According to Moeller (1999), there are four habits of International News Reporting:
- Formulaic Coverage
- Sensationalized Language
- Analogies, Metaphors and Images
- An American Connection
Moeller emphasized how global media has always been influenced by the US and is constantly attempting to make stories more relevant and striking for Americans. If that’s the way Internationals go by, one can only imagine what original American coverage must be like.
An example would be the American coverage of the 2009 war in Gaza, Palestine, where the four habits mentioned are clearly applicable.
First, one cannot deny that American press is trying to shape a clear format for Palestinian news. While they claim to demonstrate Palestinians and “Israelis” as equals, it cannot be more obvious that they are trying to shove Israeli narrative down our throats.
Second, in this case, the use of language is somewhat tricky. Of course, US press will not dramatize the situation, because god forbid people empathize with the Palestinian people. For example, when referring to TV news programs, Battah (2009) remarks that the number of deaths is identified as the number of “people killed” instead of straight-up mentioning Palestinians.
Thirdly, even the images presented through their media somehow also favor the Israeli narrative, even when the story isn’t really about them.
The images of two women on the front page of an edition of The Washington Post last week illustrates how mainstream US media has been reporting Israel’s war on Gaza. On the left was a Palestinian mother who had lost five children. On the right was a nearly equally sized picture of an Israeli woman who was distressed by the fighting, according to the caption.
Battah, 2009
Reference List
Moeller, S. (1999). Four Habits of International News Reporting. Waltham, Massachusetts, MA: Brandeis University.
Battah, H. (January 2009). In the US, Gaza is a different war. Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/20091585448204690.html
Mira's Trail of Thoughts 