Diane Sawyer Misrepresents Footage of Palestinian Bombing Victims as Israelis
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-m4PlW-KgI
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Sawyer blunder indicative of noxious bias against Palestinians in American journalism
▻http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/indicative-palestinians-journalism.htmlTo give both ABC and Sawyer the benefit of the doubt, even if the images to accompany the story were switched after the copy had been written, the fact that Sawyer, a journalist with decades of experience, did not realize that there had been no destruction of that magnitude in Israel, nor has there ever been, and yet she still continued to describe the people in both images as Israeli is telling of both the level of ignorance of even the most seasoned of American reporters, and the natural tendency of American media to lead news on this issue with Israeli suffering.
The dehumanization of Palestinians, the denial of their positions as victims — as the occupied, as the underclass in an apartheid system — is the standard narrative parroted by mainstream media. Palestinians are routinely portrayed as the aggressors, as seeking death and initiating violence. Such an attitude has become so embedded in our collective media psyches that even someone of Sawyer’s caliber did not even flinch when reading copy obviously disparate from the reality at hand. Sawyer’s blunder is indicative of a far more noxious bias that stealthily creeps into all reporting on the Palestinian people.
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« Drones, the Media and Malala’s Message »
▻http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/10/15/drones-the-media-and-malalas-message
Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai’s visit to the United States was widely covered in the media, including interviews with ABC’s Diane Sawyer (10/11/13), CNN’s Christiane Amanpour (10/14/13) and Jon Stewart of the Daily Show (10/8/13). She was selected as ABC’s “Person of the Week” on October 11, and was considered a serious contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.
And for good reason; just one year ago, Malala was attacked by the Taliban for her outspoken advocacy on behalf of educational equality, surviving a an attack where she was shot in the head.
But one part of her message didn’t seem to penetrate the corporate media.
During her October 11 visit to the White House, Yousafzai told Barack Obama that his administration’s drone strikes were fueling terrorism. As McClatchy’s Lesley Clark (10/11/13) reported:
In a statement released after the meeting, Malala said she was honored to meet with Obama, but that she told him she’s worried about the effect of US drone strikes. (The White House statement didn’t mention that part.)
"I thanked President Obama for the United States’ work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees," she said in the statement. "I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education, it will make a big impact."
This exchange, for some reason, didn’t register in a corporate media that followed Malala’s visit, and her story, very closely.
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« Les drones ont tué au moins 400 civils au Pakistan depuis 2004 » ("Le Monde", 19 octobre, ▻http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2013/10/19/les-drones-ont-tue-au-moins-400-civils-au-pakistan-depuis-2004_3499406_3216.) et « Pakistan : 20% of US Drone Victims are Civilians, 12% are Children » (Juan Cole, 24 juillet, ▻http://www.juancole.com/2013/07/pakistan-civilians-children.html)
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UN Drone Strike Inquiry: Summary of the New Interim Report
▻http://justsecurity.org/2013/10/17/drone-strike-targeted-killings-emmerson-report
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