preoccupation with israel in the british media

7/31/2019 Preoccupation With Israel in the British Media

1/28

Preoccupation with Israel in the British media:Reporting o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia priorto the Arab Spring

May 2011

By Carmel Gould

Research assistance rom Jon Dranko and Chris Dyszynski


2/282

Contents

Introduction 3

Executive Summary 4

Part I: Quantitative analysis o Middle East reporting in 2010 51. BBC News website 5

2. The Guardian 6

3. The Independent 9

4. The Daily Telegraph 13

5. The Times 16

6. Financial Times 19

Part II: Key implications o fndings and recommendations or the uture 221. Universal over-concentration on Israel 22

2. Chronic under-reporting o Arab countries 22

3. Recommendations 24

Methodology 25


3/283

IntroductionThe rst ve months o 2011 have seen more reporting rom the Arab world than at any time in recent years.

Correspondents normally based elsewhere and preoccupied with other issues have focked to Egypt, Tunisia, Libyaand the Gul, to bear witness to the dramatic events unolding there. Reports have fooded the print, broadcast

and online media, providing western audiences with a rare insight into the domestic aairs religious, political

and economic - o the Arab world, topics which have long-evaded the mainstream English language media unless

directly linked to news pertaining to Israel.

Since this sea-change in journalistic interest, reporting rom Israel has to some extent taken a backseat. Notably,

the terms war crimes, humanitarian law and massacre are daily being applied to the places to which they have

arguably been much more relevant even prior to developments in 2011. Whereas previously, stories relating to

Israel and the Palestinian territories dominated Middle East news, now, ar greater attention is being paid to what

is going on elsewhere in the region.

This report quanties the extent to which British media overconcentration on Israel contrasted with meagre

coverage o the Arab world in 2010, the twelve months preceding the political earthquake in the region. It examines

coverage rom the ve broadsheet newspapers The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Times,

Financial Times and the BBC News website.

Four countries are the ocus o the study: Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The selection o these three Arab

countries was based on their major roles in the Arab Spring and their subsequent attraction o a substantial

amount o media attention in 2011.

A number o specic Arab-related stories were measured in order to reveal patterns o under-reporting andsurprising ocus. These included the December 2010 Egyptian presidential elections, the Sharm el Sheikh shark

attacks o the same month and Lockerbie-related coverage o Libya.

For a detailed explanation o the reports methodology, please reer to the Methodology section.


4/284

Executive Summary

Israel was by ar the most reported o the our Middle East countries studied in all ve broadsheets and the

BBC News website in the year prior to the Arab Spring

At the BBC News website news coverage o the Arab countries combined and doubled still amounted to less

than was written about Israel

Three out o our permanent BBC correspondents in the region demonstrated an overwhelming ocus on

Israel, with 82 per cent o overall correspondence coverage o the our countries devoted to Israel

BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen devoted 95 per cent o his coverage o the our countries

to Israel

Israel was the most cited across News, Comment and Editorial categories in every news outlet

Across all broadsheets, total News pieces on Egypt, Libya and Tunisia combined amounted to less than total

News pieces on Israel

At The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph news coverage o the Arab countries combined and tripled still

amounted to less than was written about Israel

Across all broadsheets, total Comment pieces on Egypt, Libya and Tunisia combined amounted to less than

total Comment pieces on Israel

Across all broadsheets, total Editorials on Egypt, Libya and Tunisia combined amounted to less than total

Editorials on Israel

Egypt was the second most reported country at all publications except or The Daily Telegraph, where Libya

was the second most reported o the our countries

Tunisia was the least reported o the our Middle East countries in the year prior to the Arab Spring


5/285

Part I: Quantitative analysis o Middle East reporting in 2010

BBC News website

Research into Middle East coverage on the BBC News website in 2010 ocused on output by the corporations

our permanent correspondents and its Middle East editor. However, country name word searches on

news.bbc.co.uk were also carried out to quantiy overall news coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Key ndings

Results or BBC online news coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia show a massive concentration on

Israel, with News pieces relevant to Israel numbering more than double those relevant to the three Arab

countries combined

1140 News pieces appeared about Israel, compared with 377 about Egypt, the next most reported Middle

East country

Ninety-ve per cent o Middle East News pieces about the our countries produced by Middle East editor

Jeremy Bowen ocused on Israel

Three out o our permanent correspondents in the region demonstrated an overwhelming ocus on Israel

Eighty-two per cent o News pieces rom the permanent correspondents about the our countries was

about Israel

Figure 1 illustrates the stark ocus on Israel in the BBCs Middle East coverage, with volume o coverage o Israel

ar outstripping that o its Arab counterparts.

