Media Bias and Fake Tears

July 31' 2014

Actors say that crying—not applied tear tracks—is the hardest emotional display to fake. Sadly—kindly excuse the irony—most actors demonstrate the truth of this. (Emma Thompson in "Love Actually" is a brilliantly notable exception.)

Having spent more than 20 years as a 'shrink', I can tell the difference. It's akin to the way most of us can discriminate between a genuine smile and a fake smile. Provided we aren't in the throes of depression, real smiles make us feel like smiling.

When tears are genuine, the empathic among us feel like crying along with the sufferer. That's why talk therapy is much more exhausting than a conversation. That's why world news has been so upsetting recently.

Here's a fake:



In the sense that the genuine plight of innocent Gazan children and parents would move all but the hardest-hearted to weep, it is surprising that Chris Gunness, the spokesperson for the "United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East" would need to fake tears for Al Jazeera. Yes, the agency exists solely to help Palestinian "refugees", though it's hard to see how hordes could be refugee in their own state, except during warfare.

However, the explanation might lie in Gunness' real mission in Gaza, whatever that might actually be. After all, it appears that the UNRWA has thrice handed weaponry and stockpiled-rockets that employees found on its premises back to the authorities. In other words, probably back to Hamas.



Call me suspicious, but that implies complicity with the Hamas fighters who are hiding behind children.

Call me suspicious, but how could anyone fail to notice tunneling and storage of weapons in their near vicinity?

Call me suspicious, but why is there overcrowding in some "UN" facilities when others admittedly sit empty? Perhaps it's because the IDF goes to great lengths to warn civilians which areas are unsafe. Not so with Hamas, apparently. Witness the case of the misfired Hamas rocket that killed mostly children, and hasn't been mentioned since.



Overly skeptical? Never mind, I'd sooner be called suspicious than be a dupe of Hamas. I'd sooner be called suspicious than be fooled by transparently-biased media-coverage. Lately, I'm reminded of the comparatively hilarious exercise of detecting the deceptive practices used in advertising.

For example, according to the BBC, shadowy "Palestinian authorities" "say", yet Israelis "claim".

In her role as apologist for perpetrators, Elizabeth Loftus is beneath my contempt. However, she was correct that asking "did you see the broken headlight?" is more leading than "did you see a broken headlight?" That's why 'the' and 'and' are respectively called definite and indefinite articles.

Likewise, any native speaker of English should be aware of the different emotional implication of "say" versus "claim", with it's overtones of mere allegation. Unfortunately, few viewers would think to consider the situation and look beneath the intention of the language in order to assess motivation.



Perhaps it comes of being a shrink. Patients lie, so one must look beneath the "headlines", think for oneself, and deduce what is really going on. Patients' lies are very revealing—a therapeutic goldmine. It's like finding a sign that says, Dig Here For Buried Truth.

In essence, if one values truth, one must keep a sense of perspective.



I've long regarded much of the media as rather inept, but journalist are not safe in Syria, Iraq, Iran, or Egypt. So, we hear little lately of the 170,000 civilians killed in Syria, and little of the thousands suffering in Iraq. More, for example, died in Syria in one day than during the first couple of weeks of the current conflict in Gaza. Children are dying in pro-Russian-annexation-held areas of Ukraine (read 'Putinian), but those deaths are mentioned in passing.

Why such transparent bias?

A little background:

"The 2014 World Press Freedom Index spotlights the negative impact of conflicts on freedom of information and its protagonists" : Note the telling difference between the rank of Israel (#96) versus the Palestinian (#138) segment on the map.

The obvious inference is that the BBC and other western media services are playing Hamas' game, thus ensuring they are not imprisoned, beheaded, or dragged through the streets. Instead, they are allowed no-doubt-selective-access to danger spots where the-powers-that-would-be would slaughter them if they were uncooperative (read 'honest').



Please don't misunderstand.

I deplore the bloodshed that is the inevitable result of 60 years of what appears to be politically-ambitious, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist hate-mongering. However, unlike so many who appear unwilling to look beyond their understandable empathy for the suffering of genuine innocents, I think that political fundamentalism and rabid irredentism is the real killer in Gaza.

It surely is in Mosul nowadays.