More British people believe ‘the settlers’ are Palestinian, than know they are Israeli; substantial numbers think it’s the Palestinians who are occupying the occupied territories, and many have only the vaguest idea of where ‘the refugees’ come from. ‘Afghanistan’ is not an infrequent guess.
The findings come from Greg Philo and Mike Berry, of the Glasgow University Media Group, based on polls and focus groups which saw them interview fully 800 people over a two-year period. They also analysed more than 200 news programmes, and their book, Bad News from Israel, spells out the exact match between patterns of omission and distortion in coverage of this conflict, and the wrong-headedness of the audience.
Read more about Greg Philo’s findings and analysis
In the words of Uri Avnery, veteran leader of Gush Shalom, the Israeli peace bloc: ‘The citizen is completely helpless. He does not hear any other voice; and if everybody says the same, it must be true’.
RtW has consistently advocated the remedy for this – expand the range of sources and find ways to illuminate the conflict as a whole, not just the violence.
This was the theme of the first RtW discussion, Israel and the Palestinians – are we getting the story? Participants included Gila Svirsky and Yitzhak Frankenthal, two Israeli peace activists.
Read an edited transcript
Find out more about an alternative reporting strategy demonstrated in the film, News from the Holy Land
- theory and practice of reporting conflict.