How the Media Talks about Israel

It's really a shame I don't keep my personal blog more active...or actually invest some time in making it better. I will. One Day. Today though, I am posting because it's just too damn long for a Facebook post, but it's a subject that is so personal to me. Not only as a Jewish woman, but as a student in the secular world, where the voice of #FreeGaza is so much louder than mine. Specifically thought, as a student and professional ("professional") of media. The strength of media and the news is so powerful these days. A bias or baseless catchy headline spreads faster than the Ebola virus, infecting thousands, if not millions, of readers.

No one is saying this better than Daniel Gordis in his article, "A Dose of Nuance: Can we please stop talking about ‘hasbara’ [public diplomacy]?"
He says, "And this is the problem: a Palestinian driver with a terrorist background (he had spent time in Israeli jail for terrorism, and was a family relation of a former head of Hamas’s military wing) plowed into a group of innocent pedestrians at a light rail stop, killing two people (a baby, Chaya Zissel Braun, who died just hours later, and 22-year-old Karen Yemima Mosquera, who succumbed to her wounds after several days) and wounding six others. When the driver tried to escape, he was shot and killed by police.

A horrible story, but a simple one.

Yet how did the international media report it? The initial AP headline, changed following an outcry, was “Israeli police shoot man in east Jerusalem.” Yes, you read that correctly. As far as the headline was concerned, the story was that Israeli police shot a guy. That he had tried to kill people, that he had intentionally run them over and wounded several of them grievously, that he was a known terrorist – all that was apparently irrelevant to the headline. All the initial AP headline chose to note was that “those Israelis” had shot another Palestinian." He goes on to say, "But it [Israel] is also viciously pilloried in the international press, as the response to last week’s horrific events make clear." To read the entire article please do: http://tinyurl.com/nxz36qe

It is so infuriating. It's starting to make me think about my choices in media, how I help brands (or maybe one day a country) tell their story. It is essential that we tell the truth, check sources, and inform others who may not know any better.