Cause and effect, order of operations and common sense may seem like very simple concepts to most but lately the media seems to be having trouble with grasping these ideas.
Take for example an article today that was the main feature on NPR.org with a caption asking “Will Israel Bomb Iran?” Rather than focusing on the root of the problem by asking “will Iran continue to evade international law and hide its secretive nuclear program from IAEA inspectors” the article focuses on Jerusalem and Washington’s reactions to Iran’s intransigence. Completely overlooking that a debate on how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program would not even exist if Iran complied with its international obligation, including not threatening the destruction of a fellow UN member state.
A Reuters article about Gaza terrorist’s violation of a cease fire was titled “Israel-Gaza truce mostly observed.” According to the article itself “The number of Palestinian rocket attacks dropped sharply after the deal took effect overnight, with less than 10 rockets reportedly fired since then.” Um, huh? Can the Reuters editor who titled the article please explain to me how firing 10 rockets counts as “mostly observing” a truce? Dictionary.com defines the word truce as “a suspension of hostilities,” not a reduction or continuation of hostilities. Thus even one rocket being fired violates the truce. One cannot mostly observe a truce just like one cannot mostly be pregnant. You either are or you aren’t. The title completely misinforms the readers by claiming that the terrorist groups ceased their hostilities against Israeli civilians. I’m sure the innocent man in Netivot who was injured by a post-truce rocket could explain this point even better.
These are just two examples of the many blatant misleading headlines and articles that dominated the discourse on the recent violence. Many of the other examples include sensational headlines of “Israeli attacks on Gaza” while only mentioning later in the article that the attacks are in response to relentless rocket fire on over one million civilians. In fact, as the above mentioned NPR headline illustrates, many articles about Israel in general have critical implications without mentioning the reasons for Israel’s defensive actions.
Photo credit: Ynet
