Filtering the News

Filtering the News

While walking back from a day of sightseeing in the Old City of Jerusalem, I bumped into a friend on the street and he asked if I had heard about the shooting in the Old City today.

My first callous thought- I missed the news again! And I spent all afternoon in the Old City, how did I miss something of such significance! My mind immediately jumped to a scenario repeated often on the nightly news; a scene of protests, clashes between soldiers and rebels with waves flying high and angry shouts filling the air; and my inadequacies as a budding news professional began to sink in.

My friend stated that someone shot an IDF soldier and there was a gun battle and the soldiers killed the gunman after injuring lots of tourists. According to my source, Jerusalem remained free of shooting deaths for the past three years. The details at this point are vague and the scope of the incident was unclear. After hearing additional word of mouth versions, I went to the internet to seek some facts.

The BBC was running the story on the front page, stating that an Arab gunman had shot an IDF soldier and several tourists were injured in the crossfire as the soldiers shot the gunman. Eye-witness accounts stated that the soldiers continued to shoot the gunman after he was on the ground and they did not see any weapons. I then went to Al-Jazeera English to read the version with the Middle Eastern filter and the story was quite similar. The site stated that the gunman was likely Palestinian and the Old City was currently shut down as soldiers went door to door trying to identify the gunman. Finally, I searched the New York Times to check the American filter on the story. Buried within the World section was the headline, “Terrorist attacks soldier in Jerusalem,” or something similar. Terrorist? What caused the Times to make such a conclusion? The article stated the same assertion that the ‘terrorist’ was Arab and lacked identification. They also stated that the IDF placed the body in a bag and spray painted the word ‘terrorist’ in Hebrew.

My fellow travelers, young and full of curiosity, decided it would be a great idea to head to the Old City and see if we could find the story. So, we headed out into the night to seek some version of the truth.

The first group of young Palestinian men knew a scant amount of details but stated that the gunman was not local. We headed towards the Holy Church of the Sepulchre, and my colleague spotted one lonely store with a sliver of light leaking from the door. She asked the man if he knew anything about the shooting or where it happened.

“Yes, it happened right there,” he pointed to just outside his door. The man’s children were playing in front of the store when it happened. He described how the gunman grabbed the gun from the soldier’s belt and then shot the soldier in the shoulder. He explained how he and his son helped some of the wounded and stated that he had seen the gunman walking around the Old City in the past month looking for work. When asked if he was Arab, the eye witness said no, and claimed he was Russian.

Well, we were late for the story, again, but we did find an interesting interpretation of the event that was not available in the mainstream media. So, the question that must be asked is how do we know what’s the truth and what is one person’s questionable interpretation? Why are there three different interpretations of this event and why is the identity assumed to be Arab? Was the eye witness wrong or was the media wrong? Did the media get their information from Israeli sources only? Or were people afraid or unwilling to offer eye-witness accounts?
Caption: A toy gun rests on the steps of a shop, close to the sight of an attack on an Israeli soldier in the Old City of Jerusalem.

What is even more fascinating is to see how the story entered the media cycle. I often follow stories throughout the media circus trying to guess who will spin the story in what manner and to achieve what agenda. I am unsure why I do this; curiosity, dismay with the media system, an attempt at understanding the system a little better, who knows? So, I was not shocked to see the New York Times emphasize the terrorist aspect and see the more balanced coverage of the BBC and Al Jazeera. What was somewhat surprising was to see the headlined changed from terrorist to gunman in the NYT the next day, after the initial misinterpretation had been presented to the news consumer.

The fact remains that the truth was not conveyed and the story is free for interpretation or manipulation. The next morning, my friend who first spoke of the story stated that both Hammas and Fathah are claiming that the act was carried out by their soldiers.

What do we believe? Should we not demand that our news sources do the public and the story justice through accurate reporting free from predetermined filters of interpretation from the journalist or the editor? Or is that simply too much to ask of today’s media rushing to fulfill a 24 hour news cycle? Staying informed in our society takes a multitude of time and effort; every story must be traced through several outlets, its sources questioned and its outlet analyzed for its corporate and political affiliations. And even then, the truth must be questioned. We base policies and our perceptions of the world we live in according to the information that our media presents us, and unfortunately, as a whole, we expend minute amounts of energy and commit little diligence to this news that we consume. Should we not devote more diligence to following the events of our world (on any level-local, state, national and international) and demand better of the people presenting the world to us?

Al Gore recently wrote about such issues in his book, Assault on Reason. He makes a very valid point that I often return to when I analyze the content of the media and its presentation to the public. A democracy needs an informed electorate to function properly. And if our outside perception of the world is framed and presented to us after circulating through the current filtration system of the mass media, how can we make informed assessment of the issues our politicians are basing policy upon? How can we make a balanced and educated decision to further our democracy if our sources of information and reflections of the outside world are false or misleading interpretations of events?

And as journalists, we must always remember that the way present the news can affect the way individuals in society perceive the world and the role within the world. So we had better be careful in how we cover the news and in how we present the news. And we must strive to get the story right!