The Beeb's proven bias

OK, everyone, it's now official: there is bias in the way the media - particularly BBC1 - reports the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So Roy Greenslade reports in yesterday's Media Guardian (registration required - scroll down), summarizing the findings of a study by Greg Philo and Mike Berry of the Glasgow University media group:

[The] findings confirm what so many impartial observers already know. The main overall conclusion is that there is a clear bias in television news bulletins in favour of the Israelis. [Emphasis added.]

Well, you can colour me sceptical. Though I do know what I've seen, I haven't read the study itself, so should pobably be more cautious than to make a judgement on the basis of Greenslade's short summary. But an expression of scepticism (at least) is certainly justified by one or two things in his summary. Take this passage:

Most important of all is the lack of context and history. The research reveals that television viewers are largely unaware of the origins of the conflict and are therefore confused by what they are told and see in nightly reports. There are substantial gaps in their knowledge, with few showing any awareness of the 1967 occupation let alone the 1948 founding of the Israeli state on Palestinian lands. Many viewers told the researchers they saw the conflict as a border dispute between two countries.

One viewer said: "The impression I got [from news] was that the Palestinians had lived around about that area and now they were trying to come back and get some more land for themselves. I didn't realise they had been driven out of places in wars previously."
.....
One 20-year-old interviewee said he thought the conflict was about Palestinian rather than Israeli aggression. He had no idea that the Israelis were occupying Arab-owned land.

Now, if there are gaps in the knowledge of the viewers, which - so the implication is - the news channels are failing to fill in, thereby producing misunderstandings, then well and good; or ill and bad. But note the gaps as specified here: the 1967 occupation; Israel founded on Palestinian lands; Palestinians driven out of places 'in wars previously'. Are we to suppose that the same viewers afflicted by these informational gaps all have an excellent knowledge of various circumstances not mentioned here: the establishment of the State of Israel on the basis of a UN resolution; this in the aftermath of the genocide against the Jews of Europe; the immediate declaration of war on Israel by the surrounding Arab nations, and their continuing hostility after that? I'm disinclined to believe that knowledge-gapped viewers somehow only have gaps in their knowledge that disfavour the Palestinian case, but are thoroughly on top of all the facts which might be placed on the other side of the balance.

We read, also, that more than 800 people were interviewed for this study, which brought together 'academics, journalists and members of the public':

Among the journalists were high-profile broadcasters such as George Alagiah and Brian Hanrahan from the BBC and Lindsey Hilsum from Channel 4 News.

Hilsum says: "We do face a continual problem in providing history and context because, given the length of our reports, we have to decide whether to include another fact to do with the contemporaneous event or put in some history. And, to be honest, one can't go back to 1948 every time.

"But the study does make valid points, especially over the use of the word 'retaliation' when the Israelis assassinate someone, because it's usually the case that Palestinian suicide bombers are retaliating too. I am now more careful about this".

Note that statement: 'Palestinian suicide bombers are retaliating too'. They are 'retaliating' against people on buses, and in discos and restaurants, against children and infants. The concept of retaliation Hilsum employs only has meaning if you take the relevant acts as being between communities, and do not distinguish the individual actors and their victims. Just think about this: after some coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq, the US army opens fire, deliberately and with intent, on people shopping in a market or on groups of Iraqi children on their way out of school. Can you imagine Lindsey Hilsum or any other journalist participant in the study being willing to speak about that as a retaliation? Because I can't. Rightly not. It would be a crime: a war crime, and a crime against humanity. But the mobilization of journalistic bias doesn't work in that direction, where it does, strangely, work over suicide murders.

I wonder, finally, if there's any screening in these media bias studies for bias in the starting assumptions of those carrying them out.