August 2020 Gaza Strip flare-up: How the UK – Russia tension is shaping news coverage.
In March 2018, russsian ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in Salisbury, England. Their recovery and eventual relocation to New Zealand was not the end of the story: England and Russia have been establishing a harsh economic and diplomatic confrontation since this incident gained notoriety. This dispute clearly epitomizes the escalating hostility between most of the western countries and Russia.
Has this confrontation reached the news coverage of the UK and Russia over apparently unrelated incidents in other parts of the world?
Aristotle stated in his always-indispensable Politics, that humans are political animals. Ergo, being journalism a human activity, decisions about news coverage inevitably respond to political and moral decisions, even amidst the false premise of cliched objectivity and neutrality. As the agenda-setting and framing theories have shown, editorial decisions on the selection of content to show are made by humans (inside or outside the newsroom) to respond to diverse political, economic and social needs, and these decisions inevitably determine the public’s eventual agenda (McCombs and Shaw).
With this in mind, a question arises: is the hugely complex game of international geopolitics implicitly or explicitly determining how news are fed into the audience in Russia and United Kingdom?
A very recent event in the Middle East may throw some clues into this.
Lights over the Gaza strip
Past August 2020, strict measures related to a peak in COVID-19 cases were adopted by Palestinean authorities in the Gaza Strip, part of the State of Palestine. Intensifying the quarantine-like 13-year-old blockade imposed by the State of Israel, these measures put a population of 2 million under immense economic catastrophe.
Also in August, some arson balloons and rockets were launched into Israel by Hamas-affiliated groups (Hamas has been governing the strip since 2006) with no casualties. In retaliation, massive airstrikes, nightly raids were launched by IDF (Israel Defense Forces) purportedly aiming at some Hamas military operations centers. According to Israel’s own news sources, no Palestinians were killed during these operations.
The attacks from both sides, violent and clearly aiming at causing bloodshed, were only one of the several events taking place in a tumultuous month surrounding the Palestine-Israel confrontation. Still, the coverage of these raids leave a noticeable print on how this conflict is being handled by RT, BBC and The Guardian.
Coverage of the raids on BBC and The Guardian websites
For this analysis, the news coverage by BBC.com and TheGuardian.com were observed. The timeline ranged from July 31st to September 1st. BBC and The Guardian websites were chosen based on their ranking as 2 of the 3 most visited news webpages in the UK, respectively (BBC number 5, The Guardian 22, the tabloid Daily Mail being 14) (Similar Web). They were also chosen since they are usually thought to exemplify the social responsibility media theorized in Four Theories Of the press (Fredrick Seaton Siebert et al.)
A surprisingly short result list was retrieved after the search. Only three articles specifically focusing on the attacks were found on their database. This surprise emanating from the results of the search can only be fully understood later in this document, when we get to analyze RT News.
BBC.com
BBC only one article on the subject is dated August 21st, and is headlined Israel warns of Gaza escalation over balloon and rocket attacks (BBC News). As implied by reading Israel as the subject of this headline sentence, the article mainly focuses on the IDF warnings of a large-scale retaliation against Hamas. The text then flows into detailing the damage caused by the Hamas attacks and pointing out the zero casualties on both sides. A brief description of the Israel-Egypt conjoint blockade on gaza is prompted at the end. There is no explanation of the potential causes leading to the original Hamas-led attack on Israel.
While this article complies with an alleged balance of information (alluding to both attacks and mentioning the effects on both sides of the confrontation), the images chosen throughout the article clearly unbalances the coverage objective and outlines the agenda-setting decision made by BBC. These are 2 out of the 5 pictures shown in the article:
All pictures belong to international news agencies. 4 out of the 5 photos portray the impact of the confrontation from Israel’s side. The first image was chosen as the article head image, and its footnote states that dozens of similar fires have been caused by Hamas arson balloons. The only photo aiming at the Gaza Strip is an archive photo of Gaza’s only power plant.
In the contemporary, image-focused media consumption, the decisions over the images to include or to let aside are fundamental in how the news agenda setting eventually impacts how the audience understands the events. . As Entament stated, the choices on text and images that are primed in an article “are not inevitable or unproblematic but rather are central to the way the news frame helps establish the literally “common sense” (i.e., widespread) interpretation of events.” (Entman). The fact that only one image depicting the Palestinian direct consequences of this clash was included (an archived photo) becomes quite problematic in this case as this is the only article that BBC published on their website about this event.
