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Friday, July 25, 2003

Surprise, surprise 

Posted by Hei Lun : 7:14 PM

Study shows that Reuters consistently favor the Palestinians over the Israelis in their headlines:

In the world of Reuters headlines, when Israel acts, Israel is always perpetrating an active assault, and the Palestinian victim is consistently identified. But when Palestinian terrorists act, their Israeli victims are faceless, and the Palestinian perpetrators are rarely named nor described in active terms. Moreover, Palestinian diplomats pursue peace, but are frustrated by their obstinate Israeli counterparts.

Reuters' obvious message? Israel is the aggressor, and Palestinians are the victims.
Their evidence:

During this time frame, Reuters issued headlines describing six acts of violence by Palestinians against Israelis, and twelve acts of violence by Israel against Palestinians. Among these, HonestReporting found the following patterns of bias:

1) Named subject

In violent acts against Israelis, the Palestinian agent is named in 33% of the headlines.

In violent acts against Palestinians, the Israeli agent is named in 100% of the headlines. Moreover, Israel is always emphasized by appearing as the first word in the headline.

2) Named object

In violent acts against Israelis, casualties are labeled "Israeli" in 11% of the headlines.

In violent acts against Palestinians, casualties are labeled "Palestinian" or "Hamas" in 50% of the headlines. Considering "militant" as a Palestinian-specific term raises this figure to 71% of headlines.

3) Verb selection

Violent acts by Palestinians are described with "active voice" verbs in 33% of the headlines.

Violent acts by Israelis are described with "active voice" verbs in 100% of the headlines.
The article also have side-by-side examples of how their headlines differ depending on who the attacker was.

A complete list of headlines appears here.
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