;.l1,2,63,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David bar-Ilan, Eye on Media, Jlem Post
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-757572; FAX:  972-6-757554
OCB E-Mail (to 4/96):  100310.15116@compuserve.com 
DATE:  2/20/96
RE:    Pro-government spin
REF:   2/20/96, English Radio News (PM), English TV News
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Peres, who seems to show some signs of an early stage of a nervousbreakdown, has lately made two mistakes, which should have beendevestating to his image as a responsible Prime Minister (not tomention Defense Minister).  

	The first was dithering over the trivial question of the dateon which to hold the election; he seems to have shown suchsuperstitiousness about dates [eg, one was too close to JerusalemDay; another was a hitherto unnoticed memorial day for soldiers inthe 1967 and 1982 wars] that one was inclined to suggest that hefollow the tradition of another famous Prime Minister, and castlots. 
	The response of Israel (English) radio / TV has been to tryto characterize this as a dispute between the Likud and Labourblocks, for which a compromise had to be arranged.  But in fact,Likud apparently took the question as trivial, and continuallyindicated it would accept whatever date Labour chose.  (There hadbeen some talk that Labour would negotiate the date in exchangefor Likud concession on a substantive issue, that of allowing TVcoverage of government figures in the month prior to the election. But when it came down to it, that issue was not even raised,confirming that the question of date was a matter of indifferenceto Likud.

	Peres second mistake, more nearly psychotic than neurotic,was the rather extraordinary claim that "hundreds" [an English TVnews lead seemed to say 'hundreds or thousands' or possibly even'hundreds of thousands'??] of people were, in some sense, inclinedto kill the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers.
	One is tempted to respond that this is preposterous, sincethere is little evidence that the bulk of the cabinet are notbrain-dead and have not coalesced into a rubber stamp.
	I think one might show that, in general, most of thecitizenry would not regard most cabinet ministers of sufficientimportance to suffocate in chicken-feathers.  The only obviousexceptions have been Shulamit Aloni (the haredi's Delilah), andMr. Vulture (as Chief Indefatigable Conniver).
	Nor was there any report that Peres presented any substantialevidence to support that claim.  There was an allusion to hateletters; U.S. Presidents get those by the wheel-barrow; the U.S.Secret Service checks them out but does not take them veryseriously.
	Unless Peres was trying to set the stage for a military coup,his charge seems irrational.
	English TV news, which takes a calm rational tone, playedthat story seriously, on face value, announcing it as a 'somberwarning'.                           
	One might have hoped that, if they were unwilling todisparage it with the newsreader's standard pose of urbane ironicbemusement, that they would have left it out.
