suvroc

This is interesting.

From Electronic Intifada:

BBC publishes list of "key terms" used in Israel-Palestinian conflict

The BBC Governors' independent panel report on the impartiality of BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict recommended that the BBC should make public an abbreviated version of its journalists' guide to facts and terminology. The following list of terms used in the conflict, their definitions, and notes for their correct usage, reveals a news organization trying to find a balance between accurate reporting and leaning towards the semantics of the Israeli side in the conflict.

( The terms are behind the cut... )

This is a really interesting read because there's always so much controversy created by both sides regarding the perceived impartiality of the media.

This is what happens... A news source, let's use The New York Times, will publish an article that addresses the suffering of the Palestinians/Arabs. Maybe it will be about house demolitions. Maybe it will be about celebrating Ramadan under occupation. Whatever it is, the second it's published someone in the pro-Israel camp, AIPAC, the ADL, the AJC, the ZOA, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, some shmoe on the street, will offer up a rebuttal, usually about how the news source itself has a history of being anti-Semitic and that the Palestinians are all a bunch of terrorists and trying to paint them in any other light is completely bogus. If the source of the rebuttal is more official they will also try and address specific points in the original article. The nature of conflict and war is that there's always at least four or five explanations for everything that happens. And hell, sometimes these explanations aren't completely revisionist!

The next week, this same news source will publish an article that completely ignores the Palestinian/Arab side of the equation. See Israel's recent bombing campaign in Lebanon for a few good examples of this. Day in, day out there were articles about the "poor suffering Israelis" who had to spend time in fallout shelters while a hundred relatively inefficient, poorly aimed, and weak missiles flew overhead. A total of 44 Israeli civilians were killed. That's it! Frankly, I'm surprised it wasn't any more, because had Hezbollah been using anything better than the glorified mortar that is the Katyusha rocket there would have been far more casualties. The way the press was treating it, however, you would have thought it was the Israelis who had close to 1,200 civilian dead and not the Lebanese.

Impartiality doesn't exist in journalism. This used to not be as much of a problem, prior to the monopolization of the media. Most news sources were a lot more open about their bias and the reader would, in theory, pick the source they felt most comfortable with. These days we don't have as many sources to choose from. We still make that decision when we decide to read, say, a writeup of a demo on the Independent Media Center site instead of reading about it in the local or national press.

I'm a bit of a news junkie. I'll read the same story from three or four different sources in order to get as well-rounded a picture as possible. I really like when news sources are very clear about their biases. Like The Financial Times? I love The Financial Times. Same with The Wall Street Journal. They represent globalized capitalism and aren't ashamed to admit it. I can get behind that because at least I know where they're coming from. The bias of allegedly impartial news sources tends to come out in a far more non-blatant manner. Thus, the need for the above list of definitions the BBC just sent to their reporters.

Of course, we can always just fall back on the old favorite and blame capitalism...

CAUSE IT'S TRUE!