telling “our” story through news of terrorism
TRANSCRIPT
TELLING ‘‘OUR’’ STORY THROUGH NEWS
OF TERRORISM
Mythical newswork as journalistic practice in
crisis
Hillel Nossek and Dan Berkowitz
The central point of this article is that journalists accomplish their work through a narrative
duality. During everyday news, journalists apply a professional narrative that represents a balance
between their core journalistic values and the social pressures from their working world. When
society’s core values are under threat*such as with physical or political violence or terrorist
attacks* journalists switch to a cultural narrative that moves the public mind back toward the
dominant cultural order. US and Israeli newspaper coverage of two terrorist events in Israel was
analyzed to explore this idea. The analysis suggests that when news about terrorism is culturally
proximate, the professional narrative tends to lead. When terrorism is culturally remote, however,
cultural narratives must be relied on more heavily to assist journalists’ sense-making, and the
news is more mythically-laden. Findings show that cultural affinity affects the choice of myth
used, with distant events more tied to cultural references.
KEYWORDS Cultural distance; cultural proximity; Israel; journalism; myth; news; news as
narrative; news as storytelling; terrorism; United States
Introduction
News of terrorism is shocking to read. It is sad, providing a grim reminder of the
fragility of daily life. It brings the news audience yet another glimpse of the chaotic nature
of the world. In the long run, news of terrorism plays a key role in building and
maintaining cultural identities, both by highlighting the identities of other nations that
contrast with the audience’s world and by renewing a familiarity with the audience’s own
identities.
But news of terrorism does more than that for the readers and viewers of news: it
retells the master narratives of a society, those enduring views of a culture that reflect core
values, prominent social institutions, and the key social actors, which are then filled by an
actual person or institution when specific incidents arrive.
The central point of our article is that journalists accomplish their work through a
narrative duality. During everyday news, journalists apply what we call a professional
narrative that represents a balance between their core journalistic values and the social
pressures from their working world.
When society’s core values are under threat*such as with physical or political
violence* journalists switch to a cultural narrative that moves the public mind back
toward the dominant cultural order. To do so, news stories draw on mythical quests and
challenges, placing the story plot within familiar cultural narratives and drawing on actors
Journalism Studies, Vol. 7, No 5, 2006ISSN 1461-670X print/1469-9699 online/06/050691-17– 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14616700600890356
who can fulfil those mythical roles. Myth becomes an especially important force in
newswork when an occurrence is relatively unknown and culturally distant to the main
media audience.
We begin with a discussion of how news emerges from professional and cultural
narratives. We then cast these elements within a broader discussion of how news
maintains and shapes social and cultural identity. Finally, we draw on news coverage
about two incidents of terrorism in Israel to illustrate how this mythwork takes place,
drawing on a comparative analysis of news produced in Israel and in the United States.
Telling News Through Professional and Cultural Narratives
News as a professional narrative takes form through two key sites. First, the culture
of the profession dominates the news of everyday occurrences. Within this culture,
journalists work from a generally accepted set of norms and procedures designed to
extract their subjective biases when reporting ‘‘just the facts’’. The journalism profession is
thus founded upon the professional ideology of objectivity (Hackett, 1984). The irony is
that these work norms lead to a consistently stylized form of news. Journalists learn to
quickly polarize an issue and define its parameters as they gather their information from
‘‘expert’’ sources, those people thought to possess factual rather than self-interested
information (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996). However, factual knowledge tends to reside in
people with societal credentials that reflect dominant ideological positions (Ericson et al.,
1991; Fishman, 1982). In essence, news is framed rather than reported freshly (Reese et al.,
2001), so that information from new occurrences is quickly transplanted into the chosen
frame already known from within the journalistic profession.
