Headlines are critical and often decisive elements of any news cycle. They inhabit a specific rhetorical genre—being a kind of art, as well—one reason why most publications don’t allow contributors the honor of writing them. They can be tantalizingly vague, purposefully misleading, or notoriously sensational (looking at you, Salon). But, like any textual phenomenon, they’re never neutral. Even headlines that aim to be functional omit infinite possibilities; editors select certain words over others, limit description according to ideological need, and influence a reader’s focus. (These conventions aren’t inherently bad, but they preclude objectivity.)
We’re supposed to know better than to judge content based on heading, but readers have always done it and in this social media era the habit won’t change. Editors know it happens, which is why they invest resources into headlines as progenitors of narrative. It’s often defensible to form an impression of a piece’s quality at the outset. Why bother reading an article if its framing announces that the content will be propaganda? In cases where an article’s content contradicts its framing, is the content enough to counterbalance the original impression?
These are open questions, but we get a sense of ideological proclivity by exploring material billed as impartial. Word choices, subheadings, allusions, technicalities, omissions, assumptions. How do they presage a recital of “news” before the story is even told?
I set out to examine this question vis-à-vis corporate media coverage of Palestine. Anyone concerned with Palestinian liberation will tell you that headlines set a horrible tone for discussion of the possibility. Tweets circulate with every Israeli aggression showing how some big-time publication is misleading the public with a stupid or venal headline. How systemic is the problem? Are social media users being selective or is there visible bias in favor of Israel?
My hypothesis was that a distinctly pro-Israel narrative dominates corporate media headlines based on the notion that Palestinians are the aggressor and that Israel reluctantly maintains a defensive posture. This hypothesis proved correct. If anything, the headlines were more tendentious than I had imagined.
I searched select anglophone media using various terms (“Gaza,” “return march,” “Israel,” “Hamas,” and so forth), seeking pieces focused on confrontation instead of elections or other local politics. I limited the search from March 30, 2018, the start of the Great Return March in the Gaza Strip, to the present (most of the articles, in fact, are related to Gaza). It’s something of an arbitrary cutoff, but one representing a period with plenty of “violence” and offering a large sample size. I stuck with reportage rather than opinion, with the exception of some news analysis. (I’ll examine editorial content in a future piece.) I can’t claim to have found every article dealing with Palestine or Israel, but I found enough to decipher how corporate media frame the so-called conflict.
Let’s rip the headlines, then.
National Public Radio
NPR, a forum for highbrow liberalism, isn’t given to sensational headlines, but it exhibits a bias in favor of Israel. The bias exists in tones of apparent neutrality. Here are some typical headlines:
- “Israel and Palestinian Factions in Gaza Reach Tentative Cease-Fire Agreement”
- “After Weekend of Deadly Violence, Reports of a Truce in Gaza”
These formulations ignore much heavier casualties on the Palestinian side and give no sense of the conditions underlying acrimony, as if a perplexed nation-state and a bunch of “factions” simply dislike one another. NPR disregards the people for whom violence is deadly. No headlines indicate that Israel acts as an aggressor, nor do any highlight disparities of power between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs.
NPR also conceptualizes Israeli bombing as retaliatory. That bombing doesn’t amount to “violence,” however, a type of behavior limited to Palestinians:
- “Netanyahu Orders Continued Pounding in Gaza as 600 Rockets Fired into Israel”
- “Gaza Militants Fire Rockets into Israel; Israeli PM Netanyahu Promises ‘Massive Strikes’”
- “No Ceasefire Between Israel and Hamas After Rocket Triggers Conflict”
On the rare occasion when NPR implicates Israel in killing, it simultaneously casts doubt on the reliability of the information: “Israeli Troops Kill at Least Four Palestinian Protestors, Gaza Health Officials Say.” “Gaza Health Officials Say” is unnecessary, suggesting prejudice or subjectivity. In the United States, a Palestinian source is inherently unreliable because it projects disrepute.
