Palestinians say the media are too understanding of Israel's response to street assaults. Computer technology, including the availability of inexpensive digital cameras, has contributed to a barrage of images that amount to little more than digital press releases. From the perspective of a reporter who's covered the Middle East for two decades, the last few months seem less like a watershed than like the latest in a long string of episodes that test the ability of journalists to remain fair. It's hard to remind readers and viewers of the last crisis, when, perhaps, the tables were turned. But in the Middle East, as in many conflicts, the context of history is critical to understanding the present.
Journalists have a responsibility to provide that background.
Increasingly, as political leaders make decisions under the pressure of real-time news reports, one could argue that journalist bias might actually change the course of events. When one's ox is being gored, it's hard to maintain perspective, so charges of news media bias tend to flare in moments of crisis. A fairer judgment of the media keeps a bigger picture in mind. So bear with me as I step away from the turmoil of recent months to discuss the question of alleged media bias in a broader context. It was early in the Middle East peace process of the 1990s, shortly after the Gulf War, that Washington was working to bring Arabs and Israelis to a historic peace conference that later took place in Madrid.