I’ve sat in numerous meetings with producers from top international news outlets to learn what kind of content it is they are looking for. Their responses usually begin with something like “our core audience is ‘x’ demographic and they are interested in subjects ‘x, y, and z’. They don’t care about ‘x’ country but anything about children, puppies and airplane crashes is of interest.”
There is no news story from the Arab world that is more obsessed over than Palestine. This is true for both Arab and international media outlets. The recent tragedy in Gaza has reminded us of that. Suddenly the ISIS blitz across Iraq and Syria’s relentless civil war took seats at the back of the news bus. In turn, Gaza got to ride up front with the driver. My Facebook newsfeed went from having a few international relations geeks sharing articles about ISIS and former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, to what seemed like everyone talking about Gaza.
You see, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has all of the characters, ignorance, and outrage necessary to make the perfect news story for any audience. Think about it, the standard preamble goes something like, “once again, the conflict stretching back to antiquity is heating up, pitting Jew against Muslim and resulting in the deaths of innocents. Hamas, a militant group that calls for the annihilation of the state of Israel, continues its terror campaign as it rains rockets on Israel. In response, the Israelis say they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they see as a genocidal onslaught.”
Another news narrative might say, “Today, besieged Palestinians brave the Israeli onslaught and resist the occupation of their land. Outgunned, the fighters of the resistance confront the invader and defy calls by the international community to denounce the armed struggle.”
Now, before I go any further, let me clarify that this reporter does not endorse either narrative - I am simply demonstrating how a story can use historical obsessions and political persuasions to appeal to different audiences.
In both, you have invaders and resisters, oppressors and the oppressed, a struggle for survival. You have invocations of a history that digs deep into the psyche of the audience. For Arabs, the idea that what is going on in Palestine is colonial in nature resonates, harking back to their own histories of colonisation and, where this is the case, their experiences with the state of Israel. For an American audience, the use of the word ‘terrorism’ or the phrase ‘annihilation of the Jews,’ invokes major events and emotions based on their own historical preoccupations, namely 9/11 and the Holocaust.
Now, if we had made our quarterly visit to grandma, (who resides somewhere in the American Midwest) we’d have noticed that her television dinners were accompanied by talking heads warning of an impending, Hamas-induced holocaust. She would have heard world leaders like Barack Obama and David Cameron toss around the word ‘terrorism’ like Beiruti taxi drivers toss around expletives. And, once again, those pesky men with beards would’ve been there, scaring her and making her think this whole Hitler-Jihad-Holocaust Judgement day thing was coming true, live, and just in time for dinner.
Grandma’s thought process would be something like “Oh my word! There are those terrorists again [remember that for grandma there is no difference between ISIS, Hamas or a Palestinian civilian] and they’re in Israel [Grandma knows the word ‘Israel’ from her Bible school days] and they want to kill Jews, just like the Nazis!” Your grandma will then strain her memory and remember that the Nazis weren’t particularly nice people. She would also remember that two weeks ago, she saw the ‘same’ scary bearded men doing mean things ‘somewhere over there.’ She’ll then put two and two together and passionately decide that we cannot let history repeat itself. Voilà, storytelling wins the day by appealing to the context-based obsessions of a Midwestern grandma and her society.
