HR Comment: Egypt Exposes Media Hypocrisy
February 7, 2011 16:52 by Simon PloskerThe intense coverage of the uprising in Egypt – covered by nearly every journalist in the region – has revealed a significant double standard in the media’s coverage of Israel. The relative decline in coverage of Israel draws attention to the vastly disproprtionate amount of attention Israel receives in the world press, at the expense of coverage of other parts of the Middle East. As a result, relatively minor events in Israel are reported, discussed and analyzed well beyond their importance, while entire movements in places like Egypt are ignored entirely.
The question needs to be asked – is the mainstream media giving its readers the best coverage of the region?
At any one time there are some 450 foreign journalists permanently resident in Israel, not to mention the hundreds of support staff such as photographers, researchers, producers, freelancers and stringers. Over the past couple of weeks, there has been something of an exodus as many journalists have left Jerusalem and headed to Cairo.
Indeed, many of those Jerusalem-based journalists are responsible not only for covering Israel but also the neighboring Arab countries of the Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. This is particularly the case as news organizations seek to cut back on costs and reduce the numbers of foreign bureaus or expand the geographical reaches of existing ones.
Compared to her neighbors, Israel is a paragon of democracy, human rights and virtue. Paradoxically, however, these are just the things that Israel finds herself attacked over in the media and elsewhere. Of course, when so many journalists are stationed in such a small country, any indiscretions are likely to be magnified and turned into international news.
Indeed, an Israeli misdemeanor can make headlines while comparable or far worse incidents from Arab states will go completely unreported. So why is it that the mainstream media has only just discovered that a real human rights abuser in the form of Egyptian President Mubarak has been oppressing his people for nearly three decades?
There is certainly a double standard at play when it comes to the reporting in the Middle East. Why is it, for example, an international news story concerning Israeli measures to stem a wave of African migrants crossing the Egyptian-Israeli border? Could it be that such a story fits a narrative that portrays Israel as a racist, apartheid regime more concerned with Jewish particularism than caring for black Africans? Could it be that those who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis are no longer prepared to save those who are persecuted today?
Sadly, this is a potential angle in the back of the minds of some who file such a story despite the fact that the issue of immigration is a sensitive one in both the US and Europe and is certainly not unique to Israel. What the media has failed to highlight, however, is the treatment that these migrants receive en route to Israel through Egypt, where tales of theft, murder, torture and rape abound. Where is the outrage that women and children are being shot by Egyptian border patrols as they run towards the one country that they believe offers them a better future? Where are the stories of how IDF soldiers actively rescue these people from certain death, physically pulling them over the border and out of reach of Egyptian guns?
Stories are emerging from Egypt of foreign journalists being harrassed and even physically attacked, so much so that this has prompted protests from Western governments, including the US administration. A list of incidents so far compiled by media analyst Tom Gross makes for shocking reading for those of us concerned with press freedom.
Yet why is this news? After all, even in the “moderate” authoritarian regimes of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, journalists are regularly threatened, harassed, beaten, arrested and even murdered. But you won’t hear about such incidents. After all, one of the most important things for a journalist is access. So it doesn’t pay to complain to the regime or to publish the story lest such access is withdrawn.
In Israel however, a recent incident made news in a number of media outlets and prompted a complaint from the Foreign Press Association after an al-Jazeera reporter was asked to take off her bra to go through a security check at a journalist event hosted by Prime Minister Netanyahu. Putting aside the rights or wrongs of the incident, consider the following:
While the undoubted humiliation and inconvenience of an Al-Jazeera reporter makes headlines, the many stories of foreign journalists inconvenienced, detained, threatened and sometimes worse, are never reported simply because the foreign press is unprepared to publicly take on autocratic regimes that may impose sanctions that may negatively affect the ability of journalists to gather news.
Consider also the example of Al-Jazeera, the Qatari station that has proven its politicized agenda with its reporting of the Egyptian crisis and the recent Palileaks papers. Its offices attacked in Cairo and Ramallah while it is still free to operate in Israel of all places where the worst that can happen is the humiliation of one of its reporters at a security check.
Only now as the Mubarak regime starts to crumble do the journalists make a story out of their treatment in an Arab country, not to mention the revelations that Egypt, despite being a Western oriented ally in the region, is not a liberal or virtuous place for its citizens to live. Thus, thanks to the disproportionate coverage given to it, Israel can be perceived as a major violator of human rights, while her neighbors who are actually engaged in very real human rights violations and misdemeanors are able to carry on free from press scrutiny. Such is the double standard in reporting from the Middle East.