In 2010 the BBC had our correspondents based in the Middle East: Wyre Davies (Jerusalem), Rupert Wingeld-

Hayes (Jerusalem), Jon Donnison (Gaza and Ramallah) and Jon Leyne (Cairo). Given the concentration o

correspondents based in Israel and the Palestinian territories, the heavy ocus on Israel is relatively unsurprising.

Figure 1


6/286

Figure 2 demonstrates Middle East correspondents ocus on Israel in comparison with Egypt, Libya

and Tunisia.

Crucially, Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, who oversees the BBCs Middle East news coverage, produced 41

News pieces on Israel, two on Egypt and none on Libya and Tunisia in 2010. The three correspondents based in

Israel and the Palestinian territories produced or contributed to News pieces overwhelmingly ocused on Israel-

Palestine. Only Jon Leyne, based in Cairo, ocused most heavily on another area in this case, Egypt.

The Guardian

In measuring the number o Content pieces about Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia published on guardian.co.uk in

2010, Just Journalism deerred to the websites own tag system, which labels each piece o coverage as about

a certain issue or part o the world. The Guardian has country tags or each o the our countries concerned,

thereore content relating to them is clearly labelled and listed on the website.

Key ndings

Israel was by ar the most reported o the our countries in The Guardian in 2010. In act, coverage o Egypt,

Libya and Tunisia combined and doubled still ell ar short o the total coverage o Israel

News reporting about Israel was nearly six times the volume o the next most reported Arab country, Egypt

Comment pieces on Egypt, Libya and Tunisia combined to less than hal those published about Israel

Sixteen editorials were published on Israel, whereas none were published on Egypt, Libya or Tunisia

Figure 2


7/287

Figure 3 illustrates the disparity between volume o coverage o Israel that o the three Arab countries.

Figure 4 shows how News pieces on Israel vastly outnumbered those on Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

What distinguishes The Guardians journalism on Israel rom that on the Arab countries is the presence o a

permanent reporter in Jerusalem, who produces highly regular content or the print and online editions. In

the rst ve months o 2010, then-Jerusalem correspondent Rory McCarthy led 70 news reports on Israel,

equivalent to almost one report every other day. When Harriet Sherwood replaced him, she led 139 reports in

the remaining seven months o the year, an increase o more than 40 per cent.

No comparable set up was in place in Egypt, Libya or Tunisia, as only Israel has a devoted correspondent to le

stories on a near-daily basis.

Figure 3

Figure 4


8/288

Two hundred and ourteen Content pieces were published on Egypt, ten o which were triggered by Decembers

shark attacks in the Red Sea resort, Sharm el Sheikh. Only our more pieces addressed the rigged Egyptian

presidential elections, also in December, which extended the reign o the recently ousted Hosni Mubarak.

Coverage o Libya, about which 110 Content pieces appeared in 2010, was dominated by the release rom UK

prison in 2009 o convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al Megrahi, with 48 articles on this story.

Tunisia was barely covered by The Guardian in 2010, with only 22 Content pieces about the country.

These trends were refected in coverage by Middle East editor Ian Black, who covered Israel in 87 Content pieces,

compared with only 12 on Libya, nine on Egypt and three on Tunisia.

The number o Comment pieces published on The Guardians Comment is ree website ollows the pattern

o concentration on Israel, with articles on Israel ar outstripping the number published about Egypt, Libyaand Tunisia.

Figure 5 illustrates the gul between volume o Comment pieces on Israel and that on the three Arab countries.

