If you’ve been noticing the headlines about Israeli forces killing Palestinian protesters that seem carefully designed to avoid mentioning who’s doing the killing, you may be wondering: Is that how media always do it? The answer is no: Journalists know very well how to include the identity of the killers in the headline—when they think that’s information that’s important for the reader to know.
As in Syria (New York Times, 3/25/11):
Or Myanmar (New York Times, 1/17/18):
In Senegal (AP, 1/30/12):
And in India (AP, 5/6/18):
I can’t say there aren’t some signs of improvement in Gaza coverage, though—uneven though they may be. On Twitter (5/14/18), BuzzFeed‘s Elamin Abdelmahmoud juxtaposed two of the more obfuscatory headlines:
(National Post, 5/14/18)
(Toronto Star, 5/14/18)
Abdelmahmoud contrasted this with the same two stories in two different newspapers—bearing headlines that straightforwardly explained who was killing whom:
(Boston Globe, 5/14/18)
(Washington Post, 5/14/18)
And the Toronto Star, perhaps as a result of the social media discussion, changed its headline to the far more forthright “Israeli Soldiers Shoot and Kill at Least 55 Palestinians During Mass Protests in Gaza.” So journalists do know how to convey to readers who’s responsible for mass slaughter—sometimes even when it’s Israel doing the slaughtering.
Thanks to @fudgeposner for spotting many of these headlines.
And they’ve been know to ascribe deaths to certain gummints under the most uncertain of circumstances, according to their malleability to US objectives.
Thank you JIm for exposing the brutality of the regime our government defends, and big media’s efforts to keep Americans in the dark. If only the majority of us knew/cared…I wonder the best way to make that happen
Thank you JIm for exposing the brutality of the regime our government defends, and big media’s efforts to keep Americans in the dark. If only the majority of us knew/cared…I wonder the best way to make that happen
I wonder if the majority of U.S. citizens knew what was happening whether they would care or not. I think most people would prefer not to think about it as it distracts from the daily struggle we call our lives. I don’t know the answer.
Some of the worst coverage is found where the trail is least easily followed. WNYC in New York reported “dozens” of Palestinians shot when there were already numerous reports of something like 2,000 shot by IDF snipers. One of NPR’s anchors (Morning Edition, I think) stressed that Palestinians had been “throwing stones” — long treated as terrorism by Likud and by its pets in American politics and media.
I suspect that a close review of American coverage would reveal that reporters for NY Times, CNN, NPR, and others offered more as it became clear that the word — and image — were getting through anyway via social media and foreign news organizations.
Headlines making it sound like the IDF is indiscriminately shooting into crowds are definitely not accurate or fair. Only a headline that identifies that these shootings took place DURING “mass attempts to breach the border wall,” with a stated intent to destroy property, crops, and life in Israel, would be fair reporting, which the second set of headline definitely doe not do.
Headlines making it sound like the IDF is indiscriminately shooting into crowds are definitely not accurate or fair. Only a headline that identifies that these shootings took place DURING “mass attempts to breach the border wall,” with a stated intent to destroy property, crops, and life in Israel, would be fair reporting, which the second set of headline definitely doe not do.