Jerusalem – Israel’s Press Office Slams Major U.S. Media Outlets For Prejudicial Coverage Of Terror Attack

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    Jerusalem – The Israeli government is demanding an explanation from two media giants for what it termed biased coverage of yesterday’s fatal stabbing in Jerusalem that left two Israelis dead and one wounded. The two terrorists who carried out the attack were killed by Israeli police.

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    CNN initially ran with the headline “Four Die In Violent Stabbing At Jaffa Gate” while CBS used “2 Palestinians killed after stabbing attack in Jerusalem” in its first report on the story.

    A letter from Nitzan Chen, director of the Government Press Office, to Tony Maddox, managing director at CNN, complained of CNN’s repeated displays of prejudice in its Middle East coverage.

    “We believe that combining the two murderers with the victim into ‘Four dead’ is not only dishonest and unethical journalism, but also borders on incitement since the viewer can easily misinterpret it,” wrote Chen.

    Compounding the injustice, according to Chen, was that the headline does not distinguish between the victims and those who murdered them, even though correspondent Oren Liebermann stated clearly in his report that the deadly attack had been staged by Palestinian terrorists.

    “Knowing this, even only as preliminary information, reporting ‘Four dead’ only leads us to conclude that the person who wrote this headline had a clear political agenda,” continued Chen. “We strongly condemn such journalism.”

    A later CNN story on the stabbing was accompanied by the headline “Police: One Attacker In Custody, The Other Shot Dead.”

    In a separate letter to CBS News president David Rhodes, Chen slammed the network for its coverage.

    “We cannot think of a worse example of anti-Israel bias than the unfortunate headline that appeared on your website yesterday, even if it was only for a short time,” wrote Chen.

    Chen blasted CBS for completely ignoring the death of two innocent victims in its initial online coverage of the story and only recognizing the deaths of the two terrorists.

    “The first headline is clearly turning the murderers into victims in the most inflammatory way possible; there can be no justification for this,” wrote Chen. “Beyond the immediate risk it poses to Israelis from possible Arab revenge attacks, it is simply dishonest and unethical journalism.”

    Chen expressed his outrage at the coverage, observing that logic would dictate that the writer of the headline had “a clear political agenda” and in addition to condemning the report, asked for prompt clarification of the matter.

    A later CBS report bore the headline “2 Israelis dead after stabbing attack in Jerusalem; 2 Palestinian assailants killed.”

    Meanwhile social media has been buzzing with additional headlines that seemed to offer more sympathy for the Palestinian terrorists than to their victims.

    Stand With Us, a pro Israel Facebook group, ran a screen shot of an Associated Press headline posted by Time World declaring “2 Palestinians Killed After Stabbing Attack,” calling it the most “absurd” headline ever. The Associated Press later modified the headline to read “2 Palestinians killed following stabbing attack in Jerusalem.”

    Another Facebook group, Students Supporting Israel (SSI), blasted the New York Times for its headline “2 Palestinian Attackers Killed, 2 Israelis Die in Jerusalem,” noting the continued media bias in covering Israeli news, and asking followers “Terrorist are killed but innocent Israelis die?” That headline was later changed to read “Palestinian Stabbers Kill Israeli, Assailants Shot Dead.”


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    7 Comments
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    8 years ago

    I’m not at all undstanding why the sudden outrage from Israel! This is nothing new! Haven’t they been seeing the steady stream of biased, pro-Pali, anti-Israel reporting from Reuters, the AP, the NY Times, etc.?!

    fat36
    fat36
    8 years ago

    Stop letting these journalist into your country

    AKIVAF
    AKIVAF
    8 years ago

    Everyone should signup for emails from HonestReporting.com. They are doing alot of great things to stop this media bias.

    berylyoseph
    berylyoseph
    8 years ago

    Israeli media does the same, Just read how it covered the Yemenite baby kidnappings, the religious parties budgetary requests, the criminal misdeeds of liberal leftist Ashkenazi politicians, and much more, Now it’s.busy covering up for the Shin Bet barbaric torture of the small fringe group of adolescent settlers seeking revenge for constant Palestinian terror, while knowing the Shin Bet is using’ Avishai Reviv’ type agent provocateur, to further inflame the situation,

    PrettyBoyFloyd
    PrettyBoyFloyd
    8 years ago

    I’m stunned that they’re stunned.