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U.S. Newspapers Are More Than Twice As Likely to Cite Israeli Sources in Headlines Than Palestinian Ones
Hussain, Murtaza
http://theintercept.com/2019/01/12/israel-palestine-conflict-news-headlines/Date Written: 2019-01-12 Publisher: The Intercept Year Published: 2019 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX23263 A study of 50 years of news headlines on the Israel-Palestine conflict from five major American publications shows that they are biased towards the Israeli side. Abstract: -- Excerpt: The study, released this week, analyzed 50 years of news headlines on the Israel-Palestine conflict from five major American publications - the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal - employing Natural Language Processing, or NLP, techniques to analyze the massive database of headlines published over this period. NLP is a "Big Data" analysis approach used to identify statistical trends and patterns in large caches of text. In this case, the researchers analyzed nearly 100,000 headlines and identified dozens of frequently recurring terms and word sequences in stories about Israel-Palestine. While studies of media coverage on Israel-Palestine have been conducted before, the 416Labs analysis is the largest and most comprehensive look at headline coverage since the conflict began. The patterns identified seem to show a clear slant toward the Israeli perspective. Headlines like the one from the 2014 New York Times story about civilian deaths in Gaza - that used the term Israel says" - were 2 1/2 times more likely to appear than headlines citing Palestinian equivalents. Headlines centering Israel were published four times more than those centering Palestinians, and words connoting violence, such as "terror," appeared three times more than the word "occupation." Subject Headings |