Figure 5


9/289

Figure 6 shows how, in 2010, The Guardian published 16 Editorials on Israel and none on Egypt, Tunisia or Libya.

The Independent

In measuring coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia in The Independent in 2010, Google word searches

conned to independent.co.uk were used due to the lack o availability o content covering the whole o 2010

via the publications website search unction. Only items categorised by The Independent as News and Opinion

were included in the study.

Key ndings

The Independents coverage concentrated heavily on Israel, with Content pieces citing Egypt, Libya and

Tunisia combined only representing 52 per cent o the number o Content pieces citing Israel

Volume o News pieces citing Israel was more than three times that o the next most reported

country, Egypt

Comment pieces citing Israel numbered 145 compared with a combined total o 55 or the three

Arab countriesEight Editorials cited Israel, compared with two mentioning Egypt and one citing Libya

Figure 6


10/2810

Figure 7 illustrates the disparity between volume o overall coverage o Israel and that o the three

Arab countries.

Figure 8 highlights how citations o Israel in News pieces amounted to more than three times those o the next

most reported country, Egypt.

Figure 8

Figure 7


11/2811

As with The Guardian, the allocation o permanent correspondents in Jerusalem was key in maintaining the

disproportionate ocus on events in Israel. In 2010 one hundred and thirty-six News pieces were produced by

correspondents Donald Macintyre and Catrina Stewart, the vast majority o which ocused on events in Israel

and the Palestinian territories.

The Independents remaining Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk, who is based in Beirut, produced eight

News pieces citing Israel, three citing Egypt, one mentioning Tunisia, and none on Libya. Unusually, or a regional

correspondent, Fisk produced more comment than news. He published more Comment pieces citing Israel than

any o the other three countries despite his not being based there, with reerence to Israel in 59 articles, against

24 reerences to Egypt.

Thirty per cent o Content pieces on Libya in The Independent were related to the 2009 release o Abdel Baset

al Megrahi, with 28 articles on the story. In Egypt coverage, the Sharm el Sheikh shark attacks in December

garnered citations in six Content pieces, only one less than the December presidential elections.

Figure 9 shows the same pattern in The Independents comment output, with citations o Israel ar exceeding

those o its Arab counterparts.

Figure 9


12/2812

Figure 10 shows that the ocial views o The Independent via Editorials also avoured a strong ocus on Israel,

with more than twice the number o Editorials citing Israel than all three Arab countries combined.

Figure 10


13/2813

The Daily Telegraph

In measuring the number o Content pieces about Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia published on telegraph.co.uk

in 2010, Just Journalism deerred to the websites own tailored country pages. As such we relied upon thepublications own classication o Content pieces about each o the our countries.

Key ndings

The Daily Telegraphs coverage o Israel constituted nearly six times the amount about the next most

reported Middle East country, Libya

The number o News pieces appearing on Israel was greater than that appearing on the three Arab countries

combined and tripled

Volume o Middle East Comment pieces in The Daily Telegraph was generally low but those on Israel

outstripped those on Libya by a actor o our

Seventeen Editorials appeared on Israel, compared with two on Libya, one on Egypt and none on Tunisia

The Daily Telegraph ocused its Middle East reporting on Israel, diering rom other publications only in its

second place ocus going to Libya rather than Egypt. This was owing to the high prole given to the 2009 release

o Abdel Baset al Megrahi, which accounted or 50 per cent o Libya coverage in 2010.

Figure 11 demonstrates how the vast majority o Middle East coverage was about Israel. Content pieces on

Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, when combined and tripled, still ell short o the number on Israel.

Figure 11


14/2814

Figure 12 illustrates a massive ocus on Israel in news coverage, compared with the three Arab countries.

The Daily Telegraph devoted two permanent correspondents to the Middle East in 2010 one in Israel and another

in Dubai. Mark Weiss and, later, Adrian Blomeld produced a total o 171 News pieces on Israel. The publications

second Middle East correspondent, Richard Spencer, who was based in Dubai, produced ar more articles on Israel

(43) than on any o the other three Arab countries, with ve on Egypt, ten on Libya and one on Tunisia.

O the 88 Content pieces produced about Egypt, twenty-our were about the shark attacks in the Red Sea in

December, against a mere our covering the December presidential elections.

