One story, two headlines.
So what radicalized an Australian teenager to become an Islamic State jihadi?
The headline from the Sydney Morning Herald is pretty explicit in its attribution to media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet this is the only mention of Israel in the SMH article:
He was particularly upset by Israel’s campaigns in Gaza.
“He did express strong thoughts on what was really happening compared to what they showed us in the media,” the friend said.
Mr Bilardi believed of the western media: “They lie. Twist words. Don’t say what is actually happening”.
And what of the Herald Sun, whose headline focused on the death of Jake Bilardi’s mother? There is no mention of media coverage of Israel whatsoever in that paper’s story.
Considering that Bilardi converted to Islam and then headed for Iraq (not Israel), what are we to make of the Sydney Morning Herald’s headline?
It looks like it isn’t Jihadi Jake who has an obsession with Israel. Someone at the Sydney Morning Herald has figured that an Israel angle to the story, even a circumstantial one, makes it far more attractive to an audience that has already been fed a steady diet of negative stories about Israel.
We are left with an inappropriate headline, the only purpose of which is click-bait to entice the readers.
And if media coverage of Israel is responsible for anything, it’s not the creation of Islamic State jihadis but instead the appalling rise in anti-Semitism currently sweeping the globe.
Featured image: CC BY Photosteve101 via flickr with modifications by HonestReporting
