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Media Bias Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 27, 2013 84 Comments
https://twitter.com/ABCWorldNews/status/416694087312359426 https://twitter.com/edhenryTV/status/416694486714966016 Via Hollywood Reporter, A&E Welcomes Phil Robertson Back to 'Duck Dynasty':
An A&E statement to The Hollywood Reporter read: As a global media content company, A+E Networks’ core values are centered around creativity, inclusion and mutual respect. We believe it is a privilege for our brands to be invited into people’s home and we operate with a strong sense of integrity and deep commitment to these principals. That is why we reacted so quickly and strongly to a recent interview with Phil Robertson. While Phil’s comments made in the interview reflect his personal views based on his own beliefs, and his own personal journey, he and his family have publicly stated they regret the “coarse language” he used and the mis-interpretation of his core beliefs based only on the article. He also made it clear he would “never incite or encourage hate.” We at A+E Networks expressed our disappointment with his statements in the article, and reiterate that they are not views we hold.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 26, 2013 12 Comments

I've had my disagreements with Glenn Greenwald as to the term Israel Firsters and the Snowden damage to our foreign intelligence operations, but this is pretty funny. Via Mediaite, Greenwald Snarks at MSNBC: I Defend Snowden Like You Defend Obama ’24 Hours a Day’ (h/t...

Posted by David Gerstman on December 18, 2013 1 Comment
Eugene Kontorovich wrote an important essay for Commentary, Israel, Palestine, and Democracy. Here are three critical paragraphs from the middle of the essay:
The Palestinians have developed an independent, self-regulating government that controls their lives as well as their foreign policy. Indeed, they have accumulated all the trappings of independence and have recently been recognized as an independent state by the United Nations. They have diplomatic relations with almost as many nations as Israel does. They have their own security forces, central bank, top-level Internet domain name, and a foreign policy entirely uncontrolled by Israel. The Palestinians govern themselves. To anticipate the inevitable comparison, this is not an Israeli-puppet “Bantustan.” From their educational curriculum to their television content to their terrorist pensions, they implement their own policies by their own lights without any subservience to Israel. They pass their own legislation, such as the measure prohibiting real estate transactions with Jews on pain of death. If Israel truly “ruled over” the Palestinians, all these features of their lives would be quite different. Indeed, the Bantustans never won international recognition because they were puppets. “The State of Palestine” just got a nod from the General Assembly because it is not.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 29, 2013 30 Comments

It will stand the test of time. Those who were willing to stand against Obamacare despite all the name calling, and who are proven to have been correct. Obama and Democrats now are scrambling to delay various portions of the Obamacare rollout, even though such delays when...

Posted by David Gerstman on November 11, 2013 2 Comments
Over the past few days the reporting from Geneva changed from anticipation of an imminent deal to a final "no deal." Or "no deal" for now. The New York Times reported Talks With Iran Fail to Produce a Nuclear Agreement. As almost all reporting on the P5+1 talks with Iran go it gives the credit to (or places the blame on) France for the failure of the two sides to reach an agreement.
The proposal under consideration in Geneva was to have been the first stage of a multipart agreement. It called for Iran to freeze its nuclear program for up to six months to allow negotiations on a long-term agreement without the worry that Iran was racing ahead to build a bomb. In exchange, the West was to have provided some easing of the international sanctions that have battered Iran’s economy. After years of off-again, on-again talks, the deal would have been the first to brake Iran’s nuclear program.Despite the diplomats’ insistence on progress, the failure to clinch an agreement raised questions about the future of the nuclear talks, given the fierce criticism that the mere prospect of a deal whipped up in Israel and among Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.
Unfortunately, this frames the scuttling of the talks in terms of those looking for a compromise versus pro-Israel ideologues. Subsequent reporting in the article is more specific about some, but not all, of the real issues involved.

Posted by David Gerstman on November 08, 2013 10 Comments

Mideast Media Sampler 11/08/2013 -- Yasser, that's a conspiracy theory....

Posted by David Gerstman on November 05, 2013 0 Comments
We have noted degree to which America's media, including Thomas Erdbrink, the Tehran bureau chief for the New York Times, tells us that the most vicious anti-American statements from Iran are really expressions of admiration. Check out a few of Erdbrink's recent tweets. https://twitter.com/ThomasErdbrink/status/397332815559151616 https://twitter.com/ThomasErdbrink/status/397332340931706880 Erdbrink calls Jalili a hardliner. But in a recent article he reported on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei as not being a hardliner:
With talks over Iran’s nuclear program set to resume in Geneva this week, both sides engaged in a bit of public diplomacy Sunday: Iran’s supreme leader moved to quiet hard-liners in his country by expressing support for his negotiating team, while the chief American negotiator reiterated in an Israeli television interview that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds Iran’s final word on the nuclear talks, told a group of students here that he was not optimistic the negotiations would succeed, but he also sent a negative message to the conservative clerics and military commanders who in recent weeks have attacked the diplomatic initiative.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 04, 2013 3 Comments

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is a valuable resource on which we frequently rely for news tips and information regarding the Middle East.  I'm not sure how I ended up on CAMERA's email update list, and I'm not even sure...