This professional culture plays out its activities, and is shaped by the culture of the
news industry. Thus, journalists can be seen as workers, much like those in other industries
(Berkowitz, 2000; Tuchman, 1978). To accomplish their mission as industry workers,
reporters must demonstrate their legitimacy as ‘‘good journalists’’. They must go to the
right sources, at the right times, and come away with the right information, which is then
packaged correctly and delivered by the mandated deadlines. These conventions reify the
dominant shaping of society by choosing appropriate mythical narratives to fit a situation
and then reinforcing their choice through news sources that bring a good cultural fit to
mythic characters and the larger storytelling effort.
Journalism textbooks explain that reporters make a conscious effort to find a local
angle for national and world news, drawing on ties related to emotional as well as physical
proximity (Mencher, 2006; Ryan and Tankard, 2005). Studies of journalists’ role perceptions
indicate a close but also distinct relationship between a journalist’s professional attitudes
and domestic-cultural attitudes. Shamir’s (1988) study on the role perceptions of Israeli
journalists serving the quality press found that a high percentage was ready to place the
nation’s morale and image, as well as a broad definition of the national interest, before
their own professional values. However, retelling the mythical elements of an occurrence is
much less a conscious effort, growing instead from daily life within a culture (Bird, 2003,
pp. 159�63; Ettema, 2005).
One of the strategies that journalists adopt to successfully manufacture news is to
tap into usual, typical and well-known cultural narratives (Lule, 2001; Zelizer, 1993). As
both a part of the culture and as storytellers for that culture, journalists construct stories
based on narrative conventions that are culturally resonant for themselves and their
692 HILLEL NOSSEK AND DAN BERKOWITZ
audiences. By drawing on these narratives, journalists know how their stories are supposed
to go and what they have to do to produce them (Berkowitz, 1992; Kitch, 2002). Even
when reporting on unusual and unexpected events, news workers end up explaining a
situation in a way that becomes relatively familiar and usual.
These cultural narratives are also known by the term myth, an enduring yet dynamic
conception of society, its social institutions, and its values (Lule, 2001). Myths are stories
having identifiable narrative structures (Bird and Dardenne, 1988; Levi-Strauss, 1963). They
are culturally resonant because they serve to explain a culture’s ‘‘present and the past as
well as the future’’ (Levi-Strauss, 1963, p. 209; Nossek, 1994). They are ‘‘marked by
definable narratives, familiar, acceptable, reassuring to their host culture’’ (Silverstone,
1988). In addition, myths tend to be formulaic, that is, they provide an often-repeated
interpretation that a culture makes of itself, with common central actors and predictable
outcomes (Cawelti, 1999; Lule, 2001; Silverstone, 1988).
As Barthes (1972) illustrated, myths can also be interpreted as ideological forms, i.e.,
myths are cultural symbols that evoke particular taken-for-granted interpretations about
what a society has been and should be. Myths make certain aspects of society seem
‘‘natural’’ rather than as defined by particular historical, social and economic circumstances
that perpetuate certain dominant interests (Slotkin, 1992). This ideological element gains
symbolic power through persistent application to social narratives over time (Hall, 1982).
Moving toward the content itself, news is assembled in two basic forms: chronicle
and story. Chronicle serves an informational function, presenting details of an occurrence
in a direct fashion, a basic record of society’s goings-on. This corresponds most closely to
the professional narrative. Story, in contrast, incorporates more of an entertainment
function that couches information within something akin to the folklorist’s work (Bird and
Dardenne, 1988). Story is most like the cultural narrative, blending cultural meanings from
the past into occurrences from the present.
Terrorism, Ideology, and the Narrative Dialectic
Because journalists live in a cultural duality of journalism and society, they become
both media producer and media audience, restating hegemonic definitions when that task
is most needed. News of terrorism is a key site of this ideological work, because news
content can reify long-standing characteristics of identities, narrowing and focusing them
from their everyday cultural ambiguities (Lule, 1991). The real hegemonic discursive power
lies in how identities are socially constructed in the media to seem fixed in nature, evoking
long-ago origins, traditions and immutability.
For journalists, some threatening situations*such as terrorism*are known and
culturally proximate, while others are more mysterious and further from the realm of the
culture’s core. This leads news to be constructed through dialectic between professional
and cultural narratives.
