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Saturday, June 22, 2002
The Washington Post Co.
Editorial
Universally Biased
Your paper and others across the country are being boycotted for
negative coverage of Israel. Is it possible, as Michael Getler asked
rhetorically [ombudsman, June 9], that they could all be biased?
The answer, it seems to me, is a resounding yes. Whole societies have
been overtaken by disastrous misapprehensions. Corporations have
simultaneously embraced abortive management fads. So news writers, many
of whom attended the same journalism schools and regularly interact,
might also share certain assumptions.
According to Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in
Journalism, mainstream media outlets tend to be biased in favor of
peace negotiations. One need only point to the British media's tragic
support for Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy to realize that
such assumptions can be fatally off the mark.
Your paper's Middle East coverage is highly partial to negotiations.
"The cabinet decision seemed to derail what had been a fledgling effort
to ease tensions after last week's killings," stated Post reporter Lee
Hockstader in late February ["Restraints on Arafat Extended," front
page, Feb. 25]. In this highly subjective interpretation, the reporter
signaled his favor for negotiations and disfavor for the more obstinate
party.
Rosenstiel points out that media organizations routinely allow this
kind of bias. After all, who could be against peace negotiations? But
in some cases, it is the more mischievous side of the conflict that
sues for peace even as it pursues other options.
Beyond an inclination favoring negotiations, reporters rightly take
license in providing "context" to news reports in an effort to help the
reader make sense of complex events.
On numerous occasions, however, your paper's coverage of the Middle
East has gone far beyond providing context and has injected opinion
into the news coverage. In several instances, reporters have advanced
the theory that, as Daniel Williams put it in a March 9 front-page
story, the war was "part of a longtime struggle by Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon to crush Palestinian armed resistance and to finish [the]
Palestine Liberation Organization."
This theory ignores the Israeli leader's support for Palestinian
statehood, his early restraint in the face of violence and the prospect
that his resolute strategy might lead to peace. These reports belong on
the editorial page, not the front page.
In defending your paper's coverage, Getler stated that pro-Israel media
critics are attempting to "shift the focus almost exclusively toward
this kind of terrorism and away from the occupation and despair, and
the violence that it causes." Getler's statement represents a stunning
endorsement of media bias. In other words, in Getler's view, the
coverage should focus on the occupation as a cause of violence.
Your editors may believe that this is merely providing context. But if
this were true, such statements would not be at odds with sentiments of
the likes of American peace envoy Dennis Ross, who asserts that Yasser
Arafat turned down a golden opportunity to end the "occupation." If
Ross is right, then Arafat, not Israel, is primarily responsible for
the continued occupation and, hence, the resulting violence.
Like Ross's, Getler's point of view is perfectly legitimate, but it is
nevertheless a point of view. The first step in reforming the news
coverage of the Middle East is to recognize the difference between
opinion and fact.
-- David L. Bernstein
The writer is the Washington-area director of the American Jewish
Committee.
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