For several months now, a former Associated Press reporter in Jerusalem has been on a mission to ‘expose’ the media’s bias against Israel. Glaringly missing from his argument, however, is the occupation.


Following this summer’s bloody campaign in Gaza, former AP journalist Matti Friedman has dedicated himself to a series of media analysis articles purporting to provide the “inside story of the story.” In a widely reported piece for Tablet, with a follow-up piece, CNN interview, Haaretz coverage and now in The Atlantic, he has tried to make the case for media bias against Israel.

Friedman wants to look at context, but it would be fairer perhaps to question the context of all this context-seeking. Israel finds itself at a crisis point today. There is bad news from successive European governments lining up to recognize Palestinian national rights, there is bad news on the home front with unprecedented racism, arson attacks and renewed violence in the streets of Jerusalem. In all this, Matti Friedman tries to convince us that there is a media bias against the Jews and that the world should stop obsessing about Israel. Does that not feel a bit disingenuous?

Disregarding the current fires, Friedman picks sour grapes with the media coverage of the Goldstone Report which investigated Cast Lead, and the reporting of the 2008-9 Gaza war itself. He accuses his former employer, AP, of burying stories that might present Israel in a better light. The relevant AP bureau chief, Steven Gutkin, has written rebuttals here and here, calling Friedman’s Tablet article “well-written hogwash.”