The Egyptian story offers us a case study in media double standards when it comes to coverage of Israel as part of the Middle East. Israel’s neighbors are not held to account as it doesn’t suit the journalists to do so. Instead, Israel, by virtue of her freedom of expression and access becomes the villain of the region while Western publics fail to appreciate Israeli security concerns in what has proven to be in the past few weeks, an illiberal, unstable and dangerous neighborhood.
Will the foreign press reflect on what they have seen upon their return to the relative idylls of Israel? It’s high time that journalists stationed in Israel stop abusing the comforts of their home base to disproportionately focus on Israel at the expense of neighboring Arab states, which truly deserve to have the spotlight focused on decades of human rights abuses, corruption and mismanagement.
Akiva Feinstein
6:10 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Once again, Honest Reporting hits it right on the nail. Very effective graphic too.
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Berner
6:17 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Amazing piece
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Tweets that mention HR Comment: Egypt Exposes Media Hypocrisy -- Topsy.com
6:23 pm
Feb 07, 2011
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by HonestReporting and globstrategists, Frederik van Beetz. Frederik van Beetz said: HR Comment: Egypt Exposes Media Hypocrisy: http://t.co/HvtYGan [...]
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Dr. Lorence Rubin
6:39 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Like all of HR Comments the sad fact is that you are preaching to the converted. How about seeing this type of Oped piece in the Guardian, the New York Times, Time Magazine?
That is the real problem…”the Jews are always whining”….When i see a robust critique published in all of the pseudo intellectual news gathering organizations…perhaps the time will come when the world will see the truth.
No Israel is far from perfect, but compared to other Middle eastern countries…it is Utopia.
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Simon Plosker
7:47 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Of course we’d love to get more op-ed pieces into the media but I’d take issue with your comment about preaching only to the converted. One of the reasons for upgrading our website and operating in places such as Facebook is to ensure that our material spreads beyond our core supporters. Every click on a piece of HonestReporting content helps it gain traction through search engines. And we know that our material is picked up by many others who pass it on and use it for their own advocacy activities not to mention the journalists who know that we are watching them.
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Jonathan
6:40 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Interesting and informative. I would however like to point out that having different expectations from Israel and Arab states is not in itself a bad thing Do we really want to see the day when the expectations from Israel become a low as those from our neighbors.
I have no problem with journalists who honestly hold us to relatively high standards, and criticize us when we fail to meet them, as long as the standard can be considered reasonable and fair.
Our problem is journalists who deliberately and maliciously abuse those differing expectations to generate and promote a double standard, not because they genuinely care about Israel, but simply in order to promote their anti-semitic agendas.
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Jay Austin Moore
6:42 pm
Feb 07, 2011
There are no journalists. Only Advocates.
Advocates of the dictatorship of the prolitariate.
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Evan
7:01 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Wordcloud gaphic is a bit vague. Is this a wordcloud of all stories relating to the Egyptian uprising of late (if so, then I find it truely fascinating!)? Is this a wordcloud relating to all stories of the Middle East region during the time of the Egyptian uprising (a little less impressive but still interesting)? Is this a wordcloud of general middle east stories in the last 6 months (then it is old news, disappointing yes, but not surprising)? etc, etc, etc.
Please add a title to the graphic to explain exactly what I’m looking at (apart from a giant bold ‘Israel’ right in the centre).
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Simon Plosker
7:31 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Hi Evan. Thanks for your comment. The word cloud was actually generated from this very article. In this case it really is purely illustrative and isn’t meant to demonstrate any particular points. But we can definitely look into using word clouds in the future as a non-scientific way of examining media articles.
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Evan
6:07 am
Feb 08, 2011
Absolutely a good idea! Every tool to analyse the media should be utilised, ‘scientific’ or not. Wordclouds can provide a quick guide to the theme of an article without the influence of the headline, graphics, or highlighted quotes.
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TzVi
7:34 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Bravo to Egypt for treating some of these “journalists” the way they are supposed to be treated. Perhaps if Jews would stand up and be willing to confront these journalists for the garbage they say over and over, Israel would have more respect and reverence from them.
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Vivian Schlesinger
7:44 pm
Feb 07, 2011
In Brazil, as in most places, the media is heavily biased against Israel, and it is unusual to find journalists who even have a fair amount of knowledge on the subject. In ignorance, and for ulterior motives, it is much easier and profitable to print blood-lined news of Israel’s “defenseless Arab victims”.
There are a few names of non-Jewish journalists, however, that come to mind for taking pains to divulge and explain the truth concerning Israel. They are Reynaldo Azevedo, from Revista Veja, João Paulo Coutinho and Luiz Felipe Pondé, both from top newspaper Folha de São Paulo. They do not waiver in their objective, courageous stand reporting reality. Their candor, richly informed by facts and documents, is often cause for angry retorts by chairs of misinformation. I am not sure whether they read Honest Reporting, but if not, they certainly deserve our applause for doing precisely what others, stronger and older in the media, are afraid of doing.
