"Aren't the Israelis and Palestinians both terrorizing each other?"
Ted Turner

This question by CNN and Time-Warner CEO Ted Turner proved to be the final straw for pro-Israel campaigners in the relentless and unfavorable presentation of Israel in the mass media over the past 20 months.

Consistent lobbying produces an impact. This was the lesson learnt from pro-Israel media pressure groups after CNN caved in to unprecedented criticism of its Middle East coverage. CNN promised fairer reporting and began a 5 part series on Israeli victims of terror. CNN's website also reflected this change of policy.

Behind The Headlines looks at the campaign to see if this is the right lesson to be learnt for future media lobbying campaigns. Indeed, we shall see argue that when campaigning, aiming at the right target is crucial. It was only through including the providers of cable and satellite TV, that pro-Israel campaigners got their message across about unfair reporting. This is one lesson of the CNN story.

The second part of the saga, however, is how CNN chose to interpret their promise of more equitable coverage.

The Era of CNN

For many years, supporters of Israel have claimed that the media as a whole are biased and favor a Palestinian perspective. This claim certainly has historical credibility. From time immemorial, Jews have made news and, if the world is but a stage, Israel has for many years been the center of attention. As we shall see, conflict in the Holy Land is an interest story of multi denominational interest.

The problem of CNN is also part of a larger problem of Israel's media image. CNN is important because of its size as a media outlet and as a media success story. Yet, to understand the importance of CNN in depth we need a wider lens of reference.

The media has had to deal with a new situation since September 11th, which brings into serious doubt the cast of "good guy" and "bad guy" that has been portrayed on TV screens night after night, where news is served up in the style of entertainment.

They have not, however, modified the essential mold since October 2000, or even since September 11th 2001:

a) Today there is a consensus, if not war, against terrorism in the USA;
b) The Palestinians today are not unarmed; they - not just the IDF - have weapons;
c) They have also popularized kamikaze bombing against civilians, who are Israelis.
Journalists do not wish to admit that they have been wrong in the past, so they have developed a more sophisticated strategy for retaining their inaccurate casting.

This strategy has four major features:

1. Moral Equivalency
Does one compare the firefighter with the arsonist?
CNN interviewed the mother of a terrorist victim and the mother of the terrorist. This is explained as fair play, on the principle that they are entitled to both equal broadcast time and platform, because they are from two different sides to a conflict.

But the two offspring were not in equivalent moral positions, and their mothers merit representation accordingly: the mother of a murderer in a penal case in the US would be presented in entirely different terms.

2. Redefining Terrorism and those Responsible
a. Suicide bombers are described on CNN as militants, activists.
The US Government has listed Hamas and the Islamic Jihad (among others) as terror organizations - ergo, their members are terrorists, especially when they perpetrate such crimes.
b. The double-speak of official Palestinian condemnation of terrorism, or specific acts of terror, while continuing to finance, popularize and idolize terrorism, is never questioned.
c. Israel victims of terror were never defined.

SEE: CNN Conceals Truth about PA Broadcasting
http://world.std.com/~camera/docs/oncamera/ocrula.html

3. The Palestinians are never to blame and are always the victims
Affective identification with victims and personal tragedy are used to create sympathy and legitimate "cause" for immoral and horrific actions of terror on non-combattants. Leaders and terrorists are not connected to their plight, while Israel is portrayed as the cause of all evils and a legitimate target for protest by any means.

See Media Coverage of the Palestinian Terror Attacks in Israel http://world.std.com/~camera/docs/alert/terror1.html

4. Proof of Palestinian involvement in terrorism is never questioned ethically
a. Palestinian spokespersons are allowed to claim and disseminate that "you cannot question the behavior of the occupied" as a golden truth.
b. Palestinian action is never scrutinized, despite the use of terrorism as a strategic method to achieve political goals.
c. Even when Palestinians dress up their babies and children as suicide bombers - and officials later describe it as a joke - there is no scrutiny of standards.

