Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East

January 24, 2008

Analysis shows that NZ newspapers favour Palestinians

During 2007, coverage of the Israel/Palestinian conflict in New Zealand newspapers favoured the Palestinian side by a ratio of 2.4 to 1, according to Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Mideast (KBRM). This conclusion was reached after analysing 450 items in seven newspapers, including the New Zealand Herald, the Dominion Post, The Press, the Otago Daily Times, the Southland Times, the Northern Advocate and the Timaru Herald (though not every paper was evaluated throughout the entire period).

Each article, editorial or cartoon was rated by a KBRM member on the basis of space and emphasis given to damage, hardship and blame on each side. If more space and emphasis were allotted to Palestinian damage and hardship or to statements blaming Israel, the rating was ‘pro-Palestinian’. If the reverse, the rating was ‘pro-Israel’. If the emphasis and space were equal, the rating was ‘neutral’. Over half the articles were found to be unbalanced, with 187 rated pro-Palestinian and only 77 ‘pro-Israel’.

Interestingly enough, it was the smaller newspapers that showed the best balance. The Northern Advocate (Whangarei) was the only newspaper with a ‘perfect’ 1:1 balance. The Southland Times (Invercargill) was close behind with a ‘pro-Palestinian’ ratio of 1.3:1, while the Timaru Herald had a ratio of 2.6:1 but with 70% of its articles rated ‘neutral’.

Of the larger newspapers, the best-balanced were the Dominion Post (Wellington), with a 1.6:1 ratio, and The Press (Christchurch), with a 2.4:1 ratio. The New Zealand Herald had a 3.5:1 ratio, but with 58% neutral articles. The worst-balanced paper was the Otago Daily Times (Dunedin) with a 5:1 ratio and 29% neutral articles.

It is important to realise that the ratings do not indicate biased or unfair reporting; they are simply a measure of content. Moral issues, such as the fact that most Palestinian attacks are aimed at civilian targets while Israel's attacks are directed at military ones, are not considered. The point of the method is that it is the preponderance of reports sympathetic to one side or the other that shapes the mindset of readers. If they read predominantly about Palestinian suffering and blame on Israel, they naturally come to believe that Israel is the aggressor and/or oppressor.

While the degree of imbalance in some of the articles was small, others were nothing but all-out attacks on Israel. On Christmas Eve, for example, The Press published an oped column by John Minto that actually called for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. Another extreme (unrated) example was a two-page diatribe against Israel by Lloyd Geering in the NZ Listener (Aug. 25).

These results raise the question of the origin of the imbalance. It cannot be attributed to a difference in frequency of actions, as over 2000 rockets were fired at Israel throughout the year on a daily basis while Israeli attacks were much less frequent. Clearly some of it rests with the news services, but the wide variation from paper to paper shows that selection policies of local editors play a large part. Sometimes a headline alone can change the balance of an article, as was demonstrated on Dec 1 by the inaccurate ODT headline, ‘Olmert mentions ‘apartheid’’. On Oct 5, a front-page headline in the Dominion Post (‘I need a Maori’) turned an innocent remark by the new Israeli ambassador into an (inaccurate) racist quote that led to anti-Semitic vandalism in a Wellington Jewish cemetery.

KBRM believes that it is only by presenting both sides of the story that the NZ public can be properly informed and make up its own mind as to where the fault and solution lie. To help NZ newspapers achieve this goal, more people have been added to the ratings staff for 2008 and two more newspapers will be rated. Full ratings can be seen at http://www.kbrm.org.nz/score_2008.html.

Rodney Brooks - Chairman KBRM