Monday 22 June 2015

Palestinian shot!

A story I saw yesterday on the Sky website is almost a parody devised to illustrate “agendas”. It’s rather like something one might write to  demonstrate biased reporting.


Question: What does Sky think the actual news is?  Answer: A Palestinian has been shot!
I’m not going to try to verify the facts of this incident. I’m just looking at this one piece on the Sky website. 
 A paramilitary police officer is stabbed in the neck near the entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem.”
That is the strap-line. Below that, there’s a picture of a crowd of people in Islamic dress behind a police tape /cordon and back view of (probably) an Israeli policemen.

Aha! They’ve changed that picture now. Today’s pic is of an ambulance. Should have taken a screen-shot yesterday.
An Israeli paramilitary police officer has been critically injured after a Palestinian man stabbed him in the neck.”  
continues the report, below the picture. I think an unbiased editor would have used that as the headline; after all, that seems to be what happened first, and they do say that the headline is what most people will remember.   
“The officer was attacked at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, according to police.”
The Palestinian was shot by the police officer before he collapsed. An 18-year-old resident of the West Bank stabbed a border police officer in the neck with a knife, and the border police officer was taken in critical condition to Shaarei Tzedek hospital in Ein Kerem," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.”
That’s the actual report, which I’m assuming is factual. Below that, another picture, which looks like paramedics at the scene.
"The border police officer managed to fire at the terrorist, critically wounding him," she added.The stabbing took place two days after an Israeli hiker was shot dead and another injured by a suspected Palestinian attacker near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Ah. To anyone who's interested enough to have read this far, this might be starting to look like a cluster.
Violence between Palestinians and Israelis has increased has been on the increase (sic) since a Palestinian teen was burnt alive by Israelis in Jerusalem in an apparent revenge attack for the killing of three Israeli youths by two Palestinians in the West Bank.”
The sub editor is asleep; I can practically hear the snoring. Yes, it definitely looks like a cluster.....but wait. A Palestinian teen? Burnt alive? When was that?” Hmm. Quite a while ago, I recall. Oh yes, it was after the small matter of the killing of three Israeli youths by two Palestinians in the West Bank. 
 In the interim, Operation Protective Edge occurred.
Tensions were further heightened by last year's Gaza War, which killed more than 2,000 Palestinians and 71 Israelis.” 
Ah, Sky News has remembered Operation Protective Edge, and helpfully added the comparative casualty toll, just in case anyone might momentarily conclude that the policemen had a jolly good reason to shoot the poor Palestinian featured in the headline.

1 comment:

  1. Almost all stories, by almost all media, now need checking to get past the agenda of the newsroom

    ReplyDelete

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