TheGuardian.com
Two articles were published on The Guardian website about this confrontation, separated by 2 weeks. The first article, Israel continues airstrikes on Gaza in retaliation for Hamas balloon bombs (The Guardian) was released on August 16th, while the second, Hamas and Israel agree end to cross-border bombing in Gaza (The Guardian) was published on the last day of the month, August 31st. Very short (322 and 342 words, respectively) if compared to the BBC.com article .
The first article follows the same inverted-pyramid information distribution style. Very similarly to the BBC.com article, it attempts to present facts about the confrontation and its consequences on both sides of the Israel-Gaza Wall, and it also fails at giving the reasons causing the original Hamas attack. Nonetheless, one striking difference can be highlighted: “The Gaza health ministry said two demonstrators were wounded by Israeli gunfire.” BBC.com article, published 7 days after this TheGuardian.com one, spoke of no injuries or casualties on Palestinian side.
A very little informative image was chosen for this article. It is, again, taken from an international news agency and it “shows” one part of the Gaza side of the dispute:
The footnote for this type of images becomes absolutely necessary as it is quite evident the photo could have corresponded to either side of the parties involved (or even to any other part of the world). This decision about which image to use to illustrate this confrontation is again part of the news agenda-setting which frames this conflict in a less-impactful way compared to others world’s current catastrophic situations.
The second article, as it could be expected from the headline, gathers up the events in this dispute throughout the month. It also pans along the direct consequences on both sides and mentions the previous and more violent flare-ups in the history of this confrontation. No reference to a direct cause or origin of the current dispute is given. The ceasefire is the main topic of the article.
The head image is, again, poorly illustrative, and it also depicts a nightly scenario:
Coverage of the raids on RT.com
Entman states that the only way to detect how agenda-setting and frames are utilized is by running a comparison with other framing devices (otherwise the decision over text and images can appear as natural or unintentional) (Entman). In order to line up the way framing is devised, this paper decided to pair the British media coverage of the events with the RT.com report.
RT, Russia Today, was chosen in this analysis for being a russian, state-owned and state-funded news outlet, widely known as the most upfront herald of the russian foreign policy. This TV-only media operates in 5 languages and is tuned in around 100 countries. It was also an early capitalizer of the outreach potential of YouTube: its 24/7 broadcasting channel now has around 4 millions subscribers only in its English version. (Ioffe)
A total of 20 articles were found in the RT.com database covering the Palestine-Israel conflict. in the date range from July 31st to September 1stt. 8 of these articles specifically refer to the raids taken place in the Gaza Strip. Dating from very early in the month up to August 18th, these 8 articles combine very distinctive elements which can be inductively analyzed through 2 of them.
The first article, Drones & jets: Israel launches strikes on Gaza Strip for 4th straight night (VIDEO) (RT.com) was released on August 15th, can be easily distinguished from its British counterparts by the use of blunt language in the first paragraph:
The article then flows into a trademark of the house: embedded Twitter media. As the headline implies, the article includes videos portraying how the airstrikes reach Gaza territory. It is worth mentioning that the videos are retrieved from a Twitter account of a Palestinian activist:
It also embeds the official Twitter statement made by IDF about one of attacks:
After this apparent trace of objectivity, the tone of the article continues inclining Palestine-wards, noting the disproportions of Israeli attacks compared to the effects of Hamas rockets:
The most relevant finding in this article is the reference to the potential direct cause of the original Hamas flare-up, something that was found nowhere in the British articles:
The head image of the article does not balance out the text, as seen with the BBC.com piece. It is, in fact, a straightforward declaration of the intention of the upcoming tone of the text:
The second article out of the 8 previously mentioned is headlined Israel strikes Hamas ‘special forces unit’ in Gaza amid continued rocket & balloon attacks (PHOTOS, VIDEOS) (RT.com). Its head image is not as thematically explicit as the first article, but certainly illustrates the most shattering impact of the Israel airstrikes in the gaza territory:
Dated August 18th, this report was made in the most intense period of the Israelian retaliation. Citing the IDF Twitter statement again, the article then weaves on other Twitter threads and images (6 posts in total) exclusively depicting the impact of the attack from the Gaza side of the wall:
The article concludes with a piece of additional information not-to-be-found in the previous articles:
Editorial reasons amidst geopolitical games
Russia’s support of the recognition of the State of Palestine is not new. The Soviet Union was an early advocate of PLO leader Yasser Arafat and current Russia does not consider Hamas as a terrorist organization. (Eke). RT.com is the most combative tool in Vladimir Putin’s propaganda agenda and it is clearly aligned with is foreign policy, even blurring the limits of truth when it comes to show Russia’s brightsides. (Gray). RT.com deliberate and constant focus on the Israel-Palestinean dispute is a direct implication on an algid topic on which Western media timidly
gets involved. The use of head images and Twitter media aims at siding with the Palestinean cause by documenting Israel attacks on the population. RT editors seize the lack of coverage on this issue by the British media and consequently succeed at gaining important devotees in the region and unbalancing the influence of western countries.