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Ze'ev
8:07 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Double standard…
Perhaps the racism of lower expectations?
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Edgar Davidson
8:17 pm
Feb 07, 2011
One interesting aspect of the Egypt media coverage where Al Jazeera is different from the Western coverage is that Al Jazeera has been showing very graphic videos of horrific violence by both pro and anti- Mubarek supporters including several actual killings and lynchings. The Western media are simply not showing these. Can you imagine how they would be falling over themselves to show those videos if that kind of violence happened in Israel? The reason they are not showing it is because it simply does not fit in with the ‘narrative’ that the anti-Mubarek demonstrators are peace-loving democrats.
Edgar
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Ehud
10:44 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Throughout the years, the Western governments have not, at least publicy, shown active interest in the plight of the nations oppressed by the authoritarian regimes in the ME; even the activism in Iraq and Afghanistan is only a result of an immediate threat to the West. All the while, the Western gov’ts are heavily involved in Israeli-Arab relations. This skewing of attention correlates with that applied by the media, as HR describes well in this article. Is this correlation accidental? Shouldn’t the Western gov’ts be faulted, along with the media, for not pursuing the social and democratic advancement of ME countries in the last decades?
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Esav Benyamin / Ed Hausman
12:53 am
Feb 08, 2011
“Jews are always News!”
that’s the news
What’s happening around the world?
Fighting rages, bombs are hurled?
Diplomats exchanging views?
The United Nations
shows great patience
with anyone but Jews.
And that’s the news.
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Moshe
10:52 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Why indeed the media is unfair regarding Israel, or plainly antisemitic? Well, WHY NOT?
To start with, according to traditional Christian dogmas, all the Jews are sinners (in the whole New Testament you cannot find mention of a single “good Jew”) and this whole contemporary Israel story is a “truly disturbing anomaly”. “Something must be wrong here” and “our task is to reveal and demonstrate this”.
One also must be aware of the hostile and inhuman treatment of the Jewish people by their host nations during their long exile, culminating with the Holocaust. The bad conscience of “the world” on this background mandates a need to prove that the Jews are even worse.
And besides: “Jews are always News!”
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Esav Benyamin / Ed Hausman
12:54 am
Feb 08, 2011
Sorry, akhi. I replied to Ehud before you, meant that reply to you!
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Evan
6:38 am
Feb 08, 2011
I agree on the point that ‘traditional Christian dogmas’ are dangerously anti-Semetic. Roman Catholicism, most Protestant denominations and many of the evangelical movements of today all preach some form of replacement theology. I was especially surprised by some of the strongly anti-Semetic quotes made by popes through the ages when I visited Yad Vashem. Popes openly encouraged the killing of Jews to heal the sick for goodness sake!
However, to claim that this stems from the New Testament is a bit off-base. And to say that there is no mention of a ‘good Jew’ is just plain wrong. All the Disciples were Jewish, Jesus was Jewish, and Hebrews was written to the Messianic Jewish community of the time. Acts is a book dedicated to the Disciples works within the Jewish community following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Even the Apostle Paul was Jewish (and from a strict Orthodox background). Paul found the Jewish people so important that he dedicated several chapters in Romans (as well as countless passages throughout his written works) to explicity defining for the Gentile believers exactly why the Jews were so important to God, and to their Gentile faith.
We (non-Jews) are merely grafted onto the vine, the Jews are the original biological branches, promised for eternity to grow from the root of the living God (whether they, and we, realize it or not!)
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sheila
3:36 am
Feb 10, 2011
I am happy that some Christians have changed their views and consider themselves as grafts on an original root.However, many books have analilzed the New Testament as being anti-Jewish and as having expressed faulty views of those expressed by Jesus . As a breakaway group which maintains belief in the messiahship of Jesus , many incidents and opinions are slanted in the attempt to gain adherents to the new group and away from the Jewish point of view. Not only are opinions misrepresented, but there are numerous conflicts among the gospels of different followers. Many Christian theologians have written that only some of the sermons given by Jesus are believed to be historical, while others are believed to be false.In addition, it is likely that editors at a later time , changed events and beliefs in order to promote the new religion to pagans(Romans for one). After all. it is now common knowledge that Jesus was born in the Springtime, and not at the Winter Solstice. These pronouncements by Popes hundreds of years after his death ,changed Jewish Jesus followers into a hybrid of pagan and Jewish beliefs. Catholicism continued this practice of incorporating native pagan practices and beliefs into Christianity. But back to the New Testament, it also is not an accurate reflection of the views of all the Jesus followers .It is highly anti-semitic and vitriolic against the Jews ,despite the fact that it was written by Jews. Just like any charismatic leader we see today, such a leader is not above shading the truth to promote his own following.The plague of centuries of anti-semitism can be directly traced to the negative images portrayed concerning the crucifiction. Some disparities from the truth can even be proven because all historians know that Jewish laws would not have permitted certain allegations such as violations of the Sabbath.
