#774 Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert

To:       Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From:   Jerry Verlin, Editor  (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj:    Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #774, 11/1/15

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  Two days in a row this week, our hometown Philly Inquirer ran back-to-back Israel-related headlines revealing rather a contrast in stating violence causation: Israelis “Kill” Palestinians [who, btw, were the attackers], but victim of un-headlined Palestinian Arab attack simply “Dies.”

Former Inq Jerusalem Bureau Chief Matza had a full-page Sunday spread this morning on the Jew [sic] who’s director of the local chapter of CAIR.  Focus just on some Israel-reporting terms in his article.

Saturday’s Inq had an article on the paper’s own declining ad revenues.  This is not good news for seekers of a second supplier of daily home-delivered hardcopy national and international news for Philadelphians.  But perhaps there’s an alternative auto-delivered hardcopy way.

This Week In The Inq:  “Israelis Kill 3 Palestinians  … U.S. Educator Dies In Israel”

This Week in the Inq #1:  “Israelis KILL Palestinians” but Victim of Palestinian Arab Stabbing Attack “DIES”

Consider what American newspaper headline readers likely gleaned this week from this American newspaper’s headline:

Israelis Kill 3 Palestinians

One thing readers of this headline (Philadelphia Inquirer (Inq), Tue, 2/27/15, A8) didn’t glean is that these three killed “Palestinians” had done anything other than just be “Palestinians” to merit getting themselves killed by Israelis. The Inq’s sub-headline, “Violence flared in the West Bank and Gaza,” didn’t shed any causational light.  Nor did the Inq’s Deutche-Presse-Agentur [as if we haven’t got our hands full with the AP] article’s lede –

“Three Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers on Monday in the latest violence in the West Bank”

– shed any such light.”  All that Inq headline readers learned from this headline, sub-head and news article lede is that fighting between Jews and Arabs flared and that in this latest violence the Israeli Army shot and killed three Palestinian Arabs.

Only Inq readers who persevered half-way through the Inq’s 16-paragraph news article gleaned that news article’s actual news – that all three of these IDF-killed “Palestinians” had been the attackers in all three attacks.

***  Par. 7:  “In the latest shooting incident, Israeli soldiers opened fire at stone-throwing Palestinians ….”

***  Par. 8:  “Earlier in the day, Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians allegedly involved in knife attacks, bringing the number of such incidents to 42 in just over three weeks.”

***  Par. 9:  “An Israeli soldier stabbed in one of the attacks was in critical condition with injuries to the neck and upper body….”

***  Par. 10:  “A few hours later, a second Palestinian was shot and killed while trying to stab a soldier ….”

***  Par. 11:  “Attacks this month have amounted to the worst spell of street violence in years….”

Was none of this relevant to an American newspaper’s headline and a European news agency’s lede?  Instead of headlining “Israelis Kill Three Palestinians” and leading “Three Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers,” relegating to the middle of the news article these were not three innocent IDF-randomly-targeted peaceable people, balanced news sources would have headlined and led:

Palestinian Arabs Attack Israelis Using Stone-Throwing, Knives

And, as if drawing a contrast in headlining, on Wednesday this week, the very next day (Inq, Wed, 10/28/15, A4), our hometown Inq headlined:

U.S. Educator Dies in Israel

Not exactly. Inq AP article, paragraph 1:  “… died Tuesday after succumbing to wounds sustained in a Palestinian attack on a bus in Jerusalem two weeks ago.”

Par. 4:

Richard Lakin, 76, died of wounds sustained Oct. 13, when two Palestinian men boarded a bus in Jerusalem and began shooting and stabbing passengers.  It was one of the bloodiest attacks in recent violence ….

One day after “Israelis Kill Three Palestinians” [who’d been attacking with stone-throwing and knives], it would have been a nod towards balanced reporting for an Inq to have headlined, e.g.,

U.S. Educator Dies in Israel From Wounds in Palestinian

Shooting and Knife Attack on Jerusalem Bus

In welcomed contrast, the Inq ran a closer-to-balanced headline on Saturday (Inq, Sat, 10/31/15, A3):  “American Stabbed in Israel,” sub-head: “The Palestinian attacker was shot dead by police, security guards, and civilians in Jerusalem,” accurately reflecting its AP article’s lede: “A Palestinian stabbed and wounded  an American man at a station of Jerusalem’s light rail on Friday before he was shot dead by police, security guards and civilians, police said.”  Active voice – “Palestinian Stabs American in Israel,” like “Israelis Kill 3 Palestinians” – would have been nice, but, hey, explanation for as fair as we got?  My guess: the Inq dressed up as a newspaper for Halloween.

This Week in the Inq #2:  “Mickey Militant” Writes Again

Charter subscribers to this media watch will remember those less-than-thrilling days of yesteryear when our hometown Inq regularly sported less-than-flattering Israel articles, sometimes on the same day, by its then owner, Knight-Ridder, and the AP, topped off by the Inq’s then own, only-such-place-in-the-world, Jerusalem Bureau, headed for a long time by Staff Writer Michael Matza, still with the paper, whose views on Israel, referenced from time to time in those days in this media watch, differ from mine.

Mr. Matza was back this morning with an article on this Sunday morning’s Inq’s A2, all of it except for two ads, on the Jew (really) who’s the director of the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).  Focus on an instance of question-begging terminology used in this article by Mr. Matza:

“Pro-Israel critics have tended to focus on his [this Jewish local director of CAIR] long-standing opposition to Israel’s West Bank settlements and its occupation of Arab territory captured in the 1967 Six Day War.”

Like his Inq-colleague Ms. Rubin, Mr. Matza appreciates the power of Arab-Israeli conflict terminology usage better than us.  “West Bank … settlements … occupation of Arab territory … captured in the 1967 Six Day War” are all Jewish homeland-delegitimizing expressions the use of which we should be vehemently contesting instead of using ourselves.

This Week in the Inq #3:  Inq To Consolidate Newsrooms, Layoff Staff

 

Saturday’s Inq (10/31/15, B1) has an Inquirer Staff Writer article quoting the Inq’s parent company’s CEO painting “a dire picture of declining advertising revenue at the company and in the newspaper industry generally,” necessitating consolidation of the Inq’s, Daily News’ and Philly.com’s newsrooms and some layoffs.  “He said he hoped the cutbacks would stabilize PMN’s finances and give it a three-year window to develop new products and grow again.”

I do not greet this with glee.  I recognize that younger people today get their news more and more from the internet on their “mobile devices,” where advertising dollars are flowing, but real (as opposed to “virtual”) newspapers still remain powerful molders of peoples’ perceptions on national and international news, and it is a shonda on democracy that an American metropolitan area the size of Philadelphia has one daily driveway-delivered national/international news focusing newspaper, and a super-lib one to boot.  This hardcopy newspaper industry assessment in yesterday’s Inq does not bode well for citizens of Greater Philadelphia getting a second, balancing source of home-delivered hardcopy daily news.

In the specific case of the balanced newspaper reporting on Israel which we seek, I do not think there is any substitute for a second source to compete with our AP-NYT-WP-LAT-et ilk purveying, prominence-photo-and-headline-enhancing hometown Inq, and that the Inq, operating alone in this environment, is not prospering makes achieving that competition that much more unrealistic.  It seems to me, though, that a second paper might circumvent production and delivery costs by printing itself out every night on subscribers’ home computer printers.  This could be done, I think, with just software, and either the Jews, or the Republicans, or other group not being fairly presented to Philadelphians at present ought to pursue it.

Regards,
Jerry