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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 13, 1982
PAGE 6
was appalled at American TV coverage. In a commentary article entitled
"Distorting Angle" in the JERUSALEM POST INTERNATIONAL EDITION, July 11-17,
1982, Mr. Frenkel gives an illuminating analysis of news coverage of this
war. He also compares the intriguing difference between American and Euro
pean coverage of the war and respective attitudes toward Israel:
The reporting by the Western press of Israel's war in Lebanon has
become an important side issue of the conflict. There is a dif
ference, however, between the performance of the European and the
�erican press•
.!!
European reporting has been biased, it is
,ey
intent. Like their governments, European newsmen have in recent
years tended to beGome hostile towards Israel. They view Israel
as! throwback to! discredited past when states, especially Eur
opean states, actually used military power to gain their ends.
In their view, Europe has transcended such-nationalist prTriiI
tivism••••
Moreover, the white man, which includes Israel (but somehow ex
cludes Russia) must make amends for his past colonial dominion of
native peoples and honour the aspirations of the Third World.
For the Middle East, this tends to be defined as anyone attacked
by Israel, and especially the Palestinians.•••
American newsmen come to the subject from a wholly di£ferent
angle. American newsmen••.are less ideologically encumbered•.•.
The American newsman thinks he is a camera. He must therefore
always keep his lens clear. But how clear is it?
Unacknowl
edged, first of all, is the assumption shared with his govern
ment, that testy Israel should be tamed, that it is too fast on
the trigger••••This hidden premise is nourished as well by a
prevailing agnosticism in the American press about . the U.s.
military establishment. Generals, especially after Vietnam but
even before, are not heroes. Israel, a formidable war machine,
is in! sense guilty
_ey
association.
-
But more important in affecting the performance of the American
lens is the range. Convinced that their role is to tell it as it
is, the American media focus on facts.•••Airplanes dropping
bombs, houses being destroyed, homeless seeking shelter--these
are the most dramatic facts••••Thus where European journalists
may have fixed solely upon havoc in Lebanon in order to condemn
Israel, American journalists, and especially network TV, did it
in order to satisfy the professional and material requirements of
their news organizations. For Israel the result was the same•.•.
The American media, especially in the first week of the war, pro
vided
!!2
political context and
!!2
background of understanding to
enable the American consumer of news to make sense of the
war.•..There were, of course some exceptions. The NEW YORK TIMES
and The WASHINGTON POST tried to provide concepts as well as
facts. But in describing rapidly moving events, newspapers in
evitably lag behind the electronic media--who can report almost
in "real time," and thus shape the public
I
s initial percep
tions••••
As Immanuel Kant said long ago, facts without concepts� blind.
And if the American public is blind, what happens to the quality