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BUTSeriously
4:08 am
Feb 10, 2011
It apears genuine Christian believers have been hijacked and placed in a straight jacket: they have been led to believe that their belief is compromised if Jews being the bad guys is not attached therein. This is the result of attaching Jews with the core Christian doctrine of belief in God, making the Christian belief as a ‘SUBJECT TO JEWS’ religion. This is also seen with Islam with a double whammy: both Jews and Christians become the target for the same reason. Now it seems both these religions cannot sustain themselves without bashing Jews and Judaism, placing all three parties in an impossible situation.
Thankfully, the Hebrew bible did not attach Moses’ name as a condition to any of the laws and precepts of the Hebrew bible, nor of the villification of any other peoples. It remains a pristine belief free of such shakles..
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John in Michigan, USA
10:57 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Good article, just want to encourage the author to do more grammar checking before posting. Examples:
“Why is it, for example, an international news story concerning Israeli measures to stem a wave of African migrants crossing the Egyptian-Israeli border?” (not a complete sentence)
“Al-Jazeera, a the Qatari station”
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Ehud
10:58 pm
Feb 07, 2011
One example of media coverage in Egypt of the type that is emblematic of the coverage in Israel: Egyptians (in Egypt and in the US) claiming that the gov’t released criminal prisoners so that they would raise havoc to counter the protests. Even Fox news did not question the assertion (at least not when it was made). Did any Western media show the Hamas activist who managed to get into Gaza and boasted how families and supporters charged the prisons, forcefully releasing the prisoners and that only a few managed to evade gov’t forces chasing them? This clearly counters the former assertion.
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Esav Benyamin / Ed Hausman
12:59 am
Feb 08, 2011
Excellent point and typical of media generally, rushing to judgement without fact-checking or actually waiting for a story to mature. Fill those columns! Now!
Of course, this comes from a media that is broadly ignorant of the background of this chaotic situation anyway.
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Leah
11:14 pm
Feb 07, 2011
Great article! Everyone should read this.
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Tico Titao
12:31 am
Feb 08, 2011
CNN, SKY NEWS, BBC, are full of Arab companies advertisements. They pay, therefore they are their Masters. Israel should start counter advertising on these same TV stations!…
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Moshe
9:40 pm
Feb 08, 2011
That would be the most stupid way of wasting money. One cannot buy an antisemite. And antisemitism is strong and well as any time in the past if not stronger. The only new thing is that today they prefer to call it “anti-Israelism”; sounds more “civilized”.
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BUTSeriously
12:44 am
Feb 08, 2011
Jews are news. Charge them half shakel per word and Israel will be the greatest economy – and no need for oil. Hold an annual competition for the word winner.
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steve
3:00 am
Feb 08, 2011
The mainstream media portrayed this as some sort of pro-freedom, democratic uprising for ordinary people. The truth of the matter is that it is yet another islamist rebellion against a strict government, which has been guilty of terrible abuses of Egyptian citizens, but has also basically turned a blind eye to the persecution, torture and murder of non-muslims. The regime that wishes to take over the mantle of government in Egypt will be much more severe on the people than that of Hosni Mubarak, and has already shown its contempt of Israel, USA, and the West on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria. Western media seems intent on spoon-feeding its audience with liberalist, socialist poison, heavily sugar-coated, so that we will welcome the promised destruction of our own freedom in total smiling ignorance. Unfortunately for the global leftists, the truth is becoming known, and people are at last waking up to the threat of islam and the western dhimmi politicians and their propaganda machine.
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Kaedn
4:10 am
Dec 13, 2011
Thanks for that! It’s just the asnwer I needed.
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BUTSeriously
3:20 am
Feb 08, 2011
There is something strange how suddenly and abruptly Mubarak is the primal bad guy – when the regime dictators have been in everyone’s faces the past 60 years – with not a whimper from Europe. All blame must fall on Europe, who control two security council seats at the UN and have been perpetrating Heil Hitler salutes against Israel at the UN the past 60 years. Remember that Europe installed these Islamic Regimes and have been supporting them – for 30 barrels of oil. Their media, responding to their Government’s doctrines, had a field day with Israel bashing. Result: Eurostan is happening and Journalism is dead. Many Jews are also guilty here – they aligned with the Israel bashers for their 5 minutes of fame. All regimes should be removed, not just Egypt, and Israel must never accept anything coming from Europe. Europe is again corrupting otherwise good Christians.
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