[quote]pat wrote:
It’s called hypnotized by propaganda. Looking at a few pictures from reuters and the ap suddenly makes one all knowing.
I prefer facts and truth, in their entirety versus slivers of individual events when it comes to drawing an opinion on a given situation. [/quote]
Unfortunately the propaganda is why you are incorrect. AP is known to report in a biased fashion regarding the conflict.
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I. Coverage of All Deaths
We found a significant correlation between the likelihood of a death receiving coverage and the nationality of the person killed.
In 2004, there were 141 reports in AP headlines or first paragraphs of Israeli deaths. During this time, there had actually been 108 Israelis killed (the discrepancy is due to the fact that a number of Israeli deaths were reported multiple times).
percentage of deaths reported by AP
During the same period, 543 Palestinian deaths were reported in headlines or first paragraphs. During this time, 821 Palestinians had actually been killed.4
In other words, 131% of Israeli deaths and 66% of Palestinian deaths were reported in AP headlines or first paragraphs.
That is, AP reported prominently on Israeli deaths at a rate 2.0 times greater than Palestinian deaths.
In reality, 7.6 times more Palestinians were killed than Israelis in 2004.
II. Coverage of Children�??s Deaths
9 Israeli children�??s deaths were reported in the headlines or first paragraphs of AP articles on the Israel/Palestine conflict in 2004, when 8 had actually occurred. During the same period only 27 out of 179 Palestinian children�??s deaths were reported. (Children are defined by international law as those who are 17 and younger.)
Additionally, Palestinian children made up a disproportionately large number of Palestinian deaths in general. Children�??s deaths accounted for 21.8% of the Palestinians killed, while children�??s deaths accounted for only 7.4% of Israelis killed during this period.
actual number of children killed
actual number of children killed
22 times more Palestinian children were killed than Israeli children.
AP reported on 113% of Israeli children�??s deaths in headlines or first paragraphs, while reporting on only 15% of Palestinian children�??s deaths.
That is, Israeli children�??s deaths were reported at a rate 7.5 times greater than Palestinian children�??s deaths.
actual number of children killed
Percentage of children’s deaths reported, without repetitions
Comparing running totals for actual deaths and reported deaths once again reveals that while AP�??s reporting on Israeli children�??s deaths closely tracks the reality, the reporting on Palestinian children�??s deaths lags far behind the actual number, following a path similar to Israeli children�??s deaths. This is in stark contradiction to the reality, in which Palestinian children were being killed at a rate over 22 times greater than Israeli children.
In order to discover the impact of repetitions on the study, we examined AP�??s coverage of children�??s deaths without counting repetitions. We found that AP repeated two Israeli children�??s deaths once, and one Palestinian child�??s death three times. Hence, not counting repetitions, AP covered 88% of Israeli children�??s deaths �?? a rate of coverage 6.5 times greater than their coverage of Palestinian children�??s deaths (of which AP covered 13%.)
III. �??Clashes�?? �?? A Case Study of AP�??s Diction
Many qualitative observations may be made about bias in news coverage. One interesting aspect is the terminology used by a news source in reporting on this conflict. We examined AP�??s usage of the words �??clash�?? and �??clashes�??. Of all the conflict deaths AP reported in 2004, 47 deaths were stated to have taken place during a clash. Every one of those 47 was a Palestinian death, which suggests a more unilateral violence than the word is commonly understood to convey.
Additional Notes: Context
While gathering the data for this study, our analysts looked at hundreds of articles that AP published on topics relating to the Israel/Palestine issue, and noted a number of additional patterns that merit further examination. (The daily reports from the International Middle East Media Center, imemc.org, are useful in evaluating AP’s coverage.)
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There appeared to be differentiation in the amount and type of contextual information provided regarding the people killed and the circumstances of their deaths. While Israeli deaths were often depicted as innocent victims of Palestinian aggression, Palestinian deaths seemed more often to be portrayed as a necessary result of conflict.
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We noticed that several pertinent subject areas had been minimally covered by AP. For example:
* Palestinian prisoners. Torture in Israeli prisons is listed as a concern in the first paragraph of Amnesty International�??s report on Israel covering the year 2004.5 It was first exposed by the London Times in 1977 and is continually noted by the US State Department, numerous human rights organizations and others.6 Over 9,000 Palestinians are currently incarcerated by Israel (over 4,000 have not had a trial),7 with the number of Palestinian political prisoners per capita among the highest in the world.8 Torture of Americans of Palestinian descent was detailed by Foreign Service Journal in 2002.9
Yet, apart from four stories on a prisoner hunger strike, we could find only two stories that described Israeli prison conditions for Palestinians. Only one AP headline from the area mentioned torture �?? and this one was about Lebanese, not Palestinian, prisoners.
* Israeli Refusers. During 2004 numerous Israelis refused to serve in the Israeli armed forces in the occupied territories.10 By year�??s end there were 1,392 such �??refuseniks�?? and 37 had gone to prison. This movement was a topic of increasing discussion in Israel and the subject of numerous news reports. Yet AP had only one story on this.
* Nonviolence movement. Palestinian resistance efforts have included numerous nonviolent marches and other activities, many joined by international participants, Israeli citizens, and faith-based groups. This nonviolence movement has been an important topic in the Palestinian territories, with growing numbers of people taking part �?? in 2004 the Palestinian News Network reported on 79 major demonstrations that were exclusively nonviolent. Yet, we did not find any reports in which AP had described a Palestinian demonstration or other activity as nonviolent or utilizing nonviolence.
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We noticed significant stories that, perplexingly, were sent only on the Worldstream wire, disseminated internationally, but that were not sent to U.S. editors. For example, on May 11, an AP story reported: �??The Geneva-based Defense for Children International and Save the Children, based in Sweden, said that as of May 2004, 373 Palestinians under 18 were being held in Israeli detention centers and prisons. At least three of the detainees are under 14…The groups charged that the treatment of Palestinian child prisoners by Israeli authorities amounts to a pattern of violence that has gone unchecked for years…�?? This story was not sent to U.S. newspapers.
It is unclear to us why this story would be considered newsworthy for readers in other parts of the world but not for readers in the U.S., Israel�??s primary ally. A study comparing AP reports sent to U.S. papers to AP reports sent to international papers might be of interest.
Previous studies have shown newspaper coverage often to be significantly more distorted than the pattern we have found for AP,11 and we wonder if AP�??s system for alerting newspapers to the top stories of the day may play a role in this differential. We urge newspapers and AP itself to examine this system. We hypothesize that such an investigation would reveal increased distortion."
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