Journalists Covering Palestine: Old and New Perspectives

Abstract

The previous two chapters explored the views of grassroots peace promoters stemming from their various experiences of the Israeli—Palestinian conflict, and highlighted how these clashed with mediated and mainstream political narratives. Journalistic ideology (see Chapter 1) gives legitimacy to media accounts of this conflict that are distinct from these views and narratives. According to these ideological principles, journalists intervene to reorganise the mix of narratives available and distinguish factual information from opinion in order to give audiences a clear sense of developments on the ground. However, ‘superior’ observers producing socially ‘uncontaminated’ representations cannot exist in the real world; first and foremost, because journalism is about choices of what to keep and what to “suppress” (Lynch and McGoldrick 2005a: xvii), and then because specific visions of the world and professional values underpin these choices and the frames adopted. Media scholars have demonstrated the conservative effects of a system that uncritically worships professional instincts.