Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #712-713, 8/31/14

To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #712-713, 8/31/14

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Our hometown Philly Inquirer ran 5 photos of damage in Gaza these past two weeks. Three were proximately related to articles focusing on military action by Israel. One, “Smoke rises over Gaza City,” was Inq-selected as the one photo to accompany an article referencing refugee children in Central America, Africa and entire Mideast, and one accompanied an article on tens of thousands of Israeli civilians fleeing their homes on account of endless incessant rocketing of civilian targets in Israel from Gaza.

These Past Two Weeks In The Inq: 5 Israel-Hamas War Damage Photos – All Gaza

BSMW #709, 8/3/14, analyzed 17 Israel-Hamas war-related photos our hometown paper, the Philly Inquirer, had run the preceding week.

Three of these 17 photos and 1 graphic were of Kerry and Bibi. Leaving those 3 out, 9 of the remaining 15 were of damage in Gaza, 2 were of protests in “the West Bank,” and 2 of the 3 photos of Israelis were of IDF tanks. That’s 13 of 15. The 2 “Israeli-side” photos were 1 of the tunnels and 1 of a soldier who’d been killed.

That the Inq this week showed 9 photos of damage in Gaza, and was able to avert its eyes from Gaza long enough to show 2 photos of protests in “the West Bank,” but NOT ONE of the impact of incessant rocketing aimed at civilians in Israel upon Israel and Israeli civilians is outrageously imbalanced.

During my past two weeks of delightful grandchildren-filled, Inq-free time down the shore, our hometown Philly Inquirer ran 5 photos depicting damage incurred during the Israel-Hamas war. [Nobody saved me the Inq of Wed., 8/20, so maybe it ran on that day 20 photos of Hamas rocket-caused damage and civilian-life-disruption and trauma in Israel. If so, I owe it one. But then, maybe it ran that day one more photo of damage in Gaza.]

#1: On Monday, 8/18/14 (A14), the Inq ran an op-ed, “Joys or Horrors, All a Roll of the Cosmic Dice,” by an ethics professor, citing children fleeing Central America across Mexico and its border with the U.S., and the plight of “children of Africa and the Middle East” [the latter including the on-going horrors inflicted on civilians in Syria and Iraq]. So, what photo did our beloved hometown Inq pick to grace this world-wide plight-citing op-ed? Caption: “Smoke rises over Gaza City.”

#2 – 3: The next two Inq photo choices can be justified as proximately related to the new stories they graced. Its Friday, 8/22/14 (A8) photo of “In Gaza City, a Palestinian man and child stand at a collapsed stairwell of a house that was destroyed in an Israeli air strike on Thursday” sat atop a story headlined “Israeli Air Strikes Kill Three Top Hamas Commanders.” And Sunday, 8/24’s (A6) “Smoke rises as the Zafer Tower apartment collapses after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. Gaza police said that a warning missile five minutes earlier allowed some residents to flee in time” was inset in an article headlined “Gaza Apartment Bombed.” Par. 4: “The Israeli military said the missiles targeted a Hamas operations room in the building, but did not explain why the entire tower with 44 apartments was brought down.”

#4: But, then, how proximately related to the news article was the Inq’s photo choice of Tuesday, 8/26/14 (A6)? The article was headlined: “Israelis Leaving Gaza Border.” Sub-head: “Tens of thousands have fled in weeks of fighting. The extremist group Hamas hailed the exodus.” Accompanying photo caption? “Firefighters inspect the rubble of a three-story residential building after an Israeli strike in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. Earlier Tuesday, a strike leveled a 14-story building in Gaza.” Balanced photo selection demanded that #4 show readers, not yet one more one-sided photo of Gaza, but the damage and incessant-rocketing-caused trauma that led tens of thousands of Israelis to flee from their homes.

There’s more to this than a switch from photo selections #2 and #3 last week relating to the story of Israeli missiles striking Gaza, but #4 showing damage in Gaza accompanying an article on “tens of thousands [!]” of Israelis fleeing incessant rocketing/mortaring of their homes in Israel from Gaza. The Inq’s headline “Israelis Leaving Gaza Border” didn’t do justice to a story about tens of thousands of Israeli civilians fleeing rocket fire aimed at their civilian communities in Israel. “Israelis Leaving Gaza Border” could mean a pullback of IDF soldiers from the border.

#5: The Inq’s Sunday, 8/31/14 (A12) AP article, “Rebuilding Gaza Strip Could Take 20 Years,” was accompanied by a photo captioned “Naeem al-Jezzi serves tea in the rubble of his Gaza house.” (As the sub-head, “The projection is based on current materials restrictions….”, suggested, that level “could easily be expanded, which would shorten the time.” )

All told, the Inq over this fortnight gave readers five photos of damage in Gaza, one of which accompanied an article on tens of thousands of Israeli civilians fleeing rocketing aimed from Gaza at Israeli civilians in Israel, and one of which accompanied an article referencing children in Central America, Africa and whole Middle East. Balanced photo selection would have done better.

Haven’t Heard of “Tazpit”? You Will

In mid-August I was with a small group that met with a director of an Israeli news agency, an entity that like the AP is an original gatherer of news, as opposed to a newspaper that disseminates news agency-gathered news to the public. Formed three years ago, Tazpit News Agency is Israel’s only such organization, compared to nine of Palestinian Arabs. Its output is read by news consumers in multiple languages on multiple continents.

Tazpit works in three areas – gathering and reporting news as an agency, like the AP; providing supporting services for international journalists in Israel, as an alternative to those long gleefully provided by Palestinian Arabs; and conducting training programs in Israel for young new international journalists.

Given the Mideast mindset so pervasive among international journalists on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the international media’s obsessive focus on Israel, and coverage purveyed to the world’s publics in a universally-used poisonous lexicon to which so many Jews ourselves are succumbing, a Tazpit has been a long time in coming. At its current stage of development, it seeks support from those who recognize how deeply it’s needed. Go take a look: www.tazpit.org.il.

Regards,
Jerry