On September 12, 2018, Daniel Estrin of Morning Edition did a passable story on the right of return, which appears to be the limit of NPR’s concern with the actual victims of this “conflict.”
New York Times
The Times heavily covers the Middle East, so it would require a team of research assistants to catalogue and assess every article. The paper is indisputably pro-Israel, with the following representing a typical headline:
- “Gaza Militants Fire 250 Rockets, and Israel Responds with Air Strikes”
- “West Bank Shootings Raise Fear That Hamas Is Expanding Its Fight”
- “Gaza Rocket Sets Off Daylong Battle Between Hamas and Israel”
- “Israel Strikes After Rockets Are Fired From Gaza to Tel Aviv”
- “Israel Strikes Gaza After a Rocket Is Fired”
- “Gaza Militants Barrage Israel With Mortars and Rockets”
I searched for exceptions to this convention—i.e., headlines that might be construed as sympathetic to Palestinians, or at least offering some indication that they suffer privation from a more powerful adversary. It wasn’t a fruitful search:
- “Deadly Gaza Raid By Israel Threatens Nascent Cease-Fire”
- “3 Boys From Gaza Are Buried After Israeli Strike”
- “For Palestinian Families, ‘No Light at the End of the Tunnel’”
- “7 Palestinians Killed By Israeli Fire in Gaza Border Clashes”
- “Israeli Military Kills 15 Palestinians in Confrontations on Gaza Border”
This stuff is pretty weak and doesn’t rectify the dozens of headlines positioning Israel as besieged. While the headlines appear dispassionate and acknowledge that Israel kills Palestinians, their language is insidious, framing action as “clashes” and “confrontations,” never as deliberate killing or colonial violence. Compare with the “barrages” that “militants” in Gaza deliver to a stunned Israel. The NYT also likes to depict “violence” as a contest between Israel and “Hamas,” an organization made to stand in for all of Palestinian society (and in the USA synonymous with terrorism).
The Times publishes some decent op-eds, but also has Bari Weiss, David Brooks, and Bret Stephens on the payroll.
Ha’aretz
Israel’s most prestigious daily, Ha’aretz is liberal with flourishes of both conscience and fundamentalism. Its headlines regularly mention “occupation” and disparage Netanyahu. The paper would prefer ethnic cleansing with a humane face rather than its current presentation with a smirk and a combover.
Because the publication is located in Israel, it has a more intimate and thus antagonistic relationship with the state and its conservative managers. However, readers shouldn’t confuse criticism of the Israeli government with sympathy for its colonial subjects. Here’s a sampling of Ha’aretz headlines:
- “Strike Hamas, get a government: Netanyahu may be forced to change his Gaza policy”
- “The Israeli lawyer who defends the most violent fighters against the occupation”
- “Gaza flare-up is over for now; next up: Iran”
- “10000 Gazans March on Nakba Day, 65 Injured in Clashes with Israeli Forces”
- “Gaza Flare-up Imperils Netanyahu’s Cynical Cohabitation with Hamas”
- “Gaza protests to go on, but with less violence, organizers say”
- “Israel Strikes 100 Targets in Gaza in Response to Rockets Fired at Tel Aviv”
- “Mortars, rockets and drones: A look at Hamas’ arsenal”
One can occasionally find headlines favorable to Palestinians, typically on the editorial side, and others with rightwing undertones; mostly, though, Ha’aretz headlines read like those in the New York Times: descriptive, impersonal, neutral. Neutrality, however, isn’t innocuous; it tacitly reproduces ruling class imperatives. Things regularly “flare up,” which suggests that the norm is some kind of calm (“relative,” of course), a perspective only colonizers can enjoy.