Figure 12


15/2815

Figure 13 shows a similar proclivity at The Daily Telegraph or Middle East comment to ocus on Israel, with 20

Comment pieces on Israel and ve on Libya.

Figure 14 illustrates the dominance o Israel-ocused Middle East Editorials, with 17 on Israel and only two and

one on Libya and Egypt, respectively.

Figure 13

Figure 14


16/2816

The Times

In measuring coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia published in The Times in 2010, country name word

searches were conducted on timesonline.co.uk. The results were ltered to ocus on the most relevant coverage(see Methodology).

Key ndings

Content pieces citing Israel outnumbered the next most cited o the our Middle East countries, Egypt, by

more than a actor o three

Israel was cited in News pieces more than three times as oten as the next most reported Middle East

country, Egypt

Total Comment pieces citing Israel exceeded those citing Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, even when combined

and doubled

Editorials citing Israel were nearly ve times the number o those citing the next most reported Middle East

country, Egypt

Figure 15 illustrates how Israel heavily dominated Middle East coverage at The Times, when compared with

coverage o Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Figure 15


17/2817

Figure 16 identies the huge gul in the volume o news coverage on Israel compared with the Arab countries.

The Times has two permanent correspondents based in Jerusalem and one in Dubai. James Hider and Sheera Frenkel,

between them, produced 192 o the 430 News pieces relating to Israel (45%), the equivalent o one piece per two

days over the course o 2010. They also produced 52 News pieces citing Egypt, more than a third o the total news

output citing Egypt. Gul correspondent Hugh Tomlinson also produced 24 News pieces citing Israel, compared with

two citing Egypt and none mentioning Libya or Tunisia.

The 2009 release o the Lockerbie bomber dominated The Times Libya coverage in 2010, with 51 per cent o all Libya-

related articles reerencing the story.

O the 150 Content pieces citing Egypt, nine articles reerred to the Sharm el Sheikh shark attacks, and a mere 10

articles included mention o the December 2010 presidential elections.

Figure 16


18/2818

Figures 17 and 18 demonstrate the clear predilection or comment and editorial articles which relate to Israel.

Figure 18

Figure 17


19/2819

Financial Times

In measuring coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia published in the Financial Times in 2010, country name

word searches were conducted on t.com/uk. All results containing the relevant terms were included in thestudy, except or letters to the editor.

Key ndings

Over-concentration on Israel was a major eature o the Financial Times Middle East coverage, with 55 per

cent o reerences to the our countries in Content pieces, made to Israel

News pieces citing Israel exceeded those reerencing Egypt, Libya and Tunisia combined

Comment pieces citing Israel were double the number o those citing the next most mentioned

country, Egypt

Israel-related Editorials clearly outstripped those reerencing the three Arab countries, with such articles

citing Israel almost three times as oten as the next most cited country, Egypt

Figure 19 illustrates how Israel was by ar the leading Middle East country reported by the Financial Times out o

the our countries included in the study.

The same pattern o concentration on Israel is revealed, when the results are broken down into News, Comment

and Editorial.

Figure 19


20/2820

Figure 20 illustrates how Israel led the Middle East news agenda, with reerences to the country in News pieces

ar exceeding those made to Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Jerusalem correspondent Tobias Buck produced highly regular content ocused on Israel throughout 2010, with

271 Content pieces across the year.

More so than any other broadsheet, the Financial Times provided regular reporting rom Egypt, with Heba Saleh,

based in Cairo, delivering 77 Content pieces citing Egypt, including 17 on the December elections. Unlike other

reporters, Saleh did not produce anything on the shark attacks o the same month.

Lockerbie-related coverage in the Financial Times made up less o general Libya coverage, constituting only 27

Content pieces out o a total o one hundred and ty ve.

Middle East editor Roula Khala produced 41 Content pieces citing Israel, seventeen citing Egypt, our citing Libya

and none reerencing Tunisia.

Figure 20


21/2821

Figure 21 illustrates the dominance o Israel-related Comment pieces published in the Financial Times in 2010,

with double the number than those about Egypt.

