From CNN:
Hezbollah militants Sunday fired more than 180 rockets into northern Israel, killing three civilians in Haifa and 12 Israeli reservists who had just been called up to fight in Lebanon, according to Israeli officials.
A missile launcher that fired rockets into Haifa was later destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese town of Qana, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The Israeli military also bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs [1] and other parts of Lebanon on Sunday, killing at least eight civilians in airstrikes [2] that were reported by Lebanese security officials or Arabic-language TV networks.
The airstrikes continued at daybreak Monday, with explosions heard in Beirut’s southern suburbs [3] and the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre.
The 12 Israeli soldiers died in an attack near Kfar Giladi, marking the deadliest single Hezbollah rocket attack [4] on northern Israel since hostilities began last month.
Hours later, a barrage of rockets pounded Haifa after sunset, killing at least three people. One of the dead was a woman who died when a rocket struck her home in an Arab neighborhood [5], according to police and ambulance services.
Medics said at least eight others were seriously wounded in the building collapse. It was one of six rockets that struck Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m.
The suble rhetorical efforts at framing this story are worth pointing out, if only to show how even (apparently) straightforward news reporting can contain rather serious finesse points that direct the reader toward a predetermined conclusion.
In this particular piece, look at the portions I’ve bolded and numbered:
1. Israel is bombing Lebanese suburbs. “Suburbs,” of course, suggest residential areas where Lebanese families barbecue and play badminton. Whereas reporting that Israel is bombing suspected launch sites and Hezbollah safehouses that the terrorist organization is using to try to shield itself from retaliation for rocket launches into Israel towns—actual ”suburbs,” if you will, where civilians aren’t be used as shields against counterstrikes—would be both more accurate and less suggestive of Israel’s culpability and indiscriminate barbarism.
2. The killing of the civilians reinforces the suggestion that Israel is not being careful in its air strikes on suburbs.
3. “Explosions heard in Beirut’s southern suburbs.” Again, this is a seemingly benigh description—and alone, or in conjunction with an earlier attempt to explain the types of sites inside the suburbs the Israelis claim to be targeting, it might have been. But because we don’t have that information, we are simply being given the cumulative impression that Israel is fighting an indiscriminate air war and that the residential areas of Lebanon are bearing the brunt of the attacks for no stated reason. Much later in the piece we get Israel’s side. But not until paragraph 13, and even then it is framed as a “defense” of Israeli’s tactics by an IDF spokesman.
4. This bit of information is suggestive of Hezbollah’s success and can be compared to earlier information contained in the story pertaining to the Israeli military offensive. Israel—bombing the Lebanese suburbs—managed to kill 8 civilians. Hezbollah, with a single attack near Kfar Giladi, managed to kill 12 Israeli soldiers.
Who is the more efficient fighting force?
5. “Hours later” [suggestive of a retaliatory response against an Israeli strike on Tyre] “a barrage of rockets pounded Haifa after sunset, killing at least three people” [Israelis kill civilians; Hezbollah, launching rocket attacks into civilian territory, kills “people.” No mention that they are civilians]. “One of the dead was a woman who died when a rocket struck her home in an Arab neighborhood.”
What was this woman doing in an Arab neighborhood? Was she an Arab woman? And if so, why not say, “one of the dead was an Arab woman who died when a rocket struck her home in an Arab neighborhood”?
I bring this up because it is unclear from the context whether or not Hezbollah managed to slaughter another Jew living in an Arab neighborhood, or whether they are now firing into Arab neighborhoods and killing Arabs.
At any rate, these are several of the subtle ways the overall tone of a story can be created and maintained toward a specific ideological end. Which is perhaps why this interesting tidbit is buried so far down, under “Other Developments”:
Hezbollah mortars struck the U.N. headquarters at Henniye, Lebanon, wounding three Chinese U.N. peacekeepers, said UNIFIL spokesman Milos Strugar.
Anybody willing to bet that had it been an Israeli air strike, this wouldn’t be appearing in the lede?
And where is Kofi Annan to suggest that Hezbollah struck the UN headquarters on purpose?