When news about terrorism is culturally proximate, the professional narrative tends
to lead, since journalistic work can proceed in a more predictable fashion. When terrorism
is culturally remote, however, cultural narratives must be relied on more heavily to assist
journalists’ sense-making. These relations between cultural proximity and cultural distance
of the characteristics of a terrorist act and the kind of frame the journalists apply could be
described in a somewhat predictive model as illustrated in Table 1.
TELLING ‘‘OUR’’ STORY THROUGH NEWS OF TERRORISM 693
Thus, as cultural and geographic distances become greater, journalistic representa-
tion becomes more and more symbolic and audience understanding becomes more
subjective. Galtung and Ruge (1965) provided the foundation for this conception of
foreign news coverage, which has been applied (i.e., Swain, 2003; Zaharopoulos, 1990) and
refined (i.e., Cohen et al., 1990) many times since. The distance dimension of events shapes
the way that events are covered, so that journalists ‘‘domesticate’’ foreign news (Cohen et
al., 1995) in an attempt to create links of meaning between actual events and the lived
experiences of the audience.
Nossek (2004) suggested a frame for analysing the coverage of political violence as
foreign news. He suggests that when a foreign news item is defined as ‘‘ours’’, then
journalists’ professional practices become subordinate to national loyalty; when an item is
‘‘theirs’’, journalistic professionalism comes into its own. Thus, he argues that there is an
inverse relation between professional news values and the national identity of the
journalist and the journal’s editors. Expressed as a rule: the more ‘‘national’’ the report is,
the less ‘‘professional’’ it will be, i.e. the closer the reporters/editors are to a given news
event in terms of national interest, the further they are from applying professional news
values.
In this study of mythical coverage of terrorist events, we are especially interested in
the cultural dimension of news work. When an event (objective reality) is located closer to
a ‘‘relevance zone’’ of the journalistic and audience ‘‘here and now’’, symbolic terminology
will be closer to the direct experience and will retain a greater affinity with localized
culture. Conversely, when an event is more culturally distant, it will be represented more
symbolically through journalistic practice, because of the growing dependency on
symbolic representation as mediated experience.
It thus follows that the same ‘‘data’’ can be used by journalists of different cultures
to tell different mythical stories that offer a close cultural fit to their audiences. The analysis
that follows explores this idea through Israeli and American news coverage of two terrorist
events in Israel.
Framework for the Analysis
Lule (2001) explains that myth exists within some common archetypal forms
invoking a culture’s foundational figures and forces. His ‘‘impressionistic’’ list of master
myths is neither exhaustive nor complete, but represents the myths he encountered in
studying American news over the years: The Victim, the Scapegoat, The Hero, The Good
Mother, The Trickster, The Other World, and The Flood.
From an American perspective, two of Lule’s mythical forms are particularly relevant
to studying terrorism in the news, the Victim and the Trickster. The Victim draws on the
cultural meanings of tragedy, death and sacrifice. A life is lost, but from it, a lesson is
TABLE 1
Story structure dependency on geographical and cultural distance from the place of the
terrorist events
Geographically proximate Geographically distant
Culturally proximate Intra-cultural myth Intra-cultural mythCulturally distant Extra-cultural myth Extra-cultural myth
694 HILLEL NOSSEK AND DAN BERKOWITZ
learned and a social order is maintained. The Trickster involves a cunning figure who
brings suffering upon both himself and society through his actions. The Trickster is crude
and contemptible, often appearing in an animal-like form. In addition we draw on a
broader American mythical narrative, the Western. In contrast to Lule’s master myths, the
Western appears more complex and serves a similarly complex cultural function (Cawelti,
1999; Slotkin, 1992). The myth of the Wild West is a prominent narrative constructed
through various cultural forms such as movies, books, and television. This myth is also
tapped by journalists and used to shape news stories, even when news takes place in a
different cultural setting. The Wild West story often works well, because it reinforces
American cultural assumptions and remains ideologically consistent with dominant
American political and foreign policy interests.
