Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East

August 2007

Balance Results for First Half of 2007

The following article was published in the NZ Jewish Chronicle, August 2007. A similar article was distributed to 24 other newspapers, but to our knowledge was not published in any.

NZ papers show anti-Israel bias

July 19, 07

According to score sheets compiled by Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Mideast (www.kbrm.org.nz), many New Zealand newspapers have failed to provide balanced coverage of the Arab/Israel conflict. Our largest newspaper, the New Zealand Herald, published 61 related articles during the first six months of this year, 23 of which were classified as 'pro-Palestinian' while only five were 'pro-Israel', according to the KBRM ratings. The Otago Daily Times (Dunedin) was even worse, with 23 of 39 articles rated ‘pro-Palestinian ’ and only three ‘pro-Israel ’. The Press (Christchurch) had 50 rated articles of which 26 were ‘pro-Palestinian ’ and only 11 ‘pro-Israel ’, while the Sunday Star-Times had nine rated articles, with four judged ‘pro-Palestinian ’ and two ‘pro-Israel ’. The best record among the larger papers was compiled by the Dominion Post (Wellington), with 11 ‘pro-Palestinian ’, 7 'pro-Israel', and 9 balanced articles.

The exceptions, interestingly enough, were the smaller newspapers. During the same six-month period, the Timaru Herald published 55 articles related to the conflict, 31 of which were rated well-balanced, with ten others ‘pro-Israel ’ and 14 ‘pro-Palestinian ’. Of 21 rated articles in the Southland Times (Invercargill), 9 were ‘pro-Israel ’ and 8 ‘pro-Palestinian ’, and the Northern Advocate (Whangarei) had 38 rated articles, with 12 ‘pro-Israel ’ and 8 ‘pro-Palestinian ’.

In evaluating these ratings it is important to understand that they are meant only as a simple and objective measure of exposure given to the two sides of the conflict. They do not imply anything about bias or misreporting in individual articles (which is why quotation marks were used above).

The evaluations are done by a KBRM Documentation Group with members from Balclutha to Whangarei. Each newspaper is scanned for news reports and opinion columns that mention the Israel-Palestine conflict, even if the mention occurs within the article. Articles that only mention internal politics and conflicts (on either side) are not included.

The articles are then rated according to space and emphasis given to three factors: damage, hardship and blame. For example, if more space is given to description of damage or hardship suffered by Arabs and to statements or quotes that blame Israel, the article is rated ‘pro-Palestinian ’. If the reverse is true, it is rated ‘pro-Israel ’. (Again, these terms are used only for convenience.) If the space is the same, position and emphasis, especially headlines, become the determinant. If there is no imbalance in space or emphasis, the article is rated ‘balanced ’. While some subjectivity may occur when defining damage, hardship and blame, in most cases the decision is clear-cut.

KBRM feels that this simple rating method is useful because it is this kind of balance or imbalance in the news and oped pages that helps to determine the public's mind about the moral issues. If they read predominantly about Palestinian suffering and Israeli blame, they naturally come to see Israel as the guilty party, and not as a nation defending itself, perhaps not always wisely or well, against militants and terrorists who are trying to destroy it and kill its citizens.

by Rodney Brooks, KBRM