A Terrorist's Guide to Improving Israel's Media Coverage

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
23 June '10


When you're in a competition and you're losing, one of the first thing to do is to study what your opponent is doing and copy him. In this case Israel is competing for good media coverage with the terrorists. And the terrorists are winning. And if the media likes them so much, maybe it's time to start doing what they do.

1. Get Good Media Coverage By Excluding Bad Media Coverage

Say that two movies will be coming out next week. One of those movies has studio which bans all critics who have spoken unfavorably about it from seeing it. The other movie welcomes all reviewers. When the final numbers are tallied, which movie do you think will have the best reviews? The one that didn't screen the movie for any critics who were not favorably disposed toward it. Sure the other movie might claim that its favorable reviews were honest. And that and a dime will buy you a cup of coffee.

Now say that these two studios keep doing this for 10 years, and that they're the only game in town. Eventually just to be able to do their jobs, critics will almost always positively review movies from the studio that bars critics, and almost always negatively review the movies from the other studio to stay on the good side of the first studio. That is because selecting for optimal results will produce them.

Free societies "screen" for all critics. Totalitarian ones only play to supportive audiences. That is why they get the better publicity than free societies. Journalistic integrity is supposed to make up the difference by telling the truth to the public. When it doesn't, then the journalists are functioning willingly as tools of totalitarian regimes. And maybe it's time to give them the boot.

If Israel wants the same supportive coverage that Fatah and Hamas get, it needs to play by their rules. Press credentials would then go to those who provide positive coverage. Those reporters who want to take pictures of wall graffiti and stage photos of Muslim children throwing stones at Israeli tanks need not apply. If the New York Times or NBC News can't find anyone willing to play by those rules, the way they do in Gaza and Ramallah, then they can stay home and they won't be able to do their jobs.

The mainstream media will be outraged, you say. There will be even more negative coverage. As if there isn't heaps of it now. And what will the negative media coverage be of? Reporters forced to stay home. Foreign correspondents who have to cover an election in Hungary, instead of eating caviar in a Jerusalem hotel and writing vicious articles about Jewish Middle Eastern refugees living in East Jerusalem. Haaretz reporters will have to move to London to write biting columns in the Guardian about how racist the country they used to live in, is. Before they move on to the inevitable theater reviews and finally begin writing ad copy for insurance agencies. Oh the pathos, the pity. No one will care.

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