In Israel, myth carries different cultural meaning. The meta-narrative of Zionism as
the main force for the revival of the Jewish state is a basic underlying element in its news
culture (Herman, 1979; Liebman, 1978; Liebman and Don-Yehiya, 1983). At the same time,
the Holocaust as a historical event plays a central role in the meta-narrative of the decision
to declare an independent Israel and is a major issue in Israeli culture. The meta-narrative
that places Zionism in a binary opposition to the Holocaust has been told and retold in
times of national crises such as wars and also during terrorist attacks (Nossek, 1994).
The choice of events for analysis was guided by our theory, with the first event
concerning a suicide bombing outside the Dizengoff shopping mall in downtown Tel Aviv
during the festive Jewish holiday of Purim. This event was culturally close to the Israeli
perspective, but rather distant from everyday experiences in the United States. Our choice
of the second event was a bombing at Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem. Although this bombing took place in Israel, it was more culturally relevant to
US media audiences, because American students were among the victims.
We worked with news items from two top ‘‘quality’’ newspapers and two top
‘‘popular’’ newspapers from Israel (Ha’aretz , Yedioth Ahronoth ) and the United States (The
New York Times , USA Today ). In each case, we gathered news items starting from when the
event first was reported and continued our analysis through the point where coverage had
faded out. This approach allowed us to work with an entire narrative, rather than with only
an arbitrarily delineated beginning and ending. In each case, the choice of these leading
national newspapers was theoretically relevant because major circulation national daily
newspapers are a key site of retelling cultural myths at a broad level (Lule, 2001).
For US newspapers, publication dates for the first bombing spanned the period from
March 5 to March 16, 1996, with a total of 51 items analyzed from the Times and 37 from
USA Today . Publication dates for the second terrorist event began on August 1, 2002 until
August 12, 2002, with 13 items published about the Hebrew University bombing in The
New York Times and six items from USA Today . Coverage for the Dizengoff terrorist event
in Ha’aretz and Yedioth Ahronoth began on March 5, 1996 and continued until March 15,
and for the Hebrew University from August 1, 2002 to August 7, 2002. For the Dizengoff
Centre bombing 67 news items were collected from Ha’aretz and 79 form Yedioth
Ahronoth ; 20 news items were collected from Ha’aretz about the Hebrew University
cafeteria incident and 26 items drawn from Yedioth Ahronoth .
Analysis began with the authors discussing the theoretical and mythical frameworks
and then engaging in multiple readings with the news texts, following Berkowitz and
Nossek’s (2001) suggestions for a structured co-operation between researchers in a
comparative content analysis of news products. Because Ha’aretz and Yedioth Ahronoth
TELLING ‘‘OUR’’ STORY THROUGH NEWS OF TERRORISM 695
are published in Hebrew, only one author read that content, although the material was
discussed between both authors. The strategy of this analysis was to first compare news
items across countries for each terrorist event and then to consider how the comparisons
differed across the two events. Doing so highlights the role of myth and culture in how the
story is told.
American News Narratives for the Dizengoff Centre Bombing: Revisitingthe Wild West
On March 5, 1996, a Palestinian man wearing a bomb attempted to enter what was
then Israel’s largest shopping mall, the Dizengoff Centre in downtown Tel Aviv. Turned
away, he went to a busy intersection outside and detonated his bomb. Fourteen people
died and 130 people were wounded. From a mythmaking perspective, the occurrence is
important for two reasons. First, terrorism in Israel prior to this time involved mainly bus
bombings and hijackings of buses, ships and planes. A bombing in a public place was a
new kind of occurrence that journalists were not readily able to explain, even though their
work required them to do so. Second, the bombing took place in Tel Aviv, the heart of the
modern Israel, the part of the country closest to the culture of America and Europe and a
clear contrast with Jerusalem, a city on the edge of the wilderness: ‘‘It’s lined with banks,
shops, cafes and nightclubs. Nearby are the symphony, theatres and art galleries’’
(Grossman, 1996).