Guardian
It’s difficult to classify the Guardian, at least in recent years. It’s a progressive stalwart featuring nominally pro-Palestine columnists and reporters, but these days it seems to fluctuate between reactionary panic and social democratic casuistry. Its headlines vis-à-vis Palestine aren’t manifold, but they exhibit variation:
- “One million face hunger in Gaza after US cut to Palestine aid”
- “Israeli forces shoot 16 Palestinian protestors at Gaza frontier”
- “More than 20 dead as violence flares between Gaza and Israel”
- “Gaza’s generation blockade: young lives in the ‘world’s largest prison’”
- “Six killed in Gaza as Israel responds to multiple rocket attacks”
- “UN says Israel’s killings at Gaza protests may amount to war crimes”
- “Israeli military bombs Gaza after rocket strike”
- “Israeli fire kills four Palestinians, says Gaza health ministry”
The final headline is reminiscent of NPR’s rhetoric, in which facts are qualified by subjective hedging, a convention that doesn’t apply when “Hamas” acts out. The more powerful entity in conflict automatically is the more credible side.
The Guardian is more apt than other publications on this list to produce headlines implicating Israel in aggression, but it also avoids diction suggesting that the aggression is systemic. Most headlines recycle the cliché about Israel responding to rocket fire. The headlines about IDF killing and hunger in Gaza are welcome departures from this practice. They’re not frequent enough to negate the myth of a defensive Israel (as the occupying party Israel produces continuous aggression) or to create a sustained narrative about Palestinian hardship.
Ultimately, the paper doesn’t live up to its reputation as a progressive alternative to its corporatist peers. It’s reasonable only because the standards of Western media are so moribund.
Washington Post
Along with the New York Times, the Washington Post is the USA’s Old Money paper, a fortress of insider knowledge and journalistic clout. It’s generally considered to be more centrist than the Times, but that perception only applies to the editorial page, which is wonkish and doctrinal. Much of the Post’s original reporting in the past has been good, especially when the late Anthony Shadid was on staff. (The Beirut-based Liz Sly and her colleague Louisa Loveluck, now in Baghdad, have obliterated his legacy.) Its headlines about Palestine illuminate a steep decline:
- “Death toll rises as Gaza militants fire hundreds of rockets into Israel, which responds with airstrikes”
- “More than 200 rockets fired into Israel from Gaza; Israel responds, killing three”
- “After living in squalid conditions, Gaza zoo animals are relocated to safer locations”
- “Netanyahu and Hamas lock into a cycle of violence”
- “Gaza’s homemade rockets still stretch Israel’s sophisticated defenses”
Although Israel’s defenses are understood to be sophisticated—as is, by extension, Israel’s military capability in general—“homemade rockets” nevertheless create insecurity. The reader’s sympathy is thereby directed toward Israel. I include the headline about zoo animals because it belongs to a long tradition of empathizing with nonhuman animals while exhibiting indifference to Palestinian life. Otherwise, we again see the standard formula: “Hamas” initiates violence and Israel responds. For the Post, “Netanyahu” and “Hamas” represent opposing poles that supersede Zionism and decolonization.
A different kind of entry accompanies a report on the Great March of Return: “Thousands gather in Gaza to mark anniversary of bloody border protests.” The headline isn’t objectionable, but it illustrates the limitations of colonial orthodoxy. While Palestinians certainly marked the anniversary of border protests, whose bloodiness was due to Israel, their primary concern was the right of return, an issue nearly absent from corporate media coverage of Palestine and Israel, but central to any understanding of the “conflict.” The set of issues with which those media are concerned doesn’t usually correspond with topics of discussion in Palestine.
A final headline of note: “Israel and Gaza militants agree to cease-fire after weekend of violence.” Here is another example of dubious language mediating conventional politics. Israel is a neutral entity, a state, which means its militancy is normalized and thus immune to modification. Furthermore, Israel isn’t making war on “militants,” however you want to define the category. It is making war on the whole of the Gaza Strip.
