Burak Bir
07 March 2024•Update: 11 March 2024
LONDON
"Significant biases" have been evident in the British media over its coverage of Gaza since Oct. 7, with "emotive language" describing Israelis as victims of attacks 11 times more than Palestinians, according to a report published Wednesday.
The report, Media Bias Gaza 2023-24, exposed "significant biases in media coverage" in the UK concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), an arm of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).
The lengthy study revealed that most British TV channels overwhelmingly promote “Israel's right to defend itself,” overshadowing Palestinian rights by a ratio of five to one.
"In broadcast TV, Israeli perspectives were referenced almost three times more than Palestinian ones. In online news, it was almost twice as much," it noted.
The report also said the media used “emotive language” to describe Israelis as victims of attacks 11 times more than Palestinians, while 76% of online articles framed the conflict as an "Israel-Hamas war" and only 24% mentioned "Palestine/Palestinian," indicating a lack of context.
"Pro-Palestinian voices face misrepresentation and vilification by media outlets, perpetuating harmful stereotypes," the report said, adding right-wing news channels and right-wing British publications were "at the forefront of misrepresenting pro-Palestinian protestors as antisemitic, violent, or pro-Hamas."
Also, there were 361 TV news clips where the terms "beheaded" and "babies" were found and almost 50% of these were on the right-wing British channels Talk TV (27%) and GB News (20%), with Sky News accounting for 14%, said the report, which scrutinized a vast array of data analyzing 176,627 television clips from over 13 broadcasters and 25,515 news articles from over 28 UK online media websites.
The study also found that TV reporting of Israeli perspectives was referenced almost three times more (4,311) than Palestinian ones (1,598).
In online news, it was almost twice as much (2,983 versus 1,737).
On language usage, the study showed that media coverage highlighted a concerning trend where emotive language "disproportionately highlighted Israeli suffering while downplaying Palestinian casualties."
It also examined the intersection between the crisis and Islamophobia, especially as Islamophobic hate crime increased by 335% since Oct. 7.
"In the main, Palestinians should be reported on as human beings with full unalienable rights as enjoyed by all peoples. This also necessitates how those rights have been curtailed in a forever war against them that has its origins many decades before 7 October 2023,” said Faisal Hanif, the lead author of the report.
Rizwana Hamid, the director of CfMM, said: "As media organizations navigate the complexities of the conflict, it is imperative to uphold principles of fairness, accuracy and inclusivity, ensuring that all voices are heard and all perspectives are represented."
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas, which Tel Aviv said killed nearly 1,200 people.
More than 30,700 Palestinians have since been killed and over 72,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
