Gaza: three perspectives on the media’s coverage

JORDAN ISRAEL GAZA MIDEAST
Credit: AP

In its May-June issue, the Columbia Journalism Review has published three perspectives on the media’s coverage of Operation Cast Lead, also known as the Gaza War. One of them is by your favourite Israeli blogger (that’d be me).

Taghreed El-Khodary is the Gaza correspondent for the New York Times. Her reporter’s notebook piece is called The Smell of Paradise: under pressure in Gaza.

Taghreed and I spoke jointly at a conference in Norway this past March. Here’s a photo I took of her on the last day in snowy Tonsberg, as we were waiting for our taxis to the airport.

J.J. Goldberg is the former editor of The Forward. He compares the British and American media’s coverage of Gaza in his piece, called A Matter of Trust.

(I’ve never met J.J., so I don’t have any photos of him).

My piece is about the Israeli media’s coverage of the war. It is called Covering Gaza from Israel: what Israelis wanted to know about the war. It starts like this:

“During the first week of Israel’s winter military operation in Gaza, a broadcaster for Channel 2, which has the highest rating of Israel’s three television stations, sparked a small firestorm by expressing what was perceived as excessive sympathy for the enemy. Summarizing a report during the evening news, anchorwoman Yonit Levy said, “It’s hard to convince the world that the war is justified when we have one person dead and the Palestinian nation has 350 dead.” Channel 2 was soon inundated with letters of complaint and came under fire online, where somebody set up an Internet petition to have Levy fired. Several of Levy’s colleagues, horrified by what one called a ‘lynch,’ came publicly to her support.

In the end the controversy was short-lived: Levy continues to anchor the Channel 2 news broadcast, which maintains its high ratings, and she remains Israel’s most popular news anchor. But the reaction to her statement is interesting as a demonstration of the solid public support—polled at more than 90 percent—for the twenty-two-day military operation, which finished with around 1,200 to 1,400 Palestinians killed and 11 Israelis, including 3 civilians. It also suggests what kind of wartime coverage the Israeli public wanted from its media.”

Click here to read the rest. You can comment on the CJR site – or, come back here to speak your mind.

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15 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

Hi Lisa, I just had a chance to read the full CJR piece. My reflections:

** two thumbs up for tracking down those veteran newscasters and scribblers for their (what I’m going to assume to be, on your say-so) their positions on the matter, even though a couple recanted/reconsidered their initial opinions, while others maintained the positions they assumed during the IDF’s ongoing engagement.

** your article is necessarily going to gain heaps more traction outside of Israel, where I can speak from personal experience that tremendously more populous European nations’ citizenry still can’t wrap their one-tracked minds around the fact that Israeli affairs can make such an astonishing dung-slinging ruckus, rising above the Chinese behemoth in many instances at least as far as the combined echo-chamber and news frays are concerned. In fact, while I’m on the China tip, it doesn’t at all surprise me that the entire nation remained galvanized around the oft-professed righteous of Cast Lead — would you expect any differently? Israel is small, but carries as big a stick as the US or China does in terms of domestic support for its respective military.

And, btw, here’s my favourite excerpt:

Ofer Shelah [...] explained why Israelis felt they needed to fight back. “Israelis see themselves as being under constant existential threat from the Arab and Muslim world,” he said. “It was very easy to sell the idea that Hamas represented the southern version of the Islamist threat, rather than defining it as an isolated case of the Palestinian movement—which, while it does not recognize Israel and does believe in using terror, cannot and will not ever threaten Israel’s existence.” He continued, “I suppose it sounds strange that a country with a nuclear arsenal and a defense budget of $12 billion a year sees a small militia that only manufactures primitive rockets as an existential threat, but that’s the way it is,” he said. “And then you add the fact that the rockets have been coming in for eight years, without us being able to stop them, and you have a volatile combination.”

1. Adam Daniel Mezei
on May 22nd, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Fab article, Lisa!

2. adina
on May 22nd, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Has El-Khodary been threatened? To what degree is she in danger in Gaza?

