Media Bias on Israel-Gaza

Author

Bubba
10 Sep

Is the mainstream media slanted in a particular direction when it comes to coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict? (The Telegraph)

A new Telegraph report: Per an analysis of 9 million words from the BBC, the British broadcaster’s coverage violated its own editorial guidelines on impartiality and accuracy 1,553 times.

  • Israel was associated with genocide 14 times more often than Hamas in BBC coverage.

  • The BBC associated Israel with war crimes 127 times and breaching international law 167 times, compared to 30 and 27 times for Hamas, respectively.

  • The report identified 11 instances where BBC Arabic coverage featured reporters who had previously expressed support for Hamas or terrorism.

  • Hamas was labeled as a terrorist organization in only 3.2% of BBC’s references (409 out of 12,459 times).

On the other hand: A 2006 study found that 3 out of 4 U.S. outlets favor Israeli sources over Palestinian ones.

  • According to an analysis conducted by the media watchdog FAIR, NPR reported on 8 out of 10 Israeli deaths but only 3 out of 10 Palestinian deaths during the first six months of 2001.

Where Americans stand: Voters continue to overwhelmingly back Israel in the Gaza War, per the latest Harvard CAPS-Harris poll.

  • 72% of U.S. Jews prefer Kamala Harris, compared to 25% who support Donald Trump, according to a new poll conducted by GBAO Strategies on behalf of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

Chart: Harvard CAPS-Harris

Bubba’s Two Cents

The Israel-Hamas conflict has scrambled politics a bit.

While Americans are generally pretty pro-Israel, there’s a fringe of dissenters within both parties (the progressive left and Candace Owens right). Thanks to progressives’ outsized influence in the party, Dems have arguably presented less of a united front on the issue than Republicans. I suspect that progressive influence is also why the typically left-leaning media has faced accusations that it’s biased against Palestine.

Then there’s American Jews, who tend to lean Democratic. While some political observers wondered whether Donald Trump’s more unabashed support of Israel might sway this group to his side, that doesn’t look to be happening.