The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    Headlines and front lines: How US news coverage of wars in Yemen and Ukr reveals a bias in recording Archived Message

    Posted by sashimi on August 5, 2023, 4:22 pm

    - civilian harm

    Esther Brito Ruiz & Jeff Bachman, 3 Aug 2023

    War entails suffering. How and how often that suffering is reported on in the
    U.S., however, is not evenhanded.

    Take, for example, the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen in March 2015 and the
    Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The media attention afforded to
    the crises reveals biases that relate less to the human consequences of the
    conflicts than to the United States' role and relationship with the warring
    parties involved.

    In Yemen, the U.S. is arming and supporting the Saudi-led coalition, whose
    airstrikes and blockades have caused immense human suffering. Meanwhile in
    Eastern Europe, the U.S. is arming and aiding Ukraine's efforts by helping to
    counter missile strikes that have targeted civilian infrastructure and to retake
    occupied territories where horrific killings have taken place.

    As scholars who study genocide and other mass atrocities, as well as
    international security, we compared New York Times headlines that span
    approximately seven and a half years of the ongoing conflict in Yemen and the
    first nine months of the conflict in Ukraine.

    We paid particular attention to headlines on civilian casualties, food security
    and provision of arms. We chose The New York Times because of its popularity and
    reputation as a credible and influential source on international news, with an
    extensive network of global reporters and over 130 Pulitzer Prizes.

    Purposefully, our analysis focused solely on headlines. While the full stories
    may bring greater context to the reporting, headlines are particularly important
    for three reasons: They frame the story in a way that affects how it is read and
    remembered; reflect the publication's ideological stance on an issue; and, for
    many news consumers, are the only part of the story that is read at all.

    Our research shows extensive biases in both the scale and tone of
    coverage. These biases lead to reporting that highlights or downplays human
    suffering in the two conflicts in a way that seemingly coincides with
    U.S. foreign policy objectives.
    -- Cont'd at https://theconversation.com/headlines-and-front-lines-how-us-news-coverage-of-wars-in-yemen-and-ukraine-reveals-a-bias-in-recording-civilian-harm-209652

    Message Thread: