Example of Media Bias:
The excerpt below is an example of media bias by OMISSION. It is from the February 15th entry at EyeOnThePost.org.(For a definition of OMISSION, look under “Types of Media Bias” in the right column.)
Post Failing to Report News that Doesn’t Fit Its Agenda – Palestinian Security Forces Will Not Follow Abbas’ Orders to Crack Down on Terrorists
The Washington Post’s web site is under different management than the newspaper, and sometimes that provides a window into how the newspaper is filtering the news according to the agenda of its foreign reporters and foreign editor. The web site often provides wire service reports of important news that the Post’s foreign reporters and editor ignore, and yesterday we were provided with an example.
Yesterday the Associated Press ran an excellent article showing that the Palestinian Authority’s security forces have divided loyalties. No matter how many Palestinian policemen are sent into Gaza, they don’t have the will or intention to confront or disarm terrorists or even to simply arrest those terrorists who continue to attack Israel and disrupt the peace process. This wire service story was reported on the Washington Post’s own web site. (Palestinian Cops Can’t Stop Militants, 2-14, 2005) Yet it didn’t make it into today’s newspaper.
Those inclined to play devil’s advocate might argue that due to space restraints, there are a lot of news stories that can’t be reported, and with other stories on other days, that argument would, undoubtedly, be true. Today, there was virtually no news reported about Israel or the disputed territories, save for a few lines in the World in Brief section. This was an important story and one would have to be naive to think the Post’s foreign editor missed it. It is something that the Post’s reporters in Israel should have been reporting for some time now. What good is it to have correspondents on the scene who are unwilling to ask and provide an answer to the simple question of whether the Palestinian police forces in the field have any intention of carrying out Mahmoud Abbas’ orders to crack down on terrorists?
