By: Dahlia Deener ’27
With the important election in Israel this week, let’s take a minute to remember our guest speaker, journalist and writer for the Free Press, Matti Friedman. In case you don’t remember, Friedman came to TLS on Monday, October 12, and offered his perspectives on inherent media bias regarding Israel. This former AP correspondent provided numerous examples of his time at the AP that proved a sense of activism in their coverage of the Middle-East conflict rather than straight facts, the core of journalism’s purpose. The message loomed powerful in the moment: the inherent media bias that feels attached to coverage of Israel and its goals. He outlined points such as how the AP enlisted 40 correspondents to cover the Israeli-Arab conflict; this is significantly disproportionate to that of China or India, countries he made sure to note have significantly larger populations.
International number imbalance towards Israeli media is a common occurrence for news outlets around the world. Many argue that a tiny strip of land shouldn’t bear nearly as much attention as it often gets. While this can be true in many cases, in an election as intricate and significant as this one, multiple perspectives through numerous sources are key. This does not mean we should feed into biased journalism outlets. Rather, it means perhaps 40 people covering a single topic as hot-button as this one would be beneficial to understanding the utter nuance and importance of this event.
The art of journalism prides itself on providing readers with facts and unbiased stories that serve as news for the public. Over time, as Friedman mentioned, journalism has become more of a platform for activism for many, serving as an outlet for personal beliefs. In a topic like this week’s election in Israel, we are almost guaranteed to receive media from all sides of the political spectrum, whether you posit each of them as biased or simply an alternate perspective.
When we think of the word bias, we urge ourselves to stay away, attempting to contribute to nothing but the truth. However, Friedman cited numerous examples where news we consume can be inherently biased without our prior knowledge. The language can be straightforward, the facts true, and the piece edited, but the behind-the-scenes actions before publication prove otherwise. This experience was extremely thought-provoking at the moment and left us wondering about the news we regularly consume without a second thought. As such, how do we know that every article we read and source we consume isn’t inherently biased on all sides of the spectrum? If something can be this unknown about that of anti-Israel media, what’s keeping us students from not knowing the same about pro-Israel media?
As we study this election, it is important to remember Friedman’s words just a few weeks ago. Bias is inherent in the media. Though his argument pointed towards many anti-Israel allegations, we were left questioning the same about everything we’ve been exposed to. As young Jews, exposing ourselves to a variety of news outlets on every extreme and nuanced side of the spectrum will provide us with an immensely deeper understanding. Perhaps a ‘bias’ isn’t as scary a word as we perceive, and actually helps us in forming our own, eventually unbiased, opinions.
