Media in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Thanks for the debate peaceintheeast. Rebuttal Intro I find it fascinating that it seemed only natural to you that by saying the media is and shouldn't be biased, I was actually saying that the media shouldn't be biased toward Israel. That is a reasonable deduction, given the topic is "media in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," not just "the media." I was not arguing that media as a whole swings one way or another, simply that most people do not watch every news channel and that since each news channel covers news with strong leanings in one direction, it would be easy to find one's self exposed only to one side of the debate. 1) This just proves that on balance, the media isn't biased. News sources balance each other out. If the NY Times has a slight liberal bias and the Wall Street Journal has a slight conservative bias, then the two even each other out. Most people who read the news today read online news, usually using a conglomeration site like Yahoo News or Google News, where they get a sampling of many different publications, with different political leanings. [1] A study by Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, both of the University of Chicago, found that although theoretically people could use the internet to segregate their viewpoints and only visit sites that agreed with them, in actuality most people used the internet to broaden the number of different viewpoints they received, usually through sites like Yahoo or Google News. [2] 2) This just isn't true. CNN was so committed to unbiased reporting that it fired Lou Dobbs for taking too conservative of a stance. This promotes ignorance According to Pew Research, the viewers of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report are the most educated, on tests of political knowledge. These two shows have a clear liberal bias yet their viewers are much more informed on issues than the average American. A show taking a stand one way or another does not inherently mean that it is turning its viewers into ignorant zombies. On the existence of bias in the media: My opponent essentially presents two different stories here, one from Al Jazeera and one from The Jerusalem Post and points out that they have a different set of facts about events. 1) Having a different set of facts is NOT bias. Bias is interpreting the same set of facts in different ways. For example, if one geological researcher said there were 90 billion tons of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale and another researcher said there were only 70 billion tons in the Marcellus Shale, you would not say that both researchers are biased. The facts are in dispute. 2) My opponent's description of the Al Jazeera article even shows that it gave coverage to both sides, the Free Gaza Movement and the Israelis before drawing its own conclusions. This is the definition of unbiased reporting; offering both sides. The fact the newspaper draws its own conclusions is only natural. Even Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in the world, didn't just report facts; we expect reporters to INTERPRET those facts for us, weighing relative likelihoods. 3) The two publications obviously balance each other out, as my opponent proves. You can read both, on a site like Google News, to get a sense of what both sides think. 4) People know the biases in their sources, which is why they seek out multiple sources. Any intelligent person would realize that AL JAZEERA would be biased toward the Palestinian cause and that THE JERUSALEM POST would be biased towards the Israelis. 5) Neither publication is really American. If you read the New York Times coverage of the incident, it relates the story of both sides in a much more measured light. But at the end of the day, disagreeing about FACTS is not bias. It's easy to disagree about who started the aggression. A story that said we needed to support Israel NO MATTER WHAT would be biased towards Israel, but a story that said the Israeli version of events on the flotilla seems more plausible is just interpreting and analyzing facts. If we have to give equal coverage to both sides in all cases, then we would have to publish Libyan state propaganda (for example, in regards to the rape incident), rather than saying that the facts presented by the Libyans are completely bogus. Also, by itself, looking at two news stories is insufficient to prove systematic bias in the media. I should win because my opponent fails to uphold the burden of proof. Agendas An agenda can be as simple as trying to make your readers adopt your opinion. True, a known "opinion piece" is an appropriate arena for opinions, but news sources are not. Newspapers do not allow reporters to express clear political opinions in their pieces, unless the piece is in the Op-Ed section of the paper. You'll NEVER see a newspaper article that says: "President Obama, the clear and obvious choice in 2012, just announced he is running for president once again." Journalists are not allowed to do that. They can interpret facts: "Obama, the clear front runner, based on polling data...", but they can't express their own personal opinions. There's a fine line between interpreting and analyzing facts and inserting ones own personal opinion. However, by definition, an opinion is a "subjective belief" not purely grounded in fact. A conclusion one way or another about two different sets of facts is merely analyzing the relative probability of events. It's something we do all the time: in a court room, in history class, and in the news. Dry facts could be published by anyone; the very job of a journalist is to analyze facts. Don't blame journalists for doing their jobs. Vote Pro. [1] http://searchengineland.com... [2] http://www.post-gazette.com...