Study Documents NY Times’ Anti-Israel Bias

by NewsMax


A new study by a media-monitoring organization exposes the New York Times’ consistent anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian bias in its coverage of the Middle East conflict. 

The study was conducted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle Eastern Reporting in America (CAMERA), which claims 65,000 U.S. members across a broad political spectrum. 

CAMERA investigated the Times’ coverage between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2011, and says the probe “reveals empirically that there is real cause for concern. The dominant finding of the study is a disproportionate, continuous, embedded indictment of Israel that dominates both news and commentary sections. Israeli views are downplayed while Palestinian perspectives, especially criticism of Israel, are amplified and even promoted.”
Among the findings of the CAMERA study:

• The Times presents criticism of Israel more than twice as often as it criticizes the Palestinians. Of 275 passages in the news pages classified as criticism, 187 were critical of Israel while 88 criticized the Palestinians.
• Of 37 articles mentioning Israel’s border policies and naval blockade of Gaza, just six cited Israel’s goal of preventing weapons from entering Gaza and even fewer noted that weapons in Gaza often are fired into Israel.
• When the Times reported on the Israeli military boarding a Turkish ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists, only eight of 37 articles mentioned the activists’ violence that precipitated the use of firearms by the Israelis.
• Twelve headlines mentioned Palestinian fatalities in the conflict, while none explicitly mentioned Israeli deaths, even though 14 Israelis were killed during the study period.
• Israeli actions frequently were cited as obstacles to peace, but the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to recognize a Jewish state was never described as an obstacle.
• On the paper’s opinion pages, editorials consistently blamed Israel for the Palestinian-Israel conflict. Of 20 editorials, columns, and Op-Eds cited by CAMERA, 15 predominantly criticized Israel and none predominantly criticized the Palestinians.

CAMERA concludes: “Although the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict is a matter of great controversy, with loud voices on all sides seeking to make their case, only one side’s concerns are promoted in The Times, while the opposing side is marginalized.” 

PJ Media states: “CAMERA’s study provides objective documentation that demonstrates exactly how The New York Times abandoned journalistic standards to turn coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict into the supposedly ‘progressive’ cause of indicting Israel.” 


NewsMax

Source: http://news.newsmax.com/?ZKCv.tpF-l9uoZs4CW6T66EZIXlzxlIAZ

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