Israel receives poor news media treatment today partly because “Media, today, is a business, not an art,” said Allison Kaplan Sommer, a senior journalist at The Jerusalem Post. “The goal is to make money by presenting news in a shorter, quicker and faster manner to get to the next commercial.”
“And because news is delivered almost as it is breaking, reporters don’t take the time to check their facts which results in many inaccuracies,” she said. “When a fact check may later reveal less casualties than originally reported, most people don’t hear corrections.”
Speaking Tuesday morning at the Political Awareness Series, sponsored by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Women’s Division, her topic was “The Israeli and Foreign Media in Israel: How the Game Is Played and How Is It Changing?”
She also feels that there is little “in-depth reporting any more and background context is rarely provided. And a sub-statistic is that it appears foreign news is boring and therefore complicated foreign subjects suffer.”
Further, she acknowledged that media reporting in the Middle East is biased, calling it a “matter of semantics. The term ‘occupied territory’ implies to the average American that the land in question had belonged to the Palestinians which is a misconception.”
She admits that the Palestinians are usually portrayed in a more sympathetic light than the Israelis, and that the Israeli reprisal attacks, without civilian casualties, usually go unnoticed.
“If the [Israel Defense Force’s] goal was to kill Palestinians, it could do so,” she said. “I feel the American media is unfair in reporting that Israeli attacks are aimed at Palestinians. While some may be hurt, that is not our goal. All the Israelis want to do is root out the terrorists, confiscate weapons and protect its people.”
‘War of the weak’
However, Sommer charged that Israel has made “poor choices” in selecting public relations spokesmen. “I think the Palestinians usually make a more effective case in English. Israel should be more careful in choosing people to articulate their points.”
In addition, she thinks Israel is “too lax in sending out its message to the world” and said it’s often a matter of “too little, too late.”
She added, “The media war is the war of the weak. If you’re not weak, all you can do is damage control. Israel is treated more sympathetically in the media when it is under attack. However, I’d rather remain strong than get good media coverage. As [the late Israeli prime minister] Golda Meir said, ‘It’s better to be criticized in an editorial, than praised in an obituary.’”
In the age of the Internet, Sommer believes people have the ability to apply enough pressure via e-mail to force the truth in reporting.
“Surely, Jews are very disturbed by the media bias against Israel since the second intifada began. The media characterizes Palestinian stone throwers as ‘demonstrators’ rather than ‘protesters’ and show no footage of rock-throwing kids in a crowd of Palestinians with guns,” she added.
She also noted that the Palestinians complained to NBC when it aired a program showing that children are being taught that “Jews are rapists, pigs and are evil, claiming the reporting was ‘unfair.’”
Another issue, according to Sommer, is that because Israel is a democracy, the Israeli media can be tough on its leaders.
“There are probably 300 reporters in Jerusalem while there are only a handful on the Arab countries,” she said. “The reporters [in Israel] hear the criticisms which affect their reporting on the Middle East. As the media [in Arab countries] is controlled by the Arab governments, media exposure is limited which creates a big imbalance in coverage.”
On the bright side, she feels that since Sept. 11, more Americans are identifying with Israel and understand its attitude that a country must do whatever it takes to protect its people.
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