Indication of the event’s overall familiar mythness came from news items such as
one that referred to ‘‘a re-run of the same mindless Mideast tragedy’’ that led to ‘‘the
delicate balance between warring peoples teeters yet again’’ (Price and Stewart, 1996).
Another USA Today item asserted that ‘‘Tel Aviv is supposed to be different’’, with
terrorism not expected as part of everyday life (Grossman, 1996).
Savages Attack the Frontier Town
With the scene set, focus turned to the attack itself. A New York Times editorial (‘‘The
War in Israel’’, March 5, 1996, p. A22) referred to ‘‘savage attacks’’ accomplished by ‘‘a small
group of fanatics’’ that had ‘‘convulsed Israel’’. The notion of savagery was enhanced
though an emphasis on child victims, such as this account from USA Today :
‘‘I helped a guy whose eye was coming out’’, he [a witness] said. ‘‘Then I saw a little kid
with part of his leg blown off and smoke coming out from him’’. (Rubin, 1996a)
The savage image was reinforced dramatically through a USA Today news item
(Rubin, 1996b) that described Bethlehem’s Palestinian children shouting in tribute to a
recently assassinated bomb maker, ‘‘Our beloved man, bomb, bomb Tel Aviv’’. Similarly,
Palestinian colleges raided by Israeli troops were labeled as ‘‘breeding grounds for Hamas’’
(Rubin, 1996c). If the savages of the Wild West story are portrayed as stealthy, a New York
Times item offered an easy parallel for the role of Palestinians in the modern-day version:
There was no telling how many young zealots [Palestinians] were already in Israel, and
those who had set off bombs in the last nine days had evidently dressed as Israelis, either
donning military uniforms or affecting the style of Israeli youths. (Schmemann, 1996)
696 HILLEL NOSSEK AND DAN BERKOWITZ
Hardy Pioneers Persevere in Adversity
When savages attacked in the Old Wild West, settlers stood by brave and resilient.
So, too, were Tel Aviv’s residents in the modern version, as they carried on with their
pioneering efforts. A USA Today news item (Rubin, 1996d) described a scene where ‘‘some
men unfurled a huge Israeli flag’’ over the Dizengoff Centre while a crowd applauded, sang
the national anthem, and wept. Characterizing the story role of the hardy settler, an Israeli
journalist spoke: ‘‘We tried. God knows we tried. We tried to make peace. We were ready to
pay a high price . . . this is it’’ (Rubin, 1996d).
Through the voice of ordinary Israeli citizens, the resolve echoed again, ‘‘We have to
keep riding the buses as usual. It’s our country’’ (Greenberg, 1996). It is important to note
that this brave resolve was spoken not by political leaders, but by the people who
represented the pioneers in this mythical drama.
One particular kind of hardy pioneer is important in the Wild West story, a brave
woman who manages her family ranch after her husband is killed by savages. In the
current story, Leah Rabin, widow of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, filled
that story role. In USA Today , Rabin spoke of perseverance for on-going peace efforts, ‘‘We
just have to continue on that road’’, she urged (Puente, 1996), adding, ‘‘The good will
eventually prevail over the evil’’ (Hanley, 1996).
The Cavalry Rides to the Rescue
In the Wild West story, as the conflict between pioneers and savages ensues,
resolution of the conflict appears as the armed cavalry rides to town, tall and proud on
horseback. In the modern story, the Israeli military troops serve as protectors of the
pioneers. As the New York Times explained:
After midnight, the army reported that it had sealed off cities, towns and villages across
the West Bank and was bringing reinforcements into the region. (Schmemann, 1996)
Thus, as the cavalry headed out to the wilderness, the attack�chase plot continued,
with troops sent out to ‘‘seal off safe houses where terrorists are trained, armed and
dispatched to kill, and die’’ (Rosenthal, 1996). Soon, the troops ‘‘fanned out’’ and began to
‘‘round up’’ Hamas members in the West Bank, as they brought the savage uprising under
control (Schmemann, 1996).
