First, the facts:
On Wednesday, 4 August, Israel’s north came under fire as rockets were fired from Lebanese territory. As with recent attacks emanating from Israel’s north, no group claimed responsibility but sources in Israel suggested that the rockets were likely fired by Palestinian groups in Lebanon.
The same day, the Israeli military responded with artillery fire, and then overnight Thursday with airstrikes, saying it had hit rocket launch sites in south Lebanon.
However, the following day, Friday, August 6, Hezbollah joined the fray, firing over a dozen rockets into Israeli territory. It claimed it was responding to Israel. The IDF then announced that it had returned fire with artillery strikes aimed at the source of the rocket fire.
Those are the raw facts. But to view a number of headlines in the media, one would be forgiven for not knowing who had initiated this escalation of hostilities, or even thinking that Israel was responsible for the latest flare-up of violence.
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Take for example this headline, published by the Associated Press: “Hezbollah, Israel trade fire in dangerous Mideast escalation.” There is no clear cause or effect; instead, readers are told only that Hezbollah and Israel “trade fire.”
On Wednesday, rockets were fired at Israel from Lebanon. Israel responded, firing back. On Friday, Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel. Israel responded again.
And this is the headline by @AssociatedPress, a service which has articles published in websites and papers globally. pic.twitter.com/velTQvOWd8
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 8, 2021
This mode of reporting, so typical of modern journalism, was evident in the report filed by another of the world’s most well-known wire services, Reuters, which was headlined: “Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel trade fire amid Iran tensions.”
The same fundamental error was apparent earlier in the week at The New York Times not long after the initial flare-up, caused by rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel. This was before Israel had launched airstrikes against targets in Lebanon.
At this point, it should have been even easier to identify the escalation as the result of Israel coming under attack. Instead, an article published on 4 August was titled, “Tensions Flare Again Along Israel-Lebanon Border” with the crucial detail that “militants in Lebanon fired rockets at Israel” first, sparking Israel’s response, relegated to the subheadline.
Meanwhile, ABC Australia also framed events by focusing on Israel’s shelling of Lebanon: “Israel shells Lebanon in cycle of retaliation as conflict with Hezbollah escalates.” Here, too, the starting point for the escalation is seemingly deemed irrelevant.
Worst of all came courtesy of a headline in Britain’s Daily Mail — one of the world’s most widely read news websites — after Hezbollah elected to join in: “Hezbollah fires ‘dozens’ of rockets into Israel from Lebanon in retaliation for Israeli air strikes.” Here, Hezbollah’s provocation is depicted as a reaction to Israel’s actions, even though Israel itself was responding to the earlier rocket fire emanating from Lebanon.
Moreover, this omission isn’t limited to the headline alone, but extends to the first seven paragraphs of the story. Only much lower down, buried deep in the article, is this essential background information provided.
Atrocious headline and reporting from @DailyMailUK @DailyMail – not until the eighth paragraph is it noted that Israel was responding to being fired upon earlier.
This framing falsely portrays Israel as having started the violence. pic.twitter.com/4QzzPw9QHs
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 8, 2021
Similarly grossly misleading was the headline in another British media outlet, The Independent, which headlined a piece filed by Bel Trew thus: “Hezbollah fires rockets after Israeli artillery strikes”.
The end result?
Readers were left with the impression that Israel was the aggressor here, and that Hezbollah was merely responding to being attacked.
This is a total inversion of what actually happened in reality.
Related Reading — Featured News Literacy: Why Headlines Matter
Finally, special mention must go to the Irish Independent for taking an accurate headline from The Telegraph (UK), with which it has a content-sharing agreement, and replaced with a factually incorrect one.
The original Telegraph headline, “Hizbollah fires barrage of rockets into Israel in ‘very dangerous’ escalation of violence”, evidently had too negative a focus on Hezbollah for the Irish Independent’s liking, so it was removed. The headline it used instead? “Hezbollah fires ‘retaliation’ rockets at Israeli forces.”
According to the Irish Independent, Hezbollah’s rockets were a “retaliation” against “Israeli forces”. This is demonstrably false: the rockets were not aimed at Israeli forces, but did cause Israeli civilians in multiple towns to scramble for shelter.
Headlines Frame the Story
Headlines are important. Nobody has the time to read every single article published — but as we scan through news websites and social media feeds, we all absorb headlines of pieces we don’t actually read. And even if we do read a piece, headlines frame the entire story.
That’s why it’s crucial that the media frame stories accurately and fairly. Unfortunately, not for the first time, the headlines generated after Israel came under attack have resulted in a misleading picture of reality.
