Three of Four Newspapers Studied Favor Israeli Instead of Palestinian Sources

Summary

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The latter opinion is reflected in Wilson's study that found that white people were more willing to have social contact with Jews than with all other minority groups, including blacks, Asians and Arab Americans.7 In a more recent study, Sylvester and Wu8 content analyzed news stories, briefs, photos, cartoons and editorials, from January through October 1998, and found that the Inquirer's news reports provided coverage of both sides of the Arab and Israeli conflict, however, Israeli sources appeared more frequently than Palestinian sources in the news stories, leading to a more pro-Israeli bias. First, the striking dissimilarity probably relates to the fact that wire-service journalists wrote most of the news stories, in contrast to the other three newspapers whose articles were mostly prepared by staff. second, the Houston Chronicle may be catering to its readership, which has a very high Palestinian population in relation to the other newspaper cities. The results are consistent with previous studies that showed a bias toward using Israeli news sources as opposed to Palestinian sources.27 As a result, Israeli officials, including the prime ministers, seemed to have acquired more positive press images and more public support in the United States.

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Three of Four Newspapers Studied Favor Israeli Instead of Palestinian Sources

A reporter for The Los Angeles Times wrote about the Israeli and Palestinian conflict:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand pictures just might win the war ... Every photograph-and indeed, every word-is a weapon in the media

U.S. newspapers are directly involved in this media war. They relay, create or help frame the press images of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Because more Jews reside in the United States than elsewhere, including Israel,2 the media war between Israel and Palestine for more favorable press treatment in the U.S. press is even more intense. Coverage of Israel will likely affect how...

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