UTS to report on Middle Eastern media coverage

By Peita Davis September 2002

A project monitoring the Australian media’s coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is now underway at UTS.

The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) aims to assess the quality of Australian journalism covering the Middle East. The media monitoring of print, television and radio news will be conducted for three weeks, spread over a two-month period.

ACIJ Director, Associate Professor Wendy Bacon, said UTS teachers and students will collaborate in the project to provide a clearer picture of how the Australian media deals with Middle Eastern issues.

“We don’t want to just look at the issue of bias, we want to focus on how the Middle East is reported in the Australian media. What words are used to describe different issues, and whose voices are we hearing, or not hearing?” she said.

The UTS media monitoring is based on a project conducted by the Glasgow Media Group earlier this year, which looked at British coverage of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

The British media researchers interviewed 85 people from a cross section of ages and backgrounds, and a further 300 young people aged between 17 and 22.

The project’s results indicated that television news focuses on the violence and tragedy of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but does little to help viewers understand the history and reason behind the complex issue.

The British results also suggested television news is regularly biased towards Israel. Television reports often portray Israeli actions as “retaliation” for the aggressive Palestinian attacks.

The Australian media has also been criticised for its coverage of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, with accusations of bias coming from both sides of the debate.

Dr Suzanne Rutland, Chair of the Department of Semitic Studies at the University of Sydney, says there have been ongoing anti-Israeli sentiments in the Australian media.

“There has been a continual perception within the Jewish community that the press is defiantly anti-Israeli, which is reflected in the anti-Semitic activity that has sprung up since September 11,” she said.

Dr Rutland echoed the British findings, stating that the Australian media fails to explain major aspects of Middle Eastern issues, which stops the public clearly understanding the Palestinian/Israeli problem. “Our press only describe the issues in mini-grabs, with the intention of reaching the lowest common denominator”, she said.

But the issue of bias in the Australian reportage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not a clear-cut problem. It often involves factors that do not directly relate to the conflict.

Professor Rifaat Ebied, also from the Department of Semitic Studies at University of Sydney, says Middle Eastern reportage is affected by fluctuating public responses to other contemporary news stories, citing the current rape case involving a Lebanese youth as an example of anti-Arabic feelings in the media.

“The Australian media coverage of the Middle East fluctuates from pro-Israeli to pro-Palestinian, depending on what else is happening at the time. There are always two sides to the coin”, he said.

Wendy Bacon from the ACIJ said the media needs solid data to attempt to address the questions of imbalance in Middle Eastern reportage, and the results of this monitoring will provide research material to tackle the ongoing debate.

“There has been huge amounts of controversy and discussion from journalists and the public over current Middle Eastern issues, so this is a great opportunity for us to feed more information into the debate”, she said.

The first sample of media monitoring has begun this week at UTS.