No Media Bias? Israel and Lebanon Show otherwise
I've been listening to the news lately about the Israel/Lebanon conflict, and one thing I have noted is the lack of balance in how they present the news. There are often statements about Israel attacking 'what they say' were Hezbollah targets. There is always the conditional statement attributing the comment to Israeli statements, as opposed to a verified fact, which is fair enough.

The problem is that this is not used consistently. With the Qana incident, the news constantly reported that Israel strikes killed 60 people, including 30 children. This was always stated as if it was a verified fact, even though there was some doubt as to the cause of the buildings collapse. The news media also never mentioned that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) also told Qana residents to leave well before the attack, and now it seems that the numbers of those killed was vastly overstated as the Red Cross has confirmed that only 29 people were killed, including 19 children.

This isn't an unbiased approach to the conflict. A large part of this war is a public relations war. It seems clear which side the media is on. Whether they are innocent dupes or wilful participants is unclear, but their bias is obvious.

If you want to see some really suspicious examples of the propaganda war being waged by Hezbollah (or other organisations...maybe even an aid organisation), EU Referendum have a really troubling roundup of suspicious and staged photographs. There are obvious shenanigans going on here as well as clear examples of why some arguments being put forward are plain old lies.

From our stance, what is especially interesting is that sometime after dawn a call went hour to journalists and rescue workers to come to the scene. And come they did, in droves. Says Israel Insider, while Hezbollah and its apologists have been claiming that civilians could not freely flee the scene due to Israeli destruction of bridges and roads, the journalists and rescue teams from nearby Tyre had no problem getting there.

Check out the entire thread and notice that in the picture from 1996, the man is in army fatigues in another obviously staged shot. Considering the fake Jenin massacre, propaganda man, and the 6 or so hours between the bombing and the calling of journalists and rescue workers, the whole situation has the very bad odor of a setup.

Update: The ABC has apologised for the bias in one of its childrens news shows. The show described Hezbollah, whose stated aim to to wipe israel off the Middle east map as a "Palestinian refugee organisation". The show also saidthe UN "wants the two groups to stop fighting but Israel says it'll continue to fight until Hezbollah is destroyed" but did not mention that that Hezbollah would not stop fighting until all Jews are out of Israel.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Wednesday, August 02, 2006