Figure 22 shows how nearly three times the number o Editorials in the Financial Times cited Israel

than Egypt.

Figure 21

Figure 22


22/2822

Part II: Key implications o fndings and recommendations or the uture

1. Universal over-concentration on Israel

The key nding rom this study is that disproportionate ocus on Israel was uniorm across the mainstream British

media, regardless o outlets political orientation and stance on Israel. As such, right o centre publications, with

editorial lines generally supportive o Israel, like The Times, were no dierent rom let o centre publications

extremely critical o Israel, like The Independent, in their devotion o ar more column inches to Israel relative to

other Middle East countries.

One crucial actor in the high volume reporting o Israel as opposed to the low volume reporting o Egypt,

Libya and Tunisia, is the allocation o permanent reporters to the ormer and rarely the latter. Only Israel hosts

permanent correspondents rom all ve broadsheets and the BBC. The practical consequence o this policy is a

massive concentration o content analysing the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories and very little to

virtually nothing analysing other countries in the region.

The overconcentration on Israel maniested itsel not only in day-to-day news reporting by Jerusalem

correspondents, but in the volume o comment articles and editorials issuing endless condemnations and

censure against what seems like every move the state makes in relation to the Palestinians.

Since the mass migration o journalists to Tunis, Tahrir Square and beyond, media consumers have been exposed

to content which touches on the varying levels o rank injustice and human rights violations suered by citizens

across the Arab world which are entirely unrelated to Israel and its confict with the Palestinians.

These conditions have been regularly documented by international agencies in reports about denial o reedom ospeech and the right to assemble, enorced disappearances o dissenters, torture by the state and abuse o minorities

and women. However, they have rarely been reported by journalists, many o whom produce dozens o articles a year

about how Israeli settlement building breaches international law and denies Palestinians their human rights.

2. Chronic under-reporting o Arab countries

This sustained ocus on Israel stands in stark contrast to the hitherto lack o interest in events in the wider

Middle East. Tunisia, which hosted the rst major uprising o the Arab Spring, was hugely under-reported by any

standard in the 12 months prior to its revolution. The country was not cited in a single broadsheet editorial in

2010 and was the least represented in news-reporting across the six media outlets studied.

When in January 2011 the country went into ull scale convulsions and overthrew its dictator, the British media

essentially discovered that 10 million Tunisians had been living in poor conditions in a police state where human

rights were the exception rather than the rule. The Guardians editorial o 17 January gave the misleading

impression that the publication had been on top o the issue all along, citing a brutal dictator and his venal

amily, a police state and torture and human rights violations.

In the midst o the likely thousands o articles which have been written about the Tunisia, Egypt and Libya

popular uprisings in 2011, a handul have refected specically on the prior lack o media attention paid to lie in

the Arab world, as well as the contrasting preoccupation with Israel.


23/2823

Simon Kuper at the Financial Times, in an article on 25 February, mused, On the airwaves, everyone is telling us

what is happening across the Arab world. The truth (i only anyone would admit it) is that we cannot possibly

know. While the thrust o this piece was to question just how popular the Arab uprisings were, he also cited a

lack o journalistic interest:

Our most basic problem is dumb ignorance. The poorer Arab countries havent been news or decades. The ew

oreign correspondents who remained (such as those fown in to cover Tahrir Square) rarely spoke much Arabic

and mostly stuck to expat ghettoes.

Jonathan Freedland o The Guardian addressed the general disparity between attention paid to Israel and that

paid the rest o the Middle East on 6 April:

Many respectable olks have spent decades insisting that the core issue in the Middle East, i not the world,

is the Israel-Palestine confict that it is the running sore whose eventual healing will heal the wider region

and beyond.

That was always gold-plated nonsense, but now the Arab spring has come along to prove it. Now the world can

see that the peoples o Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain have troubles aplenty that have nothing

to do with Israel.

He includes the media sphere in this tendency to aim ocus in one specic direction in the Middle East.

