by Ricky Mulvey
I’ve been working in the news game for about six years now. I started in when I was in eighth grade when I wrote high school football reports for my local newspaper (turns out you only need to be a 13-year-old, B average English student to do that). So I’ve had my fair share of news consumption.
A lot of times when I share an idea I heard from the news I get back something along the lines of, “well you can’t believe everything you see in the media.” I hate that phrase. It’s usually thrown out by some uptight adult and it suggests that when you read or hear something you don’t like in the media, you can chalk it up as a wicked lie that came from bias. Obviously the writer or reporter is lying if they are presenting information that contradicts your previously held beliefs.
Challenging an idea with “well don’t believe everything you hear,” is lazy and patronizing, but there is a little truth to it; there is plenty of tricky business in the media. Don’t you worry. But there are ways to spot it, and better ways to teach spotting it than holding up your pitchfork and a sign that says ‘EVERYONE LIES.’
By no means am I an expert, but I think I have a little insight, and especially after being on a trip where we met countless speakers about Israeli issues, all of which with an agenda, my nose is a little bit more in touch to smell bullshit. So any time someone is trying to sell you an idea here are five red flags:
1) If a child is used to advance a political message, get reaallll skeptical.
Remember when everyone went nuts over that Invisible Children charity and wanted justice on an East African warlord in 2012 with a “Stop Kony” profile picture”? These guys even showed up to my high school. We gave them money, put on talent shows for them, and did not really ask questions about why these dudes were asking 16 year olds for money while rolling up in a brand new Cadillac Escalade.
They showed a striking documentary about child soldiers and we bought into it because children are so persuasive. A smiling ten year old with gaps from lost baby teeth is adorable and of course he does not have a political agenda, which may be true, but the guy writing the script for what he is saying probably does.
We were so taken back by these kids forced to be soldiers that we did not ask questions. We did not look to see EXACTLY where the money was going or who was running the organization (people that swing their ding-a-lings at San Diego traffic.)
I found the same type of logic in Israel. We went to a museum about Gush Katif, which was the move then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made to forcibly take all Jewish settlers out of the Gaza Strip. The way this museum sold us on the tragedy of Gush Katif was by showing us a documentary featuring a ten year old kid, the last Jewish settler born in Gaza, “discovering” what happened in interviews with family and friends.
Now, many in Israel see getting the settlers out of Gush Katif as a mistake… I mean, things aren’t too cheery in Gaza at the moment, but that is not the point. This museum used the eyes of a ten-year-old to sell one side of a contentious political issue.
They sold Gush Katif as this confusing tragedy because a smiling, gapped tooth kid was so plainly against it. When Gush Katif occurred the majority of the Israeli parliament was in favor of pulling the settlers out of Gaza and so were the people. But of course, you can hide these facts, like you can hide a lot of facts, by having a child selling one side of a political issue.
Yes, sometimes kids are parts of political discussions, especially when kids are a part of the issue discussed, but when they are being used to sell you an idea, get skeptical.
2) Answering a direct question with “I don’t know.”
When we went to this Gush Katif museum someone asked our guide, “So why did they make you leave Gaza?” She answered “Oh I don’t know,” then continued to sell us on the tragedy that happened to her family. This was bs. You can Google the logic behind Gush Katif in about three seconds. The government hoped it would bring about peace, and keeping Jews in Gaza was costing too much in money and lives.
But she did not answer the question because the guide’s job was not to educate us, it was to influence us.
When questions are being dodged, there is a reason. Especially if it is an expert doing the dodging.
3) A mismatch or no match at all
Look at who you are getting quotes from in an article, news reports, documentary, anything. Just like you can have a mismatch in boxing, you can have the same thing in the news. Especially when you have a few opinions in a piece, look at who is “competing” for your influence.
For instance, I am very against the BDS movement. These guys want to pull as many international investments as they can from Israel, among other things. I think it’s slimy, anti-zionist, and (in part and secretly) anti-semitic. I’ve been to the settlements these guys yell about and I don’t know exactly what the answer to Jewish settlers in the West Bank is, but I think peace needs to come from the settlers, other Israelis, and the Palestinians themselves. I don’t think trying to destroy Israel’s economy as a whole will bring any peace. It’s adding fire to fire.
However. If I was put on some show with the leader of the BDS movement, I would probably get my ass kicked in that debate. I spend much less of my day working with that issue and do not have the talking points this person would have.
So know the matchup.
And sometimes there is not even a matchup to begin with. For a quick example, I’ll use the documentary “Blackfish.” This is that documentary about how SeaWorld is evil and hates whales and all of that messy business. It’s VERY good on selling you the idea, but if you watch the movie, you will see that there is no proper chance for an opposing voice to state their case. They leave no room for another point of view, because the movie is not designed to educate you, but to influence. Leaving ample room for the other side would hurt the sale of the documentary’s perspective.
Regardless of how you feel about whales in captivity, certainly you can agree that that is a little fishy.
4) Short quotations
When is the last time you expressed views on any issue, well, with very few words? Probably has not happened. Same goes for a news report or article. You don’t know how long the interview was or the context of any quotation. Get skeptical when something feels unfin
5) Refusal to admit flaws in an argument.
There are very few, if any, black and white issues in the middle east. The best you can hope for is to see two sides of gray when looking at Middle Eastern politics. Here is an example of this:
The Druze are a people that live in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. In each country they are loyal to the ruling power and in Israel they participate in government and are some of the most fearless soldiers in the military… This is in part due to their belief in reincarnation, but this is beside the point.
Earlier this year a village of Syrian Druze was slaughtered by ISIS forces. In Syria, Druze have hesitantly backed Bashar Al-Assad while staying mostly out of the conflict.
Naturally the Israeli Druze called on Israeli government to help their Syrian brethren. This puts Israel in a pickle. If you give arms and let Israeli Druze go to Syria and fight you 1) get involved militarily in a messy Syrian conflict that you have managed to stay out of (besides humanitarian aid) for years, 2) you put yourself in a fight with no allies.
If you don’t do anything, you allow potentially, more massacres to occur of Syrian Druze and risk harming relations even more with northern Druze in your country.
What do you do?
Almost nothing, besides terror attacks, can be viewed as simply black and white, good or bad, in the Middle East. And I think the same principle applies to most news and political issues elsewhere.
It is okay to trust some things you hear, even if you disagree with what is being said. Just know when it’s okay to call bullshit.
I’ll have some another more normal Israel blog soon.
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