While her piece clearly shows the gruesome brutality of the Israeli offensive, it hardly displays the Gazans (and especially Hamas) in a terribly flattering light. She’s taking big risks writing what she wrote (and we are all the better for it, though).

3. Tamouz
on May 22nd, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Hey Tamouz. Taghreed is tough and brave. She says that both sides (Fatah and Hamas) respect her because they know she is objective – i.e., doesn’t take sides. But, as one colleague said, why would Hamas (or Fatah, for that matter), think that her being objective about them is a good thing?

4. Lisa Goldman
on May 22nd, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I must say, Lisa, you’re pretty brave yourself. Good for you for writing the article.

During Cast Lead, the attitude of the Israeli public that you covered (which parallels the attitudes of the Israelis I know personally) drove me bonkers. It’s amazing the disconnect between mainstream Israeli perception and that of the rest of the world (even US outlets, supposedly biased towards Israel, conveyed the horror in a way that the Hebrew Israeli press just didn’t). And it’s amazing how the cycle is perpetuated in the press by mere consumer demand: give them what they want, not the truth. Frightening.

So my point is: You’re going to make some enemies yourself (although I doubt that it will get you killed). You’re quite brave too.

Finally: translate it into Hebrew; Israelis really need that klop on the kopf. While I imagine that your Tzfonit bona fides probably won’t help much in the credibility department, every little bit helps. Maybe because the article covers the press, rather than Cast Lead itself, some level-headedness will seep through to one or two people.

Keep up the good work, and good luck.

5. Tamouz
on May 22nd, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Thank you so much, Lisa. One blog post, but three great articles.

6. Ralf
on May 22nd, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Great article Lisa! It really shows how Israelis were fed exactly what they wanted to see\hear.
Another thing that really caught my attention during the recent fighting in Gaza was another lesson the army learned from the Second Lebanon War: Army Generals in the media. I actually can’t remember seeing any high ranking commander giving interviews during the war in Gaza. Ashkenazi was holding everybody so tight, he only let Benayahu do the talking. Do you remember the Lebanon war? The officers seemed to fight over who would get on prime time news shows! They were everywhere, briefing, spinning, lying (“We control Bint Jbel”) and so on. What a difference…

7. Ami Kaufman
on May 22nd, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Ami, I do remember how the officers fell all over each other in their rush to stand in front of a TV camera and peddle spin to the public during the Second Lebanon War. From what I understand, Benayahu and Ashkenazi had them on a very, *very* short leash during the Gaza operation. I could’ve easily written 10,000 words for this article – it kinda hurt to leave so much out – but if I’d included the juicy off-the-record stuff I could’ve written a book.

8. Lisa Goldman
on May 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Well perhaps you should write that book then!
Great article. As always. Will pass on…

9. Mo-ha-med
on May 23rd, 2009 at 3:22 am
Mohamed, I second that…

10. Ami Kaufman
on May 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 am
I think basically they took everything that they did in Lebanon and did the exact opposite rather than stop, analyse and adapt to the circumstances. Let’s say it started with the terrible computer generated name!!! Didn’t anyone stop and say “Hey guys this name sucks. Let’s drop it and choose something that won’t make us look like militaristic fascist maniacs”?

11. Fay
on May 24th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Un artículo fantástico !!! Felicidades

12. Ernest
on May 26th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Book book book, ya Lisa! Great article. Miss you.

13. Imaan
on July 5th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
why do you write about gays, all the time…is this israeli fashion? you should write lesbians, because they are kings, like!! The Prince of Peace, and the Holy Lamb!!

14. annon
on July 11th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
The ongoing war on dissent, which seems to be based on a very allergic and hysterical reaction to anything that smacks of criticism of anything Israel does, is very upsetting. One can only hope that this storm will pass. It is a tribute to Israeli democracy that Yonit still has a job at all, in these times.

15. Alex
on May 3rd, 2010 at 10:51 am