The always essential MediaLens offers necessary context for the mostly woeful media coverage of the current Israeli onslaught against Gaza:
The role of BBC News as handmaiden to power is exemplified by its reporting on the latest series of brutal Israeli assaults on Gaza. On the first day of Operation Pillar of Cloud, thirteen people, including three children, were… reportedly… killed, and about 100 wounded. Israeli forces succeeded in their objective of”˜assassinating’… Hamas military chief Ahmed al-Jabari in a clear act of extrajudicial state execution.
On November 16, Israel was… reported… to have hit 150 sites in Gaza the previous night, with 450 strikes in total. And yet the main BBC headline that morning read: ‘Egypt PM arrives for Gaza mission.’ What would the BBC headline have been if 450 targets in Tel Aviv had been hit by F-16 bombs, drone missiles and artillery?
The Israeli attacks have routinely been reported as ‘retaliation’ for Palestinian ”˜militant rocket attacks’ on southern Israel. In a study of news performance in 2001, the Glasgow Media Group… noted… that Israelis ”˜were six times as likely to be presented as “retaliating” or in some way responding than were the Palestinians.’ A BBC correspondent in Gaza… said… ”˜there are now fears now (sic) of a major escalation of violence’.… But the Israeli execution of Ahmed al-Jabari… was… a major escalation of violence. BBC News… reported… three Israeli deaths by rockets fired from Gaza with the briefest mention of the earlier deaths of ”˜eleven Palestinians – mainly militants but also children’. As ever, there was no explanation of how a Gaza civilian is distinguished from a ”˜militant’.