See: http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/06/28/baby.photo/index.html

These trends have been monitored closely by pro-Israel groups. See:
http://www.aish.com/
http://www.honestreporting.com/
It is not, however, the monitoring of these trends alone that are the true lessons of the recent CNN turn around. There is a more fundamental lesson in political lobbying to be learnt.

Lobbying, or Economics?

What can be learnt from the anti-CNN campaign?

a. It is clear that groups such as http://www.honestreporting.com/ and http://www.camera.org/ have been very successful in lobbying.

b. They have been helped by the clear incongruence between fact and CNN's strategies for keeping an old paradigm of understanding the Middle East.

c. These groups have also been help by globalization.
With the success of the anti CNN campaign it is clear that email lobbying (CNN was receiving over 6,000 emails a day from Honest Reporting supporters) has come of age.

It should be asked, though, whether the threat from Israel's largest satellite station YES to pull the plug on CNN was the straw that broke media giant's back, or the emails of Honest Reporting supporters.

Although YES did not follow through with their threat, they did sign an agreement with the conservative and rival news group FOX. This contract opened the news market in Israel to a CNN competitor.

The lesson is clear, at more than one level. Following the story of CNN, Honest Reporting, Camera and other groups should be advised to launch a media campaign aimed at station/satellite/ cable companies - against the BBC, NBC and other news groups. The campaign against CNN should mark a new beginning in effective Hasbara.

CNN's "Victims of Terror"

The five part CNN series "Victims of Terror" provided an in-depth account of the price that Israelis have paid during the unprecedented campaign by terrorists against civilians. CNN began each program with the disclaimer that: "CNN seeks not to minimize or trivialize the suffering of the Palestinian people, which is very real, but that is a story for another time."

The mini-series attempted to rebalance much of the reporting of CNN since the beginning of the Intifada, by personalizing the victims of terror. Indeed, the first victim interviewed was Penina Aizenman whose mother and five year old daughter were murdered by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. The series also covered the day in a life of Shai Shapiro, a para-medic, working in Jerusalem.

Assessment

CNN did present the stories of Israeli victims, which was something they had not tried to do previously.
However, presenting these tragedies out of their news context is obviously less effective and balancing than in real time, which was to be expected.

a. The five programs come across as a separate reality, out-of-time, which was avoidable.

b. Moreover, the disclaimer reinforced a sense of equivalency with Palestinian deaths, including those of bombers.

c. There was no network relation to the immorality of the actions perpetrated, or equivalency of Israeli victims to US victims in the fight against Islamic terror organizations.

d. CNN presents news and in-depth features, but these programs - while compelling - neither redressed the balance in their long-standing strategy of presentation, nor reviewed it.

e. The overall impact was that CNN showed Israelis as collateral victims, rather than the targets of a deliberate terror campaign.

CNN resumed its regular reporting from Israel, with some change of nuance. The proof of "fairer" coverage remains an open question.

Points to Ponder

Define these terms and explore their different significance in the context of media reporting: Fair, balanced, equitable.

What is the difference between reporting and providing a media platform? What should a journalist’s moral compass be?

Pro-Palestinian groups are lobbying CNN to create a special series of programs on Palestinian suffering. Would that make CNN more, or less fair, in its handling of the conflict?

For what points should a Media Response group be alert, if this happens?

The libellous Jenin “massacre” media allegations were compounded by Israel’s exclusion of the media from the area; the media did not take up documented proof of Arafat’s complicity in financing terror.
Does this tie in with the media's demands for transparency, or is there an attitude problem?
What should Israel do about it?

References:

CNN's improved image
http://asia.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/terror.victims/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/terror.victims/page1.html

Israelis threaten to drop CNN after Turner comment
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,741298,00.html

JUICE Course Neil Lazarus" Food for Thought" Media Studies. 1996

BBC and CNN gain Israeli reprieve
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,743023,00.html

News outlets pressed on bias in MidEast coverage
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/177/living/
News_outlets_pressed_on_bias_in_Mideast_coverage+.shtml

Jewish groups outraged at Ted Turner's terrorism comments
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/19/1023864447842.html