Wall Street Journal
The most conservative publication on this list, WSJ has a distinguished history of longform journalism. While its editorial side is staunchly Republican, its reportage isn’t appreciably worse than that of its liberal peers. While its op-ed page discusses international affairs, original coverage of foreign politics is sparse compared to other papers its size. The WSJ nevertheless offers a peek into the sensibilities of a rightwing paper. Its headlines are pretty typical:
- “Israel, Gaza Trade Blows in Deadly Exchanges”
- “Israel Strikes Hamas Targets in Gaza After Rocket Attack Near Tel Aviv”
- “Israel Strikes Gaza After Rockets Fired at Tel Aviv”
- “Political Dynamics Raise Risk for Israel-Hamas Clash”
- “Hamas Steps Back From All-Out War With Israel”
- “U.N. Slams Israel Over Violent Crackdown on Gaza Protestors”
“Trading blows” implies symmetry, and “deadly exchanges” suggest equivalent deadliness. The political dynamic most worthy of concern is settler colonization. And “all-out war” has existed for Palestinian civilians since the 1940s. From these headlines, readers get no sense that one party is an advanced technocracy and the other composed largely of unarmed refugees. As is the custom in corporate media, everything Israel “targets” (the headline writer can’t even be bothered to write “bombs”) belongs to “Hamas,” the modern world’s biggest red herring. What kind of dangers threaten Tel Aviv, anyway? The Israeli government likes to portray the city as imperiled, but also boasts about its exceptional safety when hosting events like Eurovision.
The headline about the UN is stronger than anything I found in the New York Times or Washington Post, but none of the WSJ headlines is uncommon. From the small sample size available at the WSJ website, headlines about Palestine are more or less in synch with its liberal and progressive peers.
Better Headlines
Corporate media are in the business of cosseting the ruling class, so the narrow parameters to which they adhere reflect Zionism’s usefulness to sites of power. We cannot read simply for accuracy, but also for an understanding of linguistic conventions in relation to structural inequality. Seemingly simple word choices make an enormous difference in perception. With an altered focus or even a synonym, a respectable headline suddenly becomes polemical, inappropriate, subjective. Take a look at some hypothetical alternatives:
- “Gazans Protest Israel’s Inhumane Blockade”
- “Refugees in Gaza Cannot Return to Their Ancestral Villages, Gather at Apartheid Fence to Assert That Right”
- “Israel Continues Policy of Slow-Motion Genocide in Gaza”
- “Palestinians, Using One of Their Few Means of Defense, Launch Rockets into Israeli Settlements”
- “Israeli Politicians Continue Using Genocidal Language to Describe Arabs”
- “Palestinian Great March of Return Aims to Fulfill International Law”
- “After Decades of Illegal Occupation, Palestinian Resistance Remains Steadfast”
- “After 71 Years of Dispossession, Palestinians Still Yearn to Return Home”
If you object by saying these examples are tendentious, then take a second to consider why the current batch of nonsense is so easily conceptualized as polished or impartial. Hell, forget tone and attitude—the current batch of nonsense isn’t even accurate. As always, the powerful enjoy the insidious bias of objectivity.
Conclusions
My trip through the headlines confirmed a few perceptions: that corporate media portray Palestinians as the aggressor, ignore the actual basis of the “conflict” (land theft, structural racism, illegal settlement), and misread Palestinian political sensibilities. The fact that corporate media sporadically offer a decent headline in situations of abject horror is no reason to be satisfied. Palestinians are also supposed to be grateful for shitty peace initiatives that concede most of their homeland to the usurper.
The upshot of these problems is normalization of Israel. Corporate media treat the state as if it’s an innocent, almost befuddled, organism of timeless provenance rather than a recent imposition violently accumulating the spoils of colonization. To encounter resistance, then, warrants an onslaught of technocratic force, naturally conceptualized as self-defense.
Some headlines offer useful information, but they rarely convey social or historical context. Hamas is pulling the strings. Palestinians resist and protest for…reasons (none of them admirable). The headlines convey little sense of independent mass movements in Palestine, by now over a century old. Instead, action occurs through shady hierarchies. The goal is to inflict suffering on Israelis because of atavistic hatred.
What can be done? Nothing, really. As long as they’re solvent, corporate media will continue dissembling and obfuscating on behalf of their ruling class sponsors. I’d suggest reading past the headlines, but doing so only exacerbates the problem.