Posted on Sun, May. 18, 2008

One of the most treacherous stories for The Miami Herald to cover is Israel, not because of the wars and terrorism there, but because of the passions among readers here.

An error or a perceived slight that might lead to an undermining of U.S. support for the Jewish state provokes strong reactions from South Florida's large Jewish community. That many in the community are old enough to remember the Holocaust, and some even to have experienced it, adds to local vigilance.

''As I see it, the coverage is unabashedly biased against Israel,'' Aimee Fried of Miami Beach wrote me recently in one of the better-argued letters. 'Just last week (Feb. 28th), your headline was `Baby killed, dozens hurt in airstrikes by Israel.' This, after Hamas has been repeatedly firing Kassam rockets at the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon, aiming deliberately to terrorize, injure and kill innocent Israeli civilians.''

At the same time, the growing numbers of Palestinians and Muslims in South Florida tug in the opposite direction. They add their voices to a common view abroad that the United States media are so pro-Israel that criticism of its actions is more open in Israel itself than in the United States. The U.S. media are accused of being at best cowed by American Jewish organizations, and at worst controlled by a Jewish conspiracy of media ownership.

''The Herald is biased towards Jews,'' Nidal Hussain, a local Palestinian leader, said in an interview this week. He cited stories he did not find in The Miami Herald but read in The Christian Science Monitor, The Economist and the website for National Public Radio on the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, the source of the rockets Ms. Fried wrote about. ``I know you guys try very hard to be fair, but you have a long way to go.''

So, on this 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, with President Bush celebrating in Israel as I write, I decided to take a look at The Miami Herald's Israel coverage over the last three months.

There were 77 articles in which Israel and/or the Palestinians were mentioned in the first two paragraphs. That is considerable attention to a small region of seven million people, plus an additional four million Palestinians. By comparison, there were 319 articles on Cuba and 203 on Iraq.

Further breaking down the 77 stories, I found that only three mentioned Palestinians alone. This is a very imprecise measure of what the stories were about, but it does reflect a general trend I found. Not only did Israel get more attention, but more importantly, stories about the conflict between the two were overwhelmingly told from inside Israel, even if critical of Israeli actions.

This is partly understandable: Almost all of the foreign correspondents in the area, including The Miami Herald's shared McClatchy correspondent, Dion Nissenbaum, are based in Jerusalem. Compared with Gaza and the West Bank, Israel has far superior safety, communications, support services, cultural affinity and functioning government. Plus, it occupies the West Bank.

Reporting on what is happening inside Israel is of importance to more South Florida readers, too. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, there were in 2000 an estimated 337,000 Jews in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, compared with 13,000 Muslims. Shabbir Motorwala, an Indian Muslim member of the Miami-Dade County Commission's Asian American Advisory Board, estimates that the fast-growing number of Muslims originating from all countries may be as high as 45,000 today, but they remain clearly outnumbered by Jews, many of whom have direct personal ties with Israel.

One warm front page feature, for example, recounted the anniversary celebration trip to Israel of 120 South Floridians on behalf of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. No similar article ran on local Palestinians. They refer to the establishment of Israel as al naqba -- the catastrophe. There were no corresponding activities by local Palestinians, either, which lets The Miami Herald a little off the hook, though a reporter should have at least asked. In Palestinian territories, black balloons were released into the sky.

The constant reporting from the Israeli vantage is unfortunate. As much as the stories may include Palestinian views, the trend denies readers the opportunity to see more articles through Palestinian eyes, and thus better understand Palestinian thinking, for better or worse. The effect is a subtle bias that isn't intentionally or even necessarily for or against one side, but does over time give readers a greater shared understanding of Israelis than Palestinians. With understanding, there is greater chance for sympathy.

All that said, I found the articles in the news pages to be fair, with no appreciable bias for one side or the other. An anniversary story by Nissenbaum that ran last Sunday in the Issues & Ideas section was an exceptional analysis of the challenges Israel faces going forward, looking at not just the external dangers, but the internal cost of occupying the West Bank. Other stories noted how the Palestinian rockets are only good for killing civilians.

The current coverage of the president's visit, like coverage of an earlier visit by Sen. John McCain, presumed Republican presidential nominee, correctly pointed out when U.S. politicians were playing to home audiences. The McCain story, for example, noted how the senator neglected to meet with Palestinian leaders.

''I don't think we have problems trying to balance the issues that arise, but it takes work,'' said Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal. He noted that Palestinians locally were not particularly ''robust'' in presenting their views, making it the paper's responsibility to get it.

Mr. Hussain and others said that since 9/11, Palestinian and other Arab groups were afraid to be too outspoken.

Any thoughts of Jewish conspiracies are, of course, nonsense. Neither McClatchy nor Knight-Ridder before it had Jewish owners, and the few news organizations that do, such as The New York Times, where I once reported, are among the most critical newspapers of the Israeli occupation.

Art Teitelbaum, former director of the Anti-Defamation League, said it best when he said the greater issue is not bias but space for news, as The Miami Herald, like so many newspapers, have had to cut back. Context and perspective get sacrificed.

''I would say to you that all interested communities, whether Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Hispanics or subsets thereof, when they are close to a story and its facts, see imperfections that the general public does not see,'' he said.