Hillel

By Rebecca Wolfson, City Reporter

Carl Schrag, former editor of the Jerusalem Post, came to speak at Hillel about media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Thursday night.

Instead of simply accepting media at face value, Schrag urged people to take an active role in their consumption of news media.

Before a news article reaches the eyes of its reader, there are many steps involved with its creation, he said.

“A lot goes on before you open up a newspaper,” Schrag said.

At any step of the often chaotic and complicated print cycle, a news story can get slanted or biased. During this daily cycle, among the many interactions between reporters, editors, officials and advertisers, an important source can get cut. Cuts that editors make to a news story or last-minute pictures they add can drastically change the story.

For example, the only Palestinian perspective included in a story may end up getting cut at the end of the day. News offices are often understaffed and faced with close deadlines, which may cause editors to cut important parts of a news story, trying at best to have a complete newspaper at the end of the day, he said.

“As we say at the Jerusalem Post: another day, another miracle,” Schrag said.

Even if the news was impeccable, in order to fully understand a social or political issue, Schrag said people must take into account the underlying history involved. Newspapers, however, are unable to provide this history.

“The mandate [for newspapers] is to provide the latest happenings. Newspapers are not good at explaining what happened in the past,” Schrag said.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like so many other complicated issues, has a long and intricate history that is important to keep in mind when absorbing media coverage of it, Schrag said.

“All we can expect [from the news] is a serious effort to be fair.”

Schrag also discussed the importance of obtaining news from many different sources. By surfing the Internet it is possible to gain multiple perspectives from local news sources, along with Israeli sites such as haaretz.com or Arab sources such as the Jordan Times.

“If you rely on American media, you won’t get the full story,” Schrag said.

Manal Hamid, a member of the Arab Student Organization, also said it is important to obtain news from many different sources.

“Any one news station is biased. I think for [media] to be balanced, you would need to read lots of different newspapers and watch lots of different stations,” Hamid said.

Karah Mareno-Taxman, a University of Wisconsin junior and attendee at Schrag’s lecture, agreed with Schrag in that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is highly complicated and people often take the media’s portrayal of it at face value.

“[The Israeli-Palestinian conflict] is a conflict with a long history. There have been times when Israel was willing to compromise,” Taxman said.

However, it is not enough to just be educated on the issue. Instead, Schrag said people must take a proactive approach to responding to media. If there is an article in a newspaper that a media consumer perceives as biased, he or she should write a pointed, straightforward letter to the editor.

“You need to read, write letters, you need to take them on their own turf,” Schrag said. “If a subject is important to you, you owe it to them to invest enough so you can develop your own perspective.”