Lopsided Language

Coverage of the Israel-Palestine war raises the larger question of bias in media representations

- Shobha Elizabeth John

IN the past month, journalists from media powerhouses like the BBC, The Washington Post, Reuters, and the LA Times have raised their voices against the “dehumanising rhetoric” used in media against Palestinians and the bias in reporting of the ongoing Israel-Palestine war. One characteristic that has defined the approach of many western media outlets covering the war has been a com­plete lack of context. Most do not men­tion the sustained Israeli occupa­tion of Palestinian lands, Israel’s viola­tion of multiple international laws, and the everyday violence and subjugation of Palestinian people that have been ongoing for the past 70 years. This points to a lar­ger question of bias in media represen­tations and its inextricable connection with the politics of language.

Linguistic bias is an often-ignored way in which such biases become evident. It refers to the asymmetrical use of words or phrases to describe one community in a way that reveals conscious or uncons­cious prejudice. For instance, across multiple media outlets, words like “atro­city”, “brutal murder” or “massa­cre” are reserved for referring to Israeli deaths—an observation that a study of BBC articles affirmed back in 2011. Israeli victims are described as “brutally killed by Hamas” whereas Palestinian victims “die” as “collateral damage” in “zones of conflict”. Headlines refer to buildings “collapsing” in Gaza without any men­tion of the Israeli airstrikes that have destroyed them. Such euphemisms misrepresent the state of the war and hide the extent of damage that Israel has caused in Gaza.