Something different happens in the British Isles. The United Kingdom lists the Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades as a terrorist organization (Home Office) and the British media have been constantly accused of falling for Israeli lobby when it comes to reporting on the conflict so the Israel attacks be depicted as a direct consequence of Hamas terrorist acts (Soussi) (Murphy). Having largely reported on the Russia pre 2016 Olympics doping scandal, the poisoning of russian opposition leaders and the lack of freedom of speech and opposition in contemporary Russia, it is clear that the agenda-setting modelling BBC.com and TheGuardian.com carefully align with the official British foreign policy. (The role of the state in journalistic decisions is widely analized by Humprecht et al. 1037–1065).
The scarce reporting on this August confrontation between Israel and Hamas may also be due to other different reasons. With the current global emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible that the journalistic decisions made by these two British media focus on highlighting the effects of the virus and its related lockdowns (still, no article on both British media had any glimpse about the impact of the pandemic in the State of Palestine). Nonetheless, it is particularly noteworthy that the only reference to the Gaza Strip in western media almost always revolves around the intermittent conflict with Israel. As demonstrated by Riffe and Shaw, the western media tend to include third-world countries in their news decisions only where natural disasters or violent happenings are taking place. (Riffe and Shaw).
It is also revealing that the British media articles were rephrasing texts of cables issued by international agencies such AFP or AP. There was not any correspondent assigned to cover the confrontation in situ, and this leaves official statements go unverified. The first article by The Guardian mentions a statement issued by the IDJ, informing:
The reader has no elements to judge the veracity.of this statement. Worldwide journalism crisis has meant the layoff of hundreds of correspondents and freelance collaborators, and the reports on this type of confrontations is usually reported out of a singular news report by an international agency, which is financially more cost effective. It is also important to note that none of the articles analyzed is author-signed and they fall under the authorship of the media outlet publishing it.
Works Cited
Eke, Steven. “Moscow Risks Anger over Hamas Visit.” News.Bbc.Co.Uk, 3 Mar. 2006, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4769204.stm.
Entman, Robert M. “Framing U.S. Coverage of International News: Contrasts in Narratives of the KAL and Iran Air Incidents.” Journal of Communication, no. 41, 1991, pp. 6–27, 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1991.tb02328.x.
Fredrick Seaton Siebert, et al. Four Theories of the Press : The Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility, and Soviet Communist Concepts of What the Press Should Be and Do. Freeport, N.Y., Books For Libraries Press, 1973.
Gray, Rosie. “How The Truth Is Made At Russia Today.” BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed News, 14 Mar. 2014, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/how-the-truth-is-made-at-russia-today.
Home Office, UK. Proscribed Terrorist Groups or Organisations. 2013 July 12AD, www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations–2.
Humprecht, Edda, et al. Hallin and Mancini Revisited: Four Empirical Types of Western Media Systems. Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 1037–1065.
Ioffe, Julia. “What Is Russia Today?” Columbia Journalism Review, 28 Feb. 2010, archives.cjr.org/feature/what_is_russia_today.php.
McCombs, Maxwell E., and Donald L. Shaw. “The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media.” The Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 2, 1972, pp. 176–187.
Murphy, Maureen Clare. “BBC Admits Pandering to Israeli Propaganda.” The Electronic Intifada, 14 Dec. 2012, electronicintifada.net/content/bbc-admits-pandering-israeli-propaganda/12004.
Mutsvairo, Bruce. “Why Journalistic ‘balance’ Is Failing the Public.” The Conversation, 25 Nov. 2016, theconversation.com/why-journalistic-balance-is-failing-the-public-68783. Accessed 4 Oct. 2020.
News, BBC. “Israel Warns of Gaza Escalation as Violence Flares.” BBC News, 21 Aug. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53833280.