The New York Times article on nonviolence in the West Bank is strongly biased. As early as paragraph 7, the Israeli military gets its say: “These are not sit-ins with people singing ‘We Shall Overcome’… These are violent, illegal, dangerous riots.”
But we have to read on, all to way to paragraph 20, before we hear about Tristin Anderson, the American protester who was seriously hurt by an Israeli tear gas canister, and it isn’t until paragraph 23 that we learn that 19 Palestinians have been killed at the barrier since 2004.
Newspapers are supposed to write in inverse pyramid style, putting the most important information at the top. How many Times readers will get to the Israeli spokesman at paragraph 7, dismiss the story as just more Arab violence, and turn the page?
