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Beastly Boy

(9,423 posts)
Mon Apr 1, 2024, 11:21 AM Apr 1

The 'Tectonic Shift' in Media That Changed Perceptions of Israel: 'What's Left Is a System Run by Activists'

JERUSALEM – It gives journalist Matti Friedman no satisfaction to know he was early to realize that a change had come to covering Israel, favoring fixed narratives and activist journalism over a tradition of fact-based reporting.

Friedman, a former reporter and editor at the Associated Press based in Jerusalem from 2006-2011, quit the global news agency after being censored by his editors, and realizing he would have to censor what he and his colleagues knew to be true about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And what was the case a decade ago is more true now, he told me.

“The press has been gutted. The bureaus have shrunk, and into that vacuum have come ideological voices,” he said. “Now Human Rights Watch gives you a report, in English, and you write a story based on that report. And you end up serving as the media arm of the hard left, the world of NGOs.”

This mattered less when the conflict had fallen out of the headlines. But now that the heated war between Israel and Hamas has come to dominate the global news cycle, this shift has dramatic consequences on regional tension amid a frightening spike in anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment around the world.

Examples of this shift abound

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tectonic-shift-media-changed-perceptions-130000069.html

More at the link.
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The 'Tectonic Shift' in Media That Changed Perceptions of Israel: 'What's Left Is a System Run by Activists' (Original Post) Beastly Boy Apr 1 OP
Someone actually admitting there are narratives in media. Baby steps. shrike3 Apr 1 #1
It's not a secret or a flaw. It's a choice and a feature. Igel Apr 1 #4
I used to work in media. shrike3 Apr 1 #5
NGO's enid602 Apr 1 #2
As an example of this, NPR has turned into National Palestinian Radio. DavidDvorkin Apr 1 #3

shrike3

(3,783 posts)
1. Someone actually admitting there are narratives in media. Baby steps.
Mon Apr 1, 2024, 11:29 AM
Apr 1

Now they need to admit there are narratives that go far beyond Israel.

And I am not surprised in the least by the content of this story.

Igel

(35,356 posts)
4. It's not a secret or a flaw. It's a choice and a feature.
Mon Apr 1, 2024, 05:48 PM
Apr 1

In the '70s the new movement was the "New Journalism"--no news source can be perfectly unbiased, therefore everybody's biased. If you're going to be biased, embrace it--journalism had suddenly sprouted agendas because the reporters coming into the field had agendas.

In other words, "fixed narratives and activist journalism over a tradition of fact-based reporting." This bias and shift towards agenda-based reporting, establishing silos and deplatforming "false" narratives and "malinformation" that might lead people to misunderstand things that might be confusing, well, that's just increased over time. Until even some into the earlier forms of new journalism are repulsed. Not to worry--there are a lot new recruits to get in the proselytizing business.

Personally, I can't avoid silos so I silo hop. Did it in the '70s and early '80s with American news sources and Soviet ones, and the split these days is not all that much different.

shrike3

(3,783 posts)
5. I used to work in media.
Mon Apr 1, 2024, 09:26 PM
Apr 1

Sometimes narratives form for the most ridiculous reasons: editor wants to go home early, tells the reporter "Story's about X. Hurry up and write it, and we both get out of here." But you're right, agenda journalism is nothing new and alive and well. Like you, I silo hop.

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