Nick Cohen, writing or The Observer on 27 February, produced, Our absurd obsession with Israel is laid bare

which carried the standrst, The Middle East meant only Israel to many. Now the lives o millions o Arabs have

been brought to Europes attention. In the article, he listed the stories that the Middle Eastern bureau chies

missed until revolutions that had nothing to do with Palestine orced them to take notice. These included how

Libyan leader Colonel Gadda hired mercenaries and paramilitary special orces he could count on to slaughter

the civilian population when required.

Some newspapers, whilst reorganising themselves somewhat to report the large-scale developments in the

Arab world, have nonetheless claried in their editorial pronouncements that they still regard Israel as the most

important news emanating rom the Middle East. The Guardian in particular has sought to re-position Israel into

the limelight. For example, on 21 February, at a pivotal moment o deepening crisis in Libya, readers attention

was redirected to, the cockpit o the crisis, Palestine. On 29 April, ollowing the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal,

The Guardian once more took the opportunity to identiy the Israeli-Palestinian confict as the core issue o

the region.


24/2824

3. Recommendations

While the causes o the Arab uprisings are undoubtedly complex and maniold, one thing is clear: the hundreds

o thousands o Arabs out protesting on the streets were demanding undamental change in their systems ogovernance and their rights as citizens. They were not uniting under the banner o reedom or the Palestinians.

The Arab Spring provides media outlets with the perect opportunity to re-assess their Middle East policies,

including the allocation o human resources throughout the region, as well as the proportion o content devoted

to the various locations and issues.

On account o the stark ndings o this report, Just Journalism proposes that each o the media outlets studied

conduct an internal review o its policies on Middle East reporting, addressing the ollowing:

Going orward, how should journalistic ocus be distributed in the Middle East, particularly in light o the

Arab Spring?

Should Israel continue to be the subject o the lions share o journalistic scrutiny or are there other

newsworthy stories to be reported elsewhere in the Middle East?

Is it necessary to have such a high proportion o British correspondents living ull time in Israel rather than

elsewhere in the Middle East in view o the disproportionate ocus on Israel this produces, to the detriment

o journalism on the rest o the region?

What practical steps can be taken to ensure the development o a broader, more encompassing approach

to reporting a region which includes not only Israel but 21 Arab countries?


25/2825

Methodology

Quantiying online coverage is a complex task, particularly given the fuid nature o online categorisation

and the wide variation in sophistication o the respective websites. Every eort has been made to tailor ourmethodology in a way which acilitates transparency and results in outcomes which are a true refection o the

content published by each media outlet.

Due to the high volume o articles processed or this study (in excess o 6,000) a very small degree o human

error may be relevant in the collation o these results. However, this margin o error is likely to be statistically

insignicant, in view o the numerically decisive results displayed across the news outlets studied.

In order to quantiy coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia in 2010, where possible the internal categorisation

determined by the news outlet in question was adopted. Where news websites did not oer in-house archiving

o the relevant material, we applied word searches on the publications websites. In the case o The Independent

a Google search was used. Returns rom country word searches were ltered in a straightorward way, explained

in this section.

The websites o The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph categorise and archive coverage pertaining to individual

countries on tailored country pages, and as such, these ormed the basis or the research into Middle East

coverage by these two publications.

Whilst the BBC News website does not carry country specic pages, containing all archived material, its search

unction incorporates relevance into search returns, thus, when a website user searches Israel only articles

deemed relevant by the BBC will be returned. As such, search returns or each o the our countries were taken

to be about the country in question and not simply a reerence to it.

The websites o the Financial Times, The Times and The Independent do not provide users with country specic

pages carrying all outputs deemed relevant. For the ormer two publications, country word searches were

conducted on their websites and returns ltered where necessary. The Independents website did not supply

content going suciently ar back or this study. As such, a country word search was conducted on Google

using the keyword site:website.co.uk ormula. The results were also ltered where necessary.

Throughout the report, News piece denotes a news item, most commonly in the orm o a news article;

Comment piece denotes an opinion article by a named writer; Editorial reers to an article which represents

the ocial view o a publication; Content piece reers to any item regardless o which category it alls under.

