear that it is simply inaccurate to cast either side as
acting purely defensively.
The language of retaliation is only one factor in reporting, of course,
but FAIR's findings-- 79 percent to 9 percent-- are striking and indicate
a tendency to define Israel's role as defensive, and the Palestinian role
as aggressive. By doing so, ABC, CBS and NBC have oversimplified this
complicated conflict and done a disservice to viewers.
ACTION: Please urge the networks to examine why they apply the word
"retaliation" almost exclusively to one side in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings
Phone: 212-456-4040
Fax: 212-456-2795
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
CBS Evening News with Dan Rather
Phone: 212-975-3691
Fax: 212-975-1893
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw
Phone: 212-664-4971
Fax: 202-362-2009
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] with your
correspondence.
SURVEY DATA:
Based on a Nexis database search of ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening
News and NBC Nightly News from September 28, 2000 through March 17, 2002.
Some percentages don't add up to 100 because of rounding.
--By Category:
Israeli retaliation: 118 mentions, of which 2 occurred in soundbites (79%)
(ABC: 27 mentions; CBS: 53 mentions; NBC: 38 mentions)
Palestinian retaliation: 14 mentions, of which 5 occurred in soundbites
(9%)
(ABC: 9 mentions; CBS: 5 mentions; NBC: Zero mentions)
Ambiguous/both: 18 mentions (12%)
(ABC: 6 mentions; CBS: 9 mentions; NBC: 3 mentions)
--By Network:
ABC total: 42 references (Israeli retaliation 64%, Palestinian 21%,
Ambiguous 14%)
CBS total: 67 references (Israeli retaliation 79%, Palestinian 7%,
Ambiguous 13%)
NBC total: 41 references (Israeli retaliation 93%, Palestinian 0%,
Ambiguous 7%)
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