Media in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Thanks. Peaceintheeast, are you going to present a case that there is bias in the media regarding the Palestinian Conflict? If not, there's nothing for me to refute and the judges should give the debate to me by default. I first need to clarify, though...my argument is intended to attack known bias in the media but I am unclear if your purpose is to argue that there should be bias in the media or that there is no bias in the media. I'm arguing that if you look at the totality of the coverage, including all media sources, that you cannot prove systematic bias in one direction (either Pro-Israel or Pro-Palestinian). The NY Times front page story on the new Fatah/Hamas partnership even pointed out multiple times that Hamas is not considered a terrorist organization in many parts of the world. I've seen numerous articles that say that no Two State Solution will work if Hamas doesn't sign off on it, and Israel's treatment of Hamas as categorically a terrorist organization is harming the peace process. But honestly, I'm just assuming that you would argue that the coverage has been too pro-Israel. But I guess you could argue that it's been too pro-Palestinian, so I don't even know what bias I'm arguing against. C1) Time On the Time Magazine article: You make a good point in saying that publishing a poignant article provoked action on the part of the Israeli government. However, it proves that in this case, the media had a specific agenda, and if it had a particular agenda, then it can no longer claim to be communicating information but rather, opinion. My opponent never proves that Time Magazine had an agenda by publishing an article critical of Israel. If taking a position for one side or another means "having an agenda," then unbiased reporting would be really boring. My opponent's vision of unbiased reporting would consist of dry articles that are a straight recitation of facts. Articles are only interesting when the author advances and clear, concise, and convincing thesis. Unbiased reporting means giving authors on both sides of an issue access to publication, not refusing to take a stance. Imagine if you were trying to see how you felt about Solar Energy, and no one was allowed to talk in favor or against solar energy. It'd be very difficult to become educated on the topic. All articles would just read like the CIA World Factbook or an Almanac - just a list of facts and statistics. C2) Al Jazeera On the Al Jazeera point, if you look closely, you will see that Al Jazeera English does not publish the same material as Al Jazeera in Arabic. It would be much easier simply to translate articles from Arabic than to pay to have new articles written for the English-speaking audience. No one would watch Al Jazeera if it was a straight translation of Arabic. Subtitled movies don't fair well in the United States for the same reason - because it's boring to watch someone speaking in a language you don't understand, for an hour, and having to read subtitles. Al Jazeera: English advances the same agenda and perspective, while trying to appeal to an English-speaking audience, featuring people who speak English and understand local culture, as well as Mid-East culture. C3) Lobbyists Most people acknowledge that the flow of information is lobbyists to media, not media to lobbyists. Lobbyists create material, journalists sometimes use that material rather than doing original research (*cough* Fox News *cough*). So blame the pro-Israel lobby for being more effective at corralling public opinion than the pro-Palestinian lobby; don't blame the media, which actually counteracts AIPAC's agenda by publishing dissident voices. My opponent still has not proven that the coverage of the Israel-Palestine Conflict is biased.