Personally, I have been watching a bit of BBC news 24, also reading the Jewish Chronicle on line to see how the Isreali side reports, some Guardian & my weekly regular "The Week" which collects articles from all the papers and juxtaposes them + some first hand accounts - just because for this particular issue I happen to know people in the area. Now you might say I choose publications that are a bit leftie and 'my friends' have bias and certain political leanings, its all just chinese whispers blah blah- so how can I trust what they say? Thats true, but I make a personal choice to select and reject - based on nothing scientific - just feelings and beliefs. But I make no claims to even handedness or unbiased reports.

I think some examples of the words used (such as the 'death' example) can be over-analysed. Journalists are taught to write a certain way and you apply that training regardless of the situation. Maybe you can argue that there is an element of subconscious bias, but these are terms that would apply in any conflict scenario.

(Good) Journalists should not apply terms in a blanket way to any major conflict. The choice to describe an event as a death rather than a fatality, loss of life, mortality, murder, un lawful killing, accident - take your pick is a subjective manipulation of language, and an editorial and ideological decision depending on the political leaning of the institution.
There was a very interesting paper on this recently where someone looked at all the different UK newspapers and interviewed the editors on their policy for using the word terrorist and asked them for their definitions for other terms like fundamentalist.
Actually come to think of it, there are dozens of books and research on this.
Bias is natural, it annoys me when journalists in particular bang on about objectivity - what a load of baloney. Good journalism in my opinion acknowledges its bias.

Do you know Robert Fisk in the Independent? A highly successful journalist with a PhD, who has taken up the objectivity, is rubbish debate with The Times & is overt about his political leanings and bias.
We might not all agree with him politically, but to me that is honest journalism.

As an aside I used to get the Independent free at my leisure club. It got to the point I'd rather pay for the Times than read the Independent free. It wasn't the political leanings [eg. let everyone into the country that wants etc.] that I didn't like. It was just that it was so badly written. The again the LEP has trouble with spelling certain words [difficult ones like business].

Do you mean The Lancester Evening Post?

oops I mean Lancaster [spelling is not my forte either!]

I think Golfpro makes a point about journalism bias. We tend to view journalism bias dependant on out own bias. If we beleive X and the media says X then we tend to say what a good unbiased opionon. If the media says Y, we say what biased rubbish. We read what we want to read. To a degree we see what we want to see. You may look at a million sources all from different opionons. I would bet that it would take a pretty large revelation to change ones hardcore viewpoint (if that was even possible).

So is the real problem with the media the fact that language is inherintly bias? Or perhaps that the way we read language is inherintly bias? No matter what words that reporter used to describe the UN posts deaths, it would be seen as bias by somebody. So in effect there is no such thing as being unbiased?

What is a truely unbiased statment about the UN post? Is uncertantity the only truely unbiased view? And is that a helpful way of looking at the world? Would anything ever get done?

Lancashire Evening Post pea.

Going back to what Sue said I do tend to percieve the BBC as anti-Israel. I thought that was a commonly held view? In this particular instance I see Sky as offering the most balalnced opinion.

good forum. golfpro you make some good points... refreshing to hear a balanced point of view.

Agree. I've really enjoyed this discussion & Golf-pro, Richmond, Sue, Ed - everyone infact.
its nice we can have some meaty debate without spiralling into personal insults. ( the helmet argy bargy was a bit of a blip). Obviously I don't agree with you on a lot of it - but I do value your imput & ideas.

Good luck with your project Golf -Pro. I am Science & technology studies, though I work PT for a media analysis research group as well ( as you might have guessed!)

aaw, thanks for the mention. I admired your decision not to go to the protest, not simply because you didn't go, but because you obviously thought carefully about it and found your own way to express your opinion - that's cool I worry about the kinds of assumptions people make about me - if I was to join some 'bandwagon' or another and things were moving away from what I hoped or anticipated, then I'd have sort of been responsible, and not have the power to say, 'hang on, that's not what I want' or not be able to make people hear my real message. Did you hear how it went? What happened?

Nothing wrong with a bit of [fair] argy-bargy on here is there. Be a boring old world if we all agreed. Apparently I'm [informed I am ] a natural born complainer. I even formally complained in writing re my MSc after getting a distinction. I'm a big believer in saying if you don't like something.

Thank you Pea for your good wishes. They are appreciated.