The media and the Mid-East conflict

By ANASTASIA MECHAN

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most easiest conflicts to explain, yet the most difficult to solve. It is a conflict that many people across the world are bored of because they do not understand it. So how are the news media helping this? How are the news media informing and educating the world about it? Through non-sense. That’s right.

I have seen different reports and documentaries about the Palestinians as well as the Israelis, yet if I wasn’t well informed and if I didn’t go to Israel, maybe I wouldn’t even care about it. I would think that this conflict has to do with the random hate Arabs have against Jews, or oil, or because of land, or simply because of terrorism. We are talking about the Middle East anyway ….

My point here is that the news media are doing, have been doing, is to rely on one side, attack one of the sides, which leads to the people to judge. Comments like “Jews are evil,” “The Palestinians are terrorists,” among others are the cruel result of these ridiculous, ignorant, and hatred reports.

It is true that time on television is limited. But it is also true that a news reporter must do his/her job to inform people in seconds. I mean, what else do they go to school for? To learn and do the job right? But maybe it is not the reporter’s fault. Perhaps, maybe the news media need ratings, they need to catch the attention of thousands of viewers, they need controversy and drama in order to keep running the show and that’s why sometimes they need to misinform and brainwash minds of audience members in order to make them dependent and seek more information.

This is how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is happening throughout the news media: “Cut what is boring even if it’s accurate, make one side look bad — we need the ratings.”