A reporter from the U.S., Alison Weir, first began to become interested in the conflict with the 2000 uprising. Before then she knew very little about what was happening except what she was fed over the mainstream news channels. She began to get curious and to pay more attention because she noticed how
one-sided the view of the conflict seemed to be. She travelled to Gaza and realized the situation was the most
distorted issue she'd ever come across. She saw how the Palestinians are virtually kept in prison. She saw how the military checkpoints - soldiers with machine guns and tanks, allowed no entrance or exit to the Palestinian people. She saw bullet ridden neighborhoods and Gaza's agricultural land bulldozed. She saw families forced into poverty because they are not
allowed out of their towns to go to work. She saw women living in tin shanties because Israel wanted their land so
bulldozed their homes. She met
children who had been horribly and irrevocably wounded by Israeili soldiers in retaliation for throwing stones. In Bethlehem - she visited a hospitalized baby whose mother couldnt visit because she was not allowed out of Gaza. When she returned to San Fransisco and looked at the news coverage, she was appallled at how all the newspapapers reported
"Israel under seige". So, she created an organization called "If Americans Knew" - which reveals the bias of U.S. media and how the public are misinformed by it.
She carried out a study which analytically and statistically looked at news coverage and chose clear, objective categories that would be as immune as possible to subjective interpretations and looked at how deaths were being covered by US media.
She looked at the New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC.
In 2001 165 Israelis were killed while 549 Palestinians were killed.
In 2004 107 Israelis were killed while 821 Palestinians were killed. The ratio of Palestinian deaths to Israeli deaths is roughly 8:1
Inspite of this, ABC covered the deaths at a ratio of 3:1 Israeli to Palestinian deaths. Both CBS and NBC covered the deaths at 4:1 Israeli to Palestinian
The bias is glaring!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOvlYQvRYFEAnd there's more if you care to look. Do you care to look?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynWjYHP91gA&NR=1I am not really responding to rpdog as I fully realize that rpdog is unwilling or possibly unable to listen. I would be very interested to hear from Josh on this issue as he was the one who initially posted the topic - and I'm glad he did.
Josh, have you been following this thread? Has your point of view changed from what it was when you did initially posted?