Newspapers

The following is our assessment of the competence and objectivity of media coverage of second Intifada, starting from September 28, 2000. These asessments are drawn from analysis of hundreds of news stories and opinion pieces.

Openly and strongly Pro-Israeli

A publication is deemed "strongly-pro-Israeli" if: (a) its editorials completely ignore the Palestinian perspective, and (2) its opinion pages rarely if ever publish columns promoting Palestinian rights.

The Washington Times (WT)

The New York Post (NYP)

The New York Daily News (NYDN)

Consistently Pro-Israeli, but claim to be objective

A publication is deemed "consistently pro-Israeli, but claims to be objective" if the majority of its editorials consistently reflect the point of view of official Israel and 80% or more of its editorail page space is devoted to pro-Israeli perspectives.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)

The New York Times (NYT)

The Washington Post (WP)

The Chicago Tribune (CT)

The Miami Herald (TMH)

The Baltimore Sun (TBS)

The Dallas Morning News (DMN)

The Chicago Sun Times (CST)

Pro-Israeli, but offer space for Palestinian voices

A publication is deemed "pro-Israeli, but offers space for Palestinian voices" if the majority of its editorials consistently reflect the point of view of official Israel but attempts to divide its opinion space more or less evenly between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian columns.

The Philadelphia Inquirer (PI)

The Boston Globe (BG)

The Los Angeles Times (LA)

Fair

A publication is deemed "fair" if it consciously and reflectively acts to provide readers with both prspetives without prejudice against objectivity.

The Village Voice (VV)

The Guardian (UK)

The Independent (UK)

The Christian Science Monitor (CSM)

The Bucks County Courrier Times (BCCT)

 

Columnists

Openly and strongly Pro-Israeli

William Safire (NYT)

Amos Perlmutter (WT)

Richard Cohen (WP)

George Will (WP/Newseek)

Charles Krauthammer (WP)

Morton Zuckerman (US World and News Report)

Jeff Jacoby (BG)

Consistently Pro-Israeli, but claim to be objective

Thomas L Friedman (NYT)

Jim Hoaglan (WP)

Julian Schvindlerman (The Miami Herald - TMH)

Uri Dromi (TMH)

Trudy Rubin (PI)

Thomas Fiedler (TMH)

Fouad Ajami (CBS)

Farid Zakariya (Newsweek)

More or less balanced

James Carroll (BG)

William Raspberry (WP)

Pro-Palestinian rights

Amy Pagnozzi (Hartford Courant)

Charley Reese (Orlando Sentinet)

Bruce Ramsey (Seattle Times)

Christopher Hitchens (The Nation/Vanity Fair)

Noam Chomsky (Z Magazine)

Edward Herman (Z Magazine)

Matthew Rothschild (Editor, The Progressive)

Michael Moore

 

Magazines

Openly and strongly Pro-Israeli

Commentary

The American Prospect

Pro-Israeli but perceived as fair

Newsweek

Time

US World & News Report

More or less balanced

Tikkun

Pro-Palestinian rights

The Nation

Z Magazine

Extra (The magazine of FAIR)

Mother Jones

The Progressive

 

Journalists

Adopt the Israeli perspective

The following journalists are deemed to "adopt the Israeli perspective". By this we mean that the journalists often unreflectively present events from the official Israeli point of view: for example, they often use the word "retaliation", "response", "cross-fire", "buffer zone", etc., without quotes, thus passing what is really a spin from official Israel for objective reporting; also, they often humanize Israeli suffering (e.g., detailed portrayal of victims while alive, interviews with their families) but fail to do the same for Palestinian victims (sometimes mentioning only their name and age).

Nomi Morris (Knight Ridder)

Jamie Tarabay - AP

Greg Myre -AP

Barbara Schweid - AP

Dina Kraft - AP

Deborah Sontag (NYT)

Mainly adopt Israeli perspective, but with occasional balanced turns

The following journalists suffer from many of the flaws that the previous jouranlists suffer from, except that they occasionally show a certain degree of reflexivity and sometimes write stories that stray away from the Israeli line. However, the basic narrative is the same as the previous catagory: Israelis are reacting to "terror" -- sometimes over-reacting, but mainly, Israel is defensive in its actions. That is, the basic pro-Israeli paradigm is not challenged.

Michael Matza (Philadelpia Inquirer - PI )

Barbara Demick (PI)

Joel Greenberg (NYT)

John Kifner (NYT)

William Orme Jr (NYT)

Dean E. Murphy

Warren Strobel (KR)

Shawn Pogatchnik (AP)

Mat Spetalnick (Reuters)

Nicole Winfield (AP)

Karim Laub (AP)

Sandro Contenta (The Toronto Star)

Solidly balanced

The following journalists are deemed "solidly balanced" because they highlight in their stories the most salient aspect of the conflict: the fact that Israel is an occupying force. Unlike the previous two categories of journalists, these journalists challenge the official Israeli line that insists that Israel is only "reacting" to attacks and only "defending" itself. Their narratives illustrate that Israel is an aggressive and violent occupier. Moreover, unlike the other two categories of journalists, these journalists do not treat Palestinian suffering with less of a humanizing touch: all suffering is treated equally and covered equally.

Robert Fisk (The Guardian -- UK)

Suzanne Goldenberg (The Guardian -- UK)

Mark Lavie (AP )

Ramit Plushnick-Masti (Reuters)

Wael al-Ahmad (Reuters)

Ibrahim Hazboun (AP)

Ibrahim Barzak (AP)

Phil Reeves (Guardian)

Graham Usher (Guardian)

Haroon Siddiqui (The Toronto Star)

Eric Margolis (The Toronto Sun)

 

Organizations

Openly and strongly Pro-Israeli

The Jewish Defense League (JDL)

American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC)

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

Pro-Palestinian

Miftah.org

Al-Awda

CAIR

ADC

Human rights

Amnesty International

Human Rights Watch

Gush Shalom (Israeli)

Peace Now (Israeli)

B'tselem (Israeli)

Media Monitoring

CAMERA (pro-Israeli)

HonestReporting.com (pro-Israeli)

Media Monitors Network (pro-Palestinian)

Al-Awda-Media (pro-Palestinian)

Ali Abunimah's bitter pill (pro-Palestinian)

Palestine Media Watch (pro-Palestinian)

FAIR (Neutral)

Media groups

Association of Opinion Page Editors

Project for Excellence in Journalism