Spring Break
Journalist speaks about violence, poverty in Palestine
Alison Weir shares stories with students about her experiences reporting
By: Madiha Rizvi
Issue date: 3/5/09 Section: News
|
She saw the wall hanging in the living room that had a bullet hole in it that said in English, "thinking of God makes our hearts grow calm." The family had moved into their dream home 10 days before.
"I saw the flowers in the living room and the family photographs," she said.
Weir, founder of the nonprofit organization "If Americans Knew," spoke at Texas A&M Wednesday and recounted how she covered the death of a nine- year- old Palestinian boy as a freelance journalist in Palestine.
In a presentation, Weir highlighted the Israeli media bias and how the total Palestinian death tolls are not reported. She talked about the $6.8 million American tax dollars that are spent for Israeli forces every day.
Weir said her organization undertook research about the Israeli-Palestinian issue and the holes in Palestinian reporting.
"We asked about both [countries] and we used an Israeli organization to get the statistics so these are not in dispute. 169 Palestinians were killed by Israelis and 49 Israelis were killed by Palestinians," Weir said. "We found that in primetime news like ABC, NBC and CBS were reporting deaths up to three or four times greater than they were reporting on Israeli deaths," she said.
The organization looked at the subcategory of children deaths. In the reports it was found that 28 Israelis and 138 Palestinians were killed. They used the definition of 17 and below to classify as children.
"We found that they were reporting on Israeli tragedies to rates 13 or 14 times greater than they were reporting on Palestinians," she said.
She said the regional newspapers like The San Jose Mercury News had a bias in the figures. There were 121 Israeli deaths and 384 Palestinian deaths. The figures were not only reversed on the front page of the paper but they had increased the differentials.
Be sure to include your name, major, and class year. Submissions without this information are subject to deletion.
By submitting a comment, you agree to thebatt.com's Terms of Use.
You may also send a Mail Call to The Battalion at mailcall@thebatt.com