Do news reports stoke terror?

You’re a journalist on the ground in Israel during the current wave of terror. Murders are committed on your street corner. Protests are organized by your neighbors. 

How do you tell the story dispassionately?

“Journalism is rooted in culture and society, so obviously a journalist covering a conflict that is within a nation or a culture he is involved with is not an objective journalist,” says Motti Neiger, a member of the Department of Communications at Netanya Academic College.

While there is a need to maintain transparency and “keep reporting on every attack that happens,” the constant news reporting can cause public alarm, acknowledges Tamara Zieve, Jewish world editor at the Jerusalem Post.

“You never know when it is going to happen, where it is going to happen,” she says.

 “Media serves as an amplifier, creating an atmosphere of terror. …If there were not media, it would feel like there is less terror,” says Neiger.

Simon Plosker, managing editor of the Israel-based media watchdog organization HonestReporting, says that only “half the story is being told” regarding the violence.

“One wouldn’t expect the Arab media to be balanced, and when the international media tells the story in a skewed manner, it makes it even easier,” says Plosker. 

In the scenario where Arab Israeli media portrays a terrorist’s death at the hands of Israeli security forces as “murder,” and omits the fact that the “victim” had committed a terrorist attack before being killed, it can lead to fear by the general Arab population. Zieve says that while Israeli Jews are afraid to leave their homes over fear of getting attacked and killed, Israeli Arabs are also afraid—of being mistaken for terrorists and being killed.