The ollowing word searches were carried out in order to identiy coverage relating to the December 2010Egyptian presidential elections, the Sharm el Sheikh shark attacks o the same month and Lockerbie-related

coverage o Libya: election, shark and Lockerbie.


26/2826

BBC News website

Research into Middle East coverage on the BBC News website in 2010 ocused on output by the corporations

our permanent correspondents and its Middle East editor. However, country name word searches onnews.bbc.co.uk were also carried out to quantiy overall news coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Points to note:

Total news content or each o the our countries was determined by citations in the websites News

category (as opposed to All Results, Blogs etc)

News coverage by each o the our correspondents and editor was gleaned by conducting name

word searches

The ocus o output by the our correspondents and editor was determined by analysis o BBC story

headlines, namely, which countries were reerred to in each headline

The Guardian

In measuring the number o Content pieces about Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia published on guardian.co.uk in

2010, Just Journalism deerred to the websites own tag system, which labels each piece o coverage as about

a certain issue or part o the world. The Guardian has country tags or each o the our countries concerned,

thereore content relating to them is clearly labelled and listed on the website.

Points to note:

Letters to the editor were excluded rom analysis

Content produced or The Observer was excluded rom analysisContent items which were unauthored photos or videos were excluded rom analysis

Only content tagged as News was categorised as News or the study

Only content tagged as Ci was categorised as Comment or the study

Only content tagged as Editorial was categorised as Editorial or the study

The Independent

In measuring coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia in The Independent in 2010, Google word searches

conned to independent.co.uk were used due to the lack o availability o content covering the whole o 2010

via the publications website search unction.

Points to note:

Only items categorised by The Independent as News and Opinion were included in the study

Letters to the editor and photos were excluded rom analysis

Because content or The Independent and The Independent on Sunday is not consistently distinguishable on

independent.co.uk content or the latter was included in the analysis but not separately analysed


27/2827

The Daily Telegraph

In measuring the number o Content pieces about Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia published on telegraph.co.uk

in 2010, Just Journalism deerred to the websites own tailored country pages. As such we relied upon thepublications own classication o Content pieces about each o the our countries.

Points to note:

Photo galleries and stand-alone videos were excluded rom analysis

Because content or The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph is not consistently distinguishable on

telegraph.co.uk content or the latter was included in the analysis but not separately analysed

Only content tagged as News was categorised as News or the study

Only content tagged as Comment was categorised as Comment or the study

Only content tagged as Comment-Telegraph View was categorised as Editorial or the study

The Times

In measuring coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia published in The Times in 2010, country name word

searches were conducted on timesonline.co.uk. Content or news, comment and editorial was included.

Points to note:

Letters to the editor were excluded rom analysis

Blogs were excluded rom analysis

Content produced or The Sunday Times was excluded rom the study

Given the multiplicity o categories on The Times website, research was limited to the ollowing categories:all geographical areas (Middle East, Asia, US & Americas etc.), World News, World Agenda, Politics, Columnists,

Names o columnists, Thunderer and Leading Articles

Content in the ollowing categories was categorised as News or the study: all geographical areas

(Middle East, Asia, US & Americas), World News, World Agenda and Politics

Content in the ollowing categories was categorised as Comment or the study: Columnists, Names o

columnists and Thunderer

Content categorised as Leading Articles was categorised as Editorial or the study

Financial Times

In measuring coverage o Israel, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia published in the Financial Times in 2010 country name

word searches were conducted on t.com/uk.

Points to note:

Letters to the editor were excluded

All content excluding anything categorised by Financial Times as Comment or Columnist was categorised

as News or the study. This was largely in view o the FTs business ocus, which broadens the scope o its

news coverage

All content categorised as Comment or Columnist was categorised as Comment or the study

All content categorised as Comment-Editorial was categorised as Editorial or the study


28/28

www.justjournalism.com [email protected] Registered company number: 06345885

Just Journalism is an independent research organisation ocused on how Israel and Middle East issues are reported in the UK media.

We produce analysis o print, broadcast and online media and regularly publish research on trends in the medias coverage.

Published by Just Journalism, May 2011

The text o this report may only be reproduced with prior permission o Just Journalism.

preoccupation with israel in the british media

Documents