Or is it only Jews who are capable of such dastardly deviousness…? (h/t Gary Schamburg)
*****
On the other hand, Confederate Yankee believes the media might be growing skeptical of Lebanese / Hezbollah claims.
“The wise man believes only in lies, trusts only himself, and learns to expect the unexpected.”
— Tales of the Unexpected intro
SB: feed
ME!
F-word them! Let Hetzbollah keep winning the media war as long as Israel keeps winning the real war.
– The Jihadi’s always do the UN intimidation thing whenever they think a “resolution” is in the works. Remember when they blew up the UN headquarters in Iraq. A few days later Kofi and the gang got out of dodge. I seem to remember a “rally” a few days ago where Beirut UN headquarters was pretty well trashed. The Islamothugs always make sure to let AnnonAss know he’s their biatch.
What pisses me off is that the sheer volume of this crap has numbed me a bit.
I mean, had I read this before Jeff posted his comments, there was about a fifty-fifty chance I’d have missed the –
[Israelis kill civilians; Hezbollah, launching rocket attacks into civilian territory, kills “people.†No mention that they are civilians].
And I look for this stuff.
But there’s so much shinola in this small excerpt – what, five paragraphs?
I might have rolled right over it.
And that rate of shit flinging is duplicated in so much of what is published anymore that it’s…
well it’s actually overwhelming.
Stay strong Jeff.
I am for real going to have to walk this off.
Dog.
Leash.
MP3 player.
It was a horrific massacre….over 40 martyrs, mostly women and children, brutally murdered by the Zionist pigs!
Huh? What’s that? Only 1 person died, not 40? My goodness!
Nevermind!
– Emily Litella, PR spokesman for Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora
Have they found out Green-Helmet Guys secret identity?
Good analysis, Jeff. Hez is indiscriminately hitting Arabs according to these two links from Israelycool: one, two.
Oh, I might say the MSM is not so much ‘growing skeptical’ as they are ‘running scared’. I mean, once the inmates start an uprising, it’s all over, isn’t it? Apparently, there’s a world-wide army of nit-picking assholes who are determined not to be lied to. If Reuters isn’t sacred, who is?
You were expecting maybe objectivity? Oiy! The MSM has changed the WOT to a war against Bush and his policies.
The truly confounding and frightening part is that they can see moral equivilency in a culture that simply wants us dead. They see Israel as driving American foreign policy in the middle east. Dolts.
I hope so, but this interview with a WAPO reporter isn’t actually encouraging (and it’s rather embarrassing in light of big media news today)
(there’s more)
Those damn Israelis and their surgical precision. It’s hard to mount a propaganda war with statistics like 1 civilian casualty.
It’s the old rope-a-dope. One day, they’ll turn it all into a sheet of glass.
Remember, if the dirty jooooo fights back, he’s the bad guy. After all, he’s the more powerful, more westernized, more white of the two forces. With proper deconstruction we understand that Israel is the oppressor, and Hizbollah is the weak oppressed rebel, fighting against a tyrant. The oppressed is always morally superior to the oppressor, so Hezbollah, no matter what they do is right and Israel is wrong.
It’s so clear when you put on these handy Post Modernist Glasses© They let you see the world a whole new way.
Liberals dominate newsrooms.
Liberals shade the writing of news stories to benefit those who care little for the innocent.
Liberals care little for the innocent.
Do Post Modernist Glasses© have glass lenses or are they simply never what they used to seem to be?
After those IDF soldiers got killed at that kibbutz, I almost expected Hezbollah to apologize for accidentally hitting legitimate military targets, and announce an internal investigation.
Turing = firm, as in Stand firm, people of non-inverted morals.
They are mirrored on the inside.
Damnable Jooz! How dare they target the military objectives that Hezboys hide in the burbs! It’s not like the Hezboys are firing rocket indiscriminately into Israel and trying to kill any jew they can….
(Just waiting for the rest of the world to grap the irony of that stance. Don’t worry, I packed a lunch.)
There are no fake photographs coming out of Lebanon! Hizbollah has vetted all our, I mean their photographs very carefully, in spite of the difficulty of the task because of dust and poor lighting conditions. And we did not pirate PhotoShop, we have a valid license! From China!
