Mixed response to Acre rioting
THIS WEEK: JJ analysis of UK media coverage of the Acre riots.
ALSO: Read how different newspapers reviewed Channel 4's docu-drama, ‘The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall.'
THE MEDIA ON THE ACRE RIOTS
• Four days of rioting in the mixed Israeli city of Acre, which started last Wednesday, received some coverage in the UK media, with mainly short articles in the press and an assortment of pieces posted on the BBC News website. There was no broadcast coverage.
• In general, reporting was balanced, with coverage focusing on the sequence of events rather than the attribution of blame.
• The Guardian carried two brief reports from AP and Reuters, while The Sunday Telegraph included a similarly short item. In Saturday's Daily Telegraph, Carolynne Wheeler described the situation in more detail in an article which focused on Israel's efforts to quell the violence and to ensure that the fighting does not spread.
• The most substantial newspaper coverage was published in this Wednesday's Independent in Donald Mancintyre's page spread, ‘The Arab driver, Yom Kippur and how a city was inflamed.' This piece stands out from the rest of the press coverage by showing more sympathy towards Arabs than Jews. This is exemplified by the large accompanying photo of an angry Israeli mob.
• For instance, the journalist refers back to October 2000, when 13 Arab protesters were killed by Israeli police, and quotes left-wing politician Yossi Beilin criticising the government for allegedly not acting against, ‘the social and economic discrimination, which some community leaders claim have been exposed by the latest clashes.' A significant portion of the article focused on the experience of an Arab family whose house was set alight, whereas only short quotations from Jewish residents were included, none of whom reported suffering property damage, despite the fact that such damage had indeed occurred.
• The piece also included a quotation from an Arab Knesset member, condemning the arrest of a man who allegedly sparked the riots, and cited the fact that the mayor of Acre had cancelled the city's annual festival, ‘which would have brought thousands of visitors to Acre's Old city, mainly benefiting Arab businesses.' Without giving the stated reason for the cancellation, namely the risk of an eruption of mass violence, the implication was that this was a punitive measure against Arabs.
CHANNEL 4 DOCU-DRAMA HAILED BY BRITISH NEWSPAPERS
• On Monday, Channel 4 screened ‘The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall' , a dramatization of the story of a British photo-journalist who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli soldier in Gaza.
• The programme received widespread coverage in the newspapers, both before and after the broadcast, including articles written by those involved in the making of the film and interviews with family members.
• Of particular note was the level of in-depth coverage in the broadsheets. The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian invited director Rowan Joffe and script-writer Simon Block, respectively, to write articles about their experiences of making the film. Additionally, The Times ran interviews with actress Kerry Fox, who plays Tom Hurndall's mother in the film, and with Thomas Hurndall's sister, Sophie, as well as a general preview in The Sunday Times. The Observer carried an interview with both parents.
• All but one of the reviews said that the drama was well produced and extremely moving. The Daily Express, however, thought that it ‘wasn't interesting' and should not have been dramatised. The Daily Telegraph review praised the programme for not showing, ‘Israeli military ogres demanding the blood of Palestinians' and for presenting, ‘an element of the Israeli side of the story' through the portrayal of the Israeli soldier involved.
• The other broadsheet reviews showed little or no interest in whether the docu-drama was balanced. The Guardian highlighted possible complaints: ‘It's anti-Israel, people will say, probably anti-semitic too. What about the innocent victims of suicide bombers?' before dismissing them by saying that ‘drama's job is not to give every side to a story.'
• The Independent avoided the issue, stating that whether it was, ‘perhaps a simplification… - Israelis bad, Palestinians good - is a question far too complicated for a simple TV reviewer', before opining that the ‘Israeli army, one feels, can probably look after itself.'
• Most critical of all was Andrew Billen of The Times, who claimed that most non-partisan Brits, ‘expect higher standards of Israel than wartime Israel expects of itself', before declaring that it was up to the viewers, ‘to decide whether the sentence [the Israeli soldier received] vindicates Israel's claims to being a democracy operating under the rule of law.'
STORIES OF INTEREST
BBC interviews would-be female suicide bomber
There was multi-media coverage on the BBC of an interview by Paul Wood, with an 18-year-old prospective female suicide bomber in Gaza. The story was covered on the Radio 4 Today programme at 8.45 on Monday, the Ten O'clock News on Tuesday and on the BBC News website. (Most of the TV piece can be found within the BBC News website article.)
Interestingly, the TV piece conveyed the extremist Islamic element to the story more powerfully than the radio piece. This was partly due to the strength of visual footage but also because the broadcasts were edited differently. For example, the Today piece was longer and included the journalist probing the woman about the effect her decision to become a suicide bomber might have on her immediate family and community. The Ten O'clock News, on the other hand, excluded this line of questioning.
Christian in-fight may lead to collapse of church
The Times featured an article on the deteriorating condition of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The article discusses the antagonistic relationship between the six different Christian denominations that manage the church, noting that the Israeli authorities are reluctant to intervene.
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