TV news blurs Mideast problems

Greg Philo, Glasgow University, Media Group, Scotland, Guardian News Service, London

If you don't understand the Middle East crisis it might be because you are watching it on TV news. This scores high on images of drama, but low on explanation.

A new study by the Glasgow University Media Group interviewed 12 small audience groups (a total of 85 people) with a cross- section of ages and backgrounds. They were asked a series of questions about the conflict and what they had understood from TV news. The same questions were then put to 300 young people (aged between 17 and 22).

We asked these people what came to their mind when they heard the words "Israeli/Palestinian conflict" and what its source was. Two people had direct experience and listed accounts from relatives as what had come to their minds. But 82 percent listed TV news as their source and to a lesser extent, newspapers. They had clearly absorbed the "main" message of the conflict, violence and tragedy.

But the research also showed that many had little understanding of the reasons for the conflict and its origins.

There are several elements in this statement that require some background knowledge. "Refugees", for example, are cited as a key issue. Eighty percent of the main audience sample of 300 young people said they did not know where the Palestinian refugees had come from.

To understand the journalists' comments, the audience would need to have the information that Palestinian refugees were displaced from their homes and land when Israel was established in 1948. Shortly after, in May 1948, a major war broke out between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which occasioned more people to flee. Many of the refugees moved to Gaza (which came under the control of Egypt) and to the West Bank of the Jordan river (under Jordanian control).

The group analyzed TV news coverage of the major intifada (or uprising) by the Palestinians, which began in September 2000. We focused on the lunchtime, early evening and late night news on the two main TV stations in the UK -- BBC1 and ITV -- since these attract very large audiences. The total of 89 bulletins from Sept. 28 until Oct. 16, 2000 were transcribed and the number of lines of text that were devoted to different themes were counted.

On TV news, journalists sometimes used the word "occupied" but did not explain that the Israelis were involved in a military occupation. In the sample of 300 young people, 71 percent did not know that it was the Israelis who were occupying the territories. Only nine percent knew that it was the Israelis and that the settlers were Israeli. Eleven percent believed that the Palestinians were occupying the territories and that the settlers were Palestinian.

So why does the news not give proper explanations? One reason is that the news exists in a very commercial and competitive market and is concerned about audience ratings. It is better to have great pictures of journalists ducking stones than to explain what the conflict is about.

There is a second, perhaps more crucial reason why the TV newsrooms do not dwell on the history and origins of the conflict -- controversy. Israel is closely allied to the United States and there are very strong pro-Israel lobbies in the U.S. and to some extent in Britain.

Without the discussion of origins and causes, we are left with accounts on the news of day-to-day events, in which it can appear that the "normal" world is disrupted only when the Palestinians riot or bomb. This is the view of the Israeli government and the news tended to oscillate between this and the view that violence was perpetrated by both sides in a "cycle" of "tit-for-tat" killings. The Palestinians believe that they are resisting an illegal and violent occupation.

Palestinian bombings in TV news were frequently presented as "starting" a sequence of events which involved an Israeli "response". BBC Radio 4 reported that "Five Palestinians have been killed when the Israeli army launched new attacks on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for recent acts of terrorism".

In another exchange on BBC Radio 4, David Wiltshire MP was asked "What can the Egyptians do to stop the suicide bombers -- because that in the end is what is cranking up the violence at present?" He replies, "Well that is one view, the Israeli view...".

The research group did not find any reports stating that "The Palestinian attacks were in retaliation for the murder of those resisting the illegal Israeli occupation." A news journalism which seeks neutrality should not endorse any point of view, but there were many departures from this principle.

The analysis found words such as "murder", "atrocity", "lynching" and "savage cold-blooded killing" were used only to describe Israeli deaths.

The news, on the occasions when it did give figures, stated that more Palestinians had died than Israelis, but only 30 percent of our sample of 300 young people believed this to be so. The same number believed either that the Israelis had the most casualties or that casualties were equal for both sides. Israelis spoke twice as much on television news as Palestinians and there were three times as many headlines that expressed the Israeli view as that of the Palestinians.

The TV news did feature some criticism of Israel, particularly for using "excessive force", but such criticism was sometimes muted; a lethal attack by a helicopter gunship was described using the phrase "Israel wielded a big stick".

The notion that there are powerful forces within Israel who do not wish there to be any peace settlement was rarely explored on television news. Connections back to how the present intifada began, when Ariel Sharon walked through the most holy Muslim sights, producing protests, were rarely explored.

In our research in October 2000, we found that some television news did report that Israeli soldiers were "showing absolutely no restraint, firing live ammunition into crowds from twenty metres", but it was not suggested that the actions of the army might be linked to a political agenda. In contrast, the view put forward by Israel -- that Yasser Arafat was encouraging violence for political ends -- was widely reported and discussed on TV news.

The lack of explanation about the origins of the conflict plus the differences in the manner in which both "sides" had measurable effects on some public understanding. As one 18-year- old in a focus group commented: "You always think of the Palestinians as being really aggressive because of the stories you hear on the news. I always put the blame on them in my own head."