It’s not the Media that’s Biased

Everywhere I look I see another message about the biased nature of the media when it comes to Israel. Whether it’s on my Facebook homepage, Twitter feed or blogs here on the Times of Israel. Well I’ve got news for you, it isn’t the media that’s biased, it’s you!

Of course you’re biased if you’re Jewish and/or Israeli or an Israel supporter. If you suffer the rocket attacks coming out of Gaza and are under threat from all of the nasty things that are threatening Israel, and you it affects the way you look at the reporting of news around the world. Of course it does and there’s no one who would think that’s unreasonable but that doesn’t mean that any news organisation has to reflect your feelings or cater to them when they post their copy.

After reading a constant stream of vitriol about the way that the BBC are reporting on the rocket attacks against us I went to their website to see for myself what the problem is. Before I could do that I had to actually find the stories about Israel and even that took several clicks. I started out on the BBC homepage, nothing there, clicked through to news, nothing there, clicked on Middle East and finally found a bunch of stories concerning Israel/Palestine. The most hi-lighted story was of the PA preparing to exhume Arafat’s body. A story which hardly makes them look good! Another is entitled “Rocket Volley hits South Israel” and surprise, surprise describes how rockets are bombarding Israel. There’s another story there entitled “Six Killed as Gaza Clashes Flare” well guess what? 6 Palestinians DID die, it’s news and a news organisation is reporting it. That is not anti-Semitism nor is it bias, it’s news being reported.

Going back a step I did manage to find a story on the BBC News page, once I scrolled down from the main focus stories, the very same one that exists in their Mid East News section also had a link in the News; “Rocket Volley hits South Israel”. Does anyone really have a problem with the Beeb reporting on rockets falling in the South?

Too many people are dissecting every word in these stories in an attempt to find some kind of anti-Israel element when in reality hard working journalists are just telling the world what’s happening.

Undoubtedly people are sitting at home coming up with news stories of their own that the BBC should be writing and aren’t…don’t do that! Just accept the fact that the more gory something is the more it’s likely to make the news, hence 6 dead Palestinians being equally as newsworthy as the barrage of rockets we are suffering at the moment.

Deal with it, if you’re going to hate someone hate the person firing these rockets at you, not the person who’s telling the world that it’s happening.

Right now it genuinely feels as though people are more outraged by perceived slights from the BBC and CNN than rockets coming from the enemy, get a grip, stop whining about the news and start caring about things that are more important. Like what is actually happening all around us.