Media Coverage of Israel and Palestine
Introduction
While the full history and story between the conflict extremely lengthy and can be made into many case studies on its own, this blog will focus on how the media has approached the coverage over the year . This conflict goes back over 100 years after WWII when the State of Palestine was declared to be a Jewish national home. Immediately following this Palestine would began an uprising that would divide the state into the two parts we know today, Israel and Palestine. On October 7th 2023 the Islamist militant organization Hamas launched a series of coordinated attacks on Israel which resulted in Israel taking action by counterattacking the State of Palestine which is still taking place today. (A video that provides a much more thorough summery can be found at the bottom of this post).
https://www.sazf.org/current-issues/israel-palestine-land-map
Taking Sides?
As soon as this conflict broke out the was a massive divide in the media on support for either side and exactly how they would cover the events. News networks tend to cover articles in accordance to where their political views are. This is what creates the bias in the media that we see today, so the question for this case study is who is taking what side? As expected the big networks such as CNN, FOX, and MSNBC are the front runners of the coverage each with different approaches when it comes to the bias they show for either side. Fox News often adopts a pro-Israel stance in its coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, their coverage tends to look at Israels right to defend themselves. CNN on the other hand takes a more humanitarian approach with their coverage. Due to the nature of the war however it has been very lopsided on the civilian casualties taken by Palestine, so CNN tends to leans towards the support of Palestine. MSNBC tends to be more critical of Israeli government policies and actions, as well as a heavy emphasis on the humanitarian issues. It is important to note that very early on MSNBC came under fire for not referring to Hamas as "terrorists" and were accused of allowing Hamas to "write the scrip".
Conclusions
The political leanings of the big news networks dramatically effects how the same conflict is covered under different lights. Most of the articles and headlines posted reflect what their viewers are looking to see, which is why a bias in coverage exists. Both right and left leaning news networks tend dance around certain vocabulary if it does not fit their audiences values, as seen with MSNBC's hesitancy to call Hamas a terrorist orginisation. This by no means is a new phenomenon and has been going on since the dawn of media its self. As this conflict continues to play out media will continue to adapt and form to what the viewers are looking to consume. A question that we may see get answered in a later blog is; Will there ever be an event or outcome of this war that the different media plat forms will equally cover/ agree on?
References
https://www.sazf.org/current-issues/israel-palestine-land-map
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/10/18/viewers-flock-to-cnn-and-fox-news-for-israel-hamas-war-coverage-but-msnbc-loses-viewership/
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