Posted by David Gerstman on November 04, 2013 4 Comments
As we've noted earlier, much of the media is obsessed with settlements, intent on portraying them as the main obstacle to peace. There's a tendency on the other side to take one of the most outrageous examples of Palestinian behavior and dismiss it. As Professor Jacobson noted last week, Israel, in order to entice the Palestinians to negotiate for a state of their own offered to release 104 prisoners from jail. These aren't just prisoners. Most, if not all, are remorseless murderers who are treated as heroes by all segments of Palestinian society, including their leaders. Jonathan Tobin made an apt observation about this phenomenon:
One group of people was happy as murderers went free while others wept. But the gulf here is more than emotional or merely, as the Times seemed to describe it, a difficult process that is part of the price Israel must pay for the chance of peace. In fact, the “emotional gulf” is indicative of a vast cultural divide between these two peoples that explains more about the absence of peace than any lecture about history, borders, or refugees. Simply put, so long as the Palestinians honor murderers, there is no reason to believe they are willing to end the conflict.
Consider the way the New York Times in the article cited by Tobin portrayed the Israeli reaction to the prisoner release:
In Israel, where the returnees are widely viewed as terrorists, the release on Tuesday, like the one in August, has stirred protests and anguish. Many said it was too heavy a price to pay for entering negotiations with no guarantee of a peace accord.
"[W]idely viewed?!?!" This statement is incredible. It's not only in Israel that they are "viewed as terrorists," but by definition. Only in the crazy New York Times worldview is the definition of terrorists subjective.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 21, 2013 11 Comments
One week ago we posted about how a new website exposed The Truth About Palestinian Rock Throwing. We featured a video exposing the The Wadi'a Maswadah Hoax, about a 5-year old Palestinian rock thrower allegedly "arrested" by the IDF.  In fact, the child was brought to his parents, contrary to media hype, which ignored a culture that pushes young children to the front lines.

Wadi'a Maswadah Hoax screen shot

The website has a second video, about the misleading media narrative surrounding an Israeli driving into a Palestinian boy in East Jerusalem, The 2010 E. Jerusalem Ambush-Hoax:
On October 8, 2010 major elements of the Western and Arabic “news” media engaged in a campaign to elicit sympathy for a two pre-teen Palestinian boys, whom they claimed were “run down” by a Jew in E. Jerusalem. The situation was greatly aggravated by dramatic photos and selectively-edited videos, which, on first glance, seemed to support this incendiary allegation. In reality, these children – along with a gaggle of international “news” photographers – waited at the bottom of a hill for Jewish cars to roll past, at which point the children hurled rocks at it, and actually charged the car as it attempted to swerve to avoid hitting them.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 14, 2013 13 Comments

We have featured Pallywood here many times, the Palestinian industry producing everything from outright video hoaxes to mere gross exaggerations all in the name of demonizing Israel. But there is an even more pernicious western media version of Pallywood, the outright bias and misleading characterization of...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2013 20 Comments

This video pretty much epitomizes how the mainstream news media fights to protect Obama and Democrats. Andrea Mitchell argues with GOP Rep. Sean Duffy as if she were Obama's press secretary. This is not an opinion segment -- I have more understanding when Ed Schultz or Chris...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 08, 2013 32 Comments

A few related thoughts. First: https://twitter.com/jtLOL/status/387344493512372224 Second: Watch MSNBC all day long and keep in mind that, for the vast majority of the reporters covering politics in Washington, MSNBC is the Gospel Truth. Realize that the ambitious younger journalists in the White House press corps dream of the day...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 07, 2013 17 Comments
After Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a funding bill for the National Institutes of Health, NBC Nightly News has run two feature stories about children and other patients who could not enroll in a cancer clinical trial at NIH because of the "shutdown." In neither story was the Republican funding bill or Democratic rejection of funding mentioned. The most recent feature story was last night. Those of you who read this blog, or pay even cursory attention to the news, know that House Republicans passed the NIH funding bill, over the objections of 170 Democrats who voted against it. House Vote NIH funding 10-2-13 Harry Reid then refused to agree to a consent motion in the Senate to approve the funding. Dana Bash at CNN even questioned Reid about it at a press conference, wondering why he won't just agree to the House funding bill since it might help a child. All of this took place against an Obama veto threat. Anyone who pays even a little attention knows that it is Democrats, and Democrats alone who have blocked funding for NIH child clinical trials. Yet in the entire segment on NBC tonight, not a word was mentioned about why there is no funding. All that is mentioned is a generic and presumably bi-partisan failure to reach an agreement. Here's the full video (full transcript here): NBC New Shutdown Blocks Girl From Clinical Trial

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 01, 2013 14 Comments

The latest development. https://twitter.com/ChadPergram/status/385042956857511936 https://twitter.com/rickklein/status/385043012147216384 https://twitter.com/rickklein/status/385043509516197890 I think negotiating with empty chairs will be a good thing. Reid and Obama are riding high, convinced the media will convey their messaging. There's reason for them to think that: ...

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