One of the greatest threats to Israel today doesn’t come in the form of rockets, bombs, or bullets. Though Israel is attacked frequently in horrific terror attacks, so too she is attacked in the worldwide media. In the modern age of easily disseminated news, Israel is vilified in all different forms of the media: print, online, television, and more. As the Education Coordinator and a member of the executive board of PIPAC, the Penn Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest pro-Israel group on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus, I knew I wanted our members to get a grasp of the scale of the media bias that Israel faces.I turned to CAMERA’s Sarit Catz, (a Penn alumna), to help lead a seminar about the media bias that Israel faces. Speaking to over 65 PIPAC members, she spoke about how to recognize media bias through methods such as analyzing headlines and photographs, identifying factual inaccuracies and omissions, and comparing and contrasting different accounts of the same event. Through incorporating case studies and examples, Sarit demonstrated to the PIPAC members how to quickly identify media bias and how to go about rectifying the issue through emailing editors and creating a reasoned argument to counter the bias. Finally, Sarit concluded with a question and answer session where students were afforded the opportunity to get answers to their specific questions and concerns.
This was contributed by Education Coordinator of PIPAC, Alexander Cohn.
