are the US media to biased toward Israel ? (video)

This is a very interesting documentary about the American media and how they are accused of being very biased in this conflict

It shows how US networks uses words like community instead of settler colony to describe settler villages on occupied land, and it also shows the difference between US networks and BBC World.
It shows how zionistic and pro-Israeli groups control the use of pictures and language used in US network. It’s shows how the information is more or less filtered be these groups

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict 1 hr 19 min 14 sec
Do you feel that US media too biased toward Israel and that the US networks are not so free as you assume or should be ?

Another important thing to noticed in the doc. is that Israeli media seams to be far more critical toward Israeli actions in Palestine than US media. Especially the famous Israeli newspaper Haaretz which is one of the biggest in Israel

This is also my own impression

You’re beating your head on a stone wall here, Wildfire. Very few people around here will admit that the mainstream news media list heavily to port.

If terrorists are called “militants” than settlements can be called “communities”. It’s called objective language.

Well, yeah. From my purely subjective POV, BBC has a fierce anti-Israeli bias

Control? Israel and its supporters employ PR. As does the other side. Public relations is not “control”.

It’s “filtered” by the news orgs. themselves. That’s their job.

Do you believe that every word, every image presented by Hizballah and its cronies to be absolute truth? Or are Israelis simply bigger liars.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6604775898578139565&q=genre%3Adocumentary+duration%3Along
Do you feel that US media too biased toward Israel and that the US networks are not so free as you assume or should be ?
[/QUOTE]

IF the U.S. media is biased, the bias is not nearly as strong as European bias to the other directoion. Tjhe U.S. media is as free as any in the world, and freer than most.

Erhm… does that imply that there is a connection between being liberal and being biased toward Israel?

I have no doubt in my mind at all that the US media has a bias toward Israel. But I think it is a bias that is largely representative of Americans as a whole. There’s nothing sinister behind it.

However, I have never heard the word “community” used to describe settlements/colonies. I believe the preferred nomenclature in the US media is “settlements.”

And the link in the OP doesn’t work.

Ouch. That’s what I get for responding to a post after I’ve only skimmed over it lightly.

No, there isn’t a pro-Israel bias in the American news media. The media are not secretly controlled by a sinister Jewish cabal. Any more questions?

Perhaps you missed the recent flap about Hezballah successfully getting doctored photographs splashed all over the Western media?

You’re beginning to sound like a one-trick pony. Posters that obsess over one topic to the exclusion of everything else, and those that seem to promote an agenda, get very little respect on the SDMB.

Is there anything else that interests you, besides Israel and how terrible the United States is?

FYI, a recent independent review of the BBC’s coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict [pdf] commissioned following such complaints. It concludes:

However, for reference, I wonder if you’ve ever had the chance to watch Sky News (News International/Murdoch/Fox stable) in the UK? IMO its coverage, apart from being somewhat more breathless and hysterical, is indistinguishable from BBC’s reporting, uses the same language, but is labelled as “right wing” and receives none of the same complaints.

I think many would disagree with you there
By the way, did you see the documentary?

I’m glad that someone is actually admitting that

No, the link doesn’t work.

you can then copy it and open a new page

Wildfire, please answer my question.

Is there anything else that interests you, besides Israel and how terrible the United States is?

Interesting paper. From what I read, the panel itself seems - in my mind - to have certain biases against Israel, which leads me to conclude that the BBC’s approach is a accurate reflection of the society from which it arises. It has no biases that do not exist in the British public at large. That’s OK - every society has its own biases, mine no less than others. A news organization is run for and by the same people.

Incidentally, we get Sky News here. It plays like the BBC without the self importance.

You know that this is rubbish

Wildfire, please answer my question.

Is there anything else that interests you, besides Israel and how terrible the United States is?

I get most of my news during my long morning and evening commutes. In the morning there’s BBC (strongly anti-Israel), NPR (warm toward Israel, but not generally overt about it), and Pacifica’s “Democracy Now” (rabidly anti-Israel and anti anything America does).

From the random samples I get, I’d say most of the non-print media is pro-Israel, with reservations. Without bothering to watch, I can pretty much guess where Fox comes down (but I don’t want to get my hate on with those clowns any more than with Amy Goodman).

The wire service stuff I see on Yahoo seems fairly even-handed, and shallow.

I don’t read newspapers. The WSJ (except, of course, for the editorial page) is the only one that ever gets things right, and it’s too pricey. The editorial page, of course, would support Israel if it gased every orphanage in the Arab world.

Just so you know, I’m pro-Israel (as in, wanting it to continue to exist, and to be allowed to do so peacefully), but I think most of their actions WRT the Palestinians are counter-productive. The invasion of Lebanon is, IMO, going to do them as much good as our invasion of Iraq did us.

Are you calling me a liar?

It’s rather silly that WildfireMM** labels as “rubbish” something you admitted was “subjective”.