The question remains: who is the green helmet guy– really?
Ya know, after their humiliating experience with Baghdad Bob and his famous “There are no American tanks near here” statement while a tank battle was going on in the background behind him, you’d think the Media would be a teeny bit more circumspect when it comes to official Hezballah statements.
But I guess that would get in the way of some good ol’ Joooo-bashing under the guise of criticizing Israel.
It’s irresistible. They just can’t help it.
Post Modernist Glasses©
“They are mirrored on the inside.”
Any usually come equipped with a lovely rose-colored tint. At no additional charge.
While it is entirely possible that the MSM is biased against the US and its allies, I would like to believe that the absence of context in its reporting is more due to ignorance than to anti-Western bias. I honestly think that their absolute ignorance about military matters, geopolitics, and the nature of terrorism is due to an institutional ignorance, an aggressive kind that believes what is wants to believe, regardless of the facts thrown in its face. While this is not necessarily a malicious thing, it does cause injury to the truth, as the fallacious perpective they present muddles, rather than reveals, the reality of the situation. While ignorance is not a crime, per se, after a while and agency that purports to present the “news” becomes criminal in their negligence
Maybe I am being overly generous, but I’d guess there are more than a few MSM folks who hate Bush, think Israel is a bully… and still resent Hezbollah using them as a tool.
It’s an even bigger elision than it appears, Jeff. Explosions “heard” in a place didn’t have to happen in the place, just near it. I’m not saying the southern suburbs weren’t bombed, but that’s a very sloppy construction.
TW: “Yes, always.”
BBQ and Badminton? Had the writer used “suburbia” then your point would make more sense. But the word suburb simply means a district outside a city. So I don’t really see this as a serious finesse point (unless you are ascribing intent).
Growing skeptical? Shouldn’t they have grown skeptical in 1984?
C Whitaker:
If it were simply a matter of ignorance, then the mistakes should tend to cancel out.
You often see reference, for example, to Bradley Fighting Vehicles as “tanks.” Ditto for M109 self-propelled howitzers. This is a sign of ignorance. “Tank” is a specific term for a specific type of vehicle, and neither the Bradley nor the M109 fits that definition.
Use of the term “tank” does not necessarily reflect bias. The mistaken use of the term does not materially affect perceptions.
By contrast, how often have media mistakes affected the basic presentation of a story? Today, frex, the media reported on claims that Israeli bombing had killed 40 Lebanese civilians. Reality? 1 civilian died.
So, here’s the question: When was the last time that the media made a mistake, and reported 5 Lebanese civilians died, when it was actually 50? As others have observed: Most of the time, initial reports are low, then rise as bodies are uncovered. In Lebanon, be it Qana or today’s bombing, the numbers (and headlines) are always high and the later reports (and retractions) are always low.
Another example: Israeli shells hit a UN outpost, and several UN observers are killed. Outrage ensues, the media obligingly queries about whether this was “deliberate.”
Yesterday, Hizb’allah shells wounded several UN observers at the UN observation force headquarters. Where is the outrage? Where are the media pundits speculating about Hizb’allah “deliberately” targeting UN forces?
Why this consistent disparity?
Scot, I disagree. the connotation that goes with suburb is of a primarily residential area. Jeff was being somewhat sarcastic about badmiton and barbecues but his analysis is valid.
Had it been otherwise, or had the reporter wished to be more precise in the meaning he/she conveys, he/she might have said, “an industrial suburb” or something like that.
Especially in the light of all of the other deliberate lies, misrepresentation, unsubstantiated accusations and faked photos, it would be surprising if there was any other intent meant other than the analysis given here.
I agree. They must get really, really tired of resenting it day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out…
I’m sure one of these eons they’re actually going to get so totally fed up they may even complain.
Quietly. In private.
That’ll show those hezzies.
“suburb” has long been the standard way to describe the Hizbullah strongholds just south of Beirut. I assume that the media does not use the actual name of the place because it believes that the public will confuse the name with pretty much every other Arabic name ever printed. This belief is undoubtedly correct.
The rest is bias.