Is NRK biased against Israel?

Graphic from Tundra Tabloids

NRK’s Sidsel Wold recently had an interview with Manfred Gerstenfeld, who has written extensively on anti-Semitism in Norway. During the interview however, Wold answered her questions herself and Gerstenfeld was hardly allowed to speak. Finnish Tundra Tabloids suggests that with this, the Norwegian State Broadcasting Service NRK has reached its NRK-gate. Is there anything to this? Is Sidsel Wold’s interview with Manfred Gerstenfeld really indicative of a pattern of reporting where the Israeli narrative is omitted, neglected or distorted, while the Palestinian narrative is presented as the truth? Or is this just another case of a rabid blogger slashing away at the mainstream media? Let’s have a look at the facts of the matter.

1) 2009 analysis proves pro-Palestinian bias: In 2009 NRK commissioned the media analysis company Retriever to conduct a survey of bias in the Norwegian media-coverage of the Middle East. Retriever analyzed 1 958 articles, editorials and broadcasts and came back with the results shown below, where the leftmost column lists the media channel, the second column from the left lists the number of reports biased in favor of the Palestinians, the third column from the left lists the number of neutral reports, and the rightmost column lists the number of reports in favor of Israel. As we can see NRK TV broadcast 17 reports biased in favor of the Palestinians, against 5 reports biased in favor of Israel. The numbers for NRK radio show roughly the same relationship, with 12 against 4. So in terms of bias, NRK is three times more biased in favor of Palestine than of Israel, which is in accordance with the average for Norwegian media. Such a calculation is however delusive, as it is based only upon broadcasts where both parties are covered. As a large number of NRK broadcasts cover Israel in isolation, they are exempt from the study.

Retriever's findings, here presented by MIFF

2) Retriever 2009 findings in accordance with findings of 2004, 2006: The findings of Retriever in 2009 are similar to two previous surveys carried out by Observer Norge in 2004 and 2006. In the latter Observer found that of the articles run on conflicts in seven Norwegian newspapers, 30% were on the Israel-Palestine conflict, against only 14% on Afghanistan (a war in which Norway is part).

3) Hove’s study and book on “The media wars over Israel”: Norwegian editor Odd Sverre Hove has carried out a study upon which he has based his book “Mediekampen om Israel” (The media wars over Israel). The book largely focuses on the role of NRK, and documents a massive anti-Israel bias. Examples: a) NRK uncritically attributed the outbreak of the second Intifada to the Ariel Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount, when it has been documented that the Intifada was prepared well in advance and the Sharon’s walk was simply a pretext b) NRK obfuscates fact, for example by repeating (80 times over 29 broadcasts) the single sentence “Israel has today fired upon Palestinian children and teenagers who demonstrated and threw rocks“, omitting the very salient fact that armed terrorists hid among the children and teenagers, who were used as human shields c) NRK omitted reporting on how Palestinian children were trained, transported and otherwise cynically utilized in order to carry out the actions required of them for the Indifida d) NRK emphasized the death of Muhammed al Dura on September 30th in 2000 – as long as it was believed certain that the boy had been killed by Israelis. Hove shows how NRK on the other hand proved unwilling to report on how the German TV channel ARD examined the findings of an investigative committee into the matter and found that Muhammed al Dura could not have been killed by an Israeli  bullet e) Following a Palestinian lynching of two Israelis in Ramallah on October 12th 2000, NRK claimed that the Palestinian police had attempted to save the Israelis, when in fact the Palestinian policemen were the murderers. NRK also chose to emphasize, not the lynching, but the expected viciousness of Israel’s revenge. Hove’s book is 197 pages long and lists a number of incidents such as these, which it then analyzes and reveals as part of a pattern which cannot be called anything else than vehemently biased for Palestine and against Israel.

4) From “Behind the Humanitarian Mask”, 2008: This book was edited by Manfred Gerstenfeld himself, who this autumn published a translated updated version of the book. In the 2008 edition Gerstenfeld makes the following claim: “Norwegian media have played a major role in the demonization of Israel“. While this claim – with regards to NRK – is insufficiently dealt with in the 2008 edition in English, it is thoroughly documented in the Norwegian edition of 2010.

5) Observations of this site: This site has been in operation for 14 months, during which it has mainly been following the larger Norwegian daily newspapers. In spite of this NRK has made itself visible on a number of occasions. Some of the more recent posts on NRK on this site are:

• Mads Gilbert lauds Abu Jihad on NRK: on how maoist anesthesiologist Mads Gilbert is invited to NRK’s “Dinner party”, where he is allowed to invite imaginary guests whom he then presents to the viewers. Mads Gilbert’s guests were Charlie Chaplin and Abu Jihad. Program host Øyvor Bakke does not constest Gilbert when he describes Abu Jihad as: “The silent type, wise, very dignified, very.. in many ways a representative for the arab culture but also for Palestinian pride… a listener, and at the same time an inexhaustible source of knowledge”. At the end of the program Øyvor Bakke concludes that Charlie Chaplin and Abu Jihad probably had a lot in common and that she is convinced it would have been a very interesting dinner.
• Jewish Easter tied to slaughter of Egyptian children: on how NRK host Terje Nordbye on Maundy Thursday in the popular radio program “Mytekalenderen” (The mythos calender) describes the difference between Jewish Passover and Christian Easter thus: The Christian Easter is tied to the death of Jesus, the Jewish to the slaughter of Egyptian children which builds on the ancient sacrifice of the firstborn animal and the first batch of the harvest. Nordbye continues: Palestine is as in Jesus’ time now occupied. As now there are different views on how to deal with the occupation: armed rebellion or peaceful solutions.
• NRK pillories Israel for tearing down Grand Mufti’s House: on how NRK tells the viewer of how Israel, even while negotiating with President Obama in Washington, has the audacity to tear down the house of the deceased Palestinian leader – Haj Amin Al Husseini. Yet no mention is made of what kind of leader the Grand Mufti was. NRK simply omits it. See clip below.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

This post is the result of a very cursory investigation. Yet the indications of a pattern of bias in NRK’s journalistic practices are quite clear. Tundra Tabloids is indeed right in using the term NRK-gate, this is where we ought to be at. Yet the Norwegian media is not watching itself, it is watching Israel. So who is to watch the watchers? Plato’s reply is the watchers will watch themselves against themselves, but as this is obviously not happening here we must answer as Napoleon III did when asked “Who will watch the criminals?” Napoleon III’s answer was: “Worse criminals.”

Sadly, such is the responsibility that falls to us bloggers.

Tags: NRK