The one-sided match

Imagine for a moment you're watching the Wimbledon tennis championships broadcast by the BBC.  The camera is focused intently on Maria Sharapova as she dives to return an ace service traveling at 125 mph.  On the next serve, we see Sharapova successfully return; the ball then comes back to her as a wicked cross-court which she manages to drive across the net with her inimitable two-handed backhand.  The ball once again crosses the net toward Sharapova, this time as a lob to the backcourt.  The camera follows her as she falls back, allows the ball to bounce, and smashes a winner down the line.  All the action captured in breathtaking fashion by the BBC except for one missing element: the opponent.

This is the way Reuters typically covers the Middle East conflict.  Hamas or one of the other Palestinian terror groups in Gaza will fire rockets at Israeli communities.  There may or may not be a direct hit; there may or may not be casualties (although there will always be a terrorized civilian population), yet there will be no mention of the attack on Reuters' website.  Then, perhaps 12 to 24 hours later, Israel will retaliate with a military strike in Gaza and within minutes, Reuters will be reporting prominently on the incident. At this point, the preceding Palestinian attack will sometimes be mentioned (but downplayed), sometimes not.

The intent of this pattern of selective reporting is of course, to draw attention away from acts of aggression by the Palestinian Arabs while highlighting Israeli military force in response. The cumulative effect is an audience which is anesthetized to Palestinian homicidal violence and hypersensitive to a nation defending against it.