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A Primer for watching the news: How to guard against media bias.

© lawhawk

There are a few things to remember when locating and using information on the Middle East. The first thing to keep in mind, and this goes for all areas of research and general interest, is that the media can be biased and this shapes the kind of information you will find. There are biases in the reporting of all kinds of issues, from the supposed fanaticism of the Islamic fundamentalists to the widespread violence in Israel. Many news sources have not told the entire story or properly informed their readers about the situations on which they report.

I like to relate to friends how my parents called me in Jerusalem telling me that the US Department of State had issued warnings to American citizens about violence in the region. At the time, there had been some skirmishes between Israeli soldiers and Hezbullah guerrillas in Lebanon but I was nowhere near the violence. In fact, the State Department regularly issues warnings to American citizens traveling abroad so this was nothing new. In fact, during the Intifada, there are stories of how Palestinians would begin throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers they had been talking with only hours earlier because they saw a camera crew approaching and wanted to be caught on tape getting shot at.

Other countries in the Middle East regularly censor the news coming out of their countries so that it is difficult to obtain credible information regarding the social, political and economic conditions. Some countries also use their news reports as propaganda against groups or countries they oppose and this adds to the misinformation that is present in the news.

This leads me to remind everyone to always try to find news reports from more than one source. While CNN online or MSNBC online may provide a good basic coverage of an event or ongoing issue in the Middle East, their coverage may not give the kinds of details that accurately describe the situation. Local reports from other newspapers and media outlets such as the Jerusalem Post or official Saudi website can give information that is not present in news reports generally shown here in the US. You can also look at my editorial on the Western Wall Tunnel situation to see how the media can misinform the public and cause more problems than it solves.

My next editorial will focus on what reference documents and maps I will utilize in future editorials.

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