The Mediating Hero: President Clinton Calls for a Summit
In the Wild West myth, as in most other myths, the Hero becomes a key character, a
savior of society. In the Dizengoff bombing news coverage, this role is embodied by
President Bill Clinton. This heroic portrayal appears as the United States comes to the
rescue of the frontier government, ‘‘. . . the United States has always stood with the people
of Israel through good times and bad, and we stand with them today’’, Clinton declared in
the New York Times (Purdum, 1996). From the position of the New York Times , the
territorial government could not bring peace on its own; instead, the hero was necessary
for this outcome (Purdum, 1996).
In contrast to the ‘‘savage’’ attacks by the Palestinians, the hero uses modern,
disciplined weaponry and self-defence tactics. In the Old Wild West, the hero used a pistol
TELLING ‘‘OUR’’ STORY THROUGH NEWS OF TERRORISM 697
or rifle, while the savage used a knife or an arrow. In the new story, a New York Times item
(Purdum, 1996), for example, reported that Clinton had sent ‘‘sophisticated bomb-
detection equipment’’ and the ‘‘technical experts to help operate them’’ in order to help
squelch the bomb attacks. In contrast, the Palestinian killing techniques were low-tech and
messy, and portrayed as shocking, insane and chaotic: ‘‘a terrorist sets off a bomb wrapped
around his body’’ (Price and Stewart, 1996).
In sum, US news coverage of the Dizengoff suicide bombing had to deal with a
surprising, remote, and culturally unfamiliar event, report on it quickly and present it in a
way that US audiences could relate to. To do so, news reports gained a resemblance to the
story of the Wild West, creating a tale that turned the unknown into the known. Reporting
followed a cultural narrative more than a professional one, as its form shifted from the
facticity of chronicle and toward the colorful approach of story.
Israeli News Coverage: Dizengoff as Holocaust Remembrance
In Israeli media, coverage of sensational events such as the Dizengoff bombing is
usually far more prominent in the ‘‘popular’’ Yedioth Ahronoth than in the ‘‘quality’’
Ha’aretz . Not surprisingly, then, Yedioth Ahronoth’s main headline after the bombing
occurred, ‘‘Country in Fear’’ (March 5, 1996, p. 1), communicated anxiety and shock, while
other headlines played upon Israeli fears, such as ‘‘Dead Bodies of Children in Fancy Dress
Costume’’ (March 5, 1996, p. 4) and ‘‘Parents Anxiety’’ (March 5, 1996, p. 8). Coverage
further made reference to a familiar past, and especially, to the ongoing peace process
with the Palestinians.
Through this historical perspective, links were immediately clear to the Holocaust, a
symbol of the greatest threat to Jewish survival: ‘‘The defeatist right speaks about
Auschwitz and the Holocaust’’, wrote Shlomit Hareven (1996). ‘‘This is not the Holocaust
and we are not in the Warsaw Ghetto’’ (Plotzker, 1996a); Yoel Markus (1996a) described the
‘‘snivelling’’ public climate* ‘‘You would think we were in the ghetto’’. And indeed the
coverage evoked ‘‘story’’ as another layer on top of the chronicle, drawing links to events
of the master Holocaust narrative and to the revival of Israel. Three main narrative themes
appeared in these news items.
Suicide Bombing as Violation of Peaceful Life
Although the attack occurred in the heart of Tel Aviv on the day of the Purim
festival, what stood out was the contrast with Tel Aviv’s regular, urban normalcy. In Yedioth
Ahronoth phrases appeared such as, ‘‘The very heart of Tel Aviv’’ (Rimon, 1996). Columnist
Yigal Sarna (1996) called the site a regular part of daily life, while Mayor Milo described Tel
Aviv as a cosmopolitan city, a true metropolis (Levitzki, 1996). Against this backdrop arose
the horrifying descriptions of children’s bodies in fancy dress costumes, the lone baby
carriage standing in the street, and the headline: ‘‘Dizengoff Street Was Transformed into a
Killing Field Yesterday’’ (March 6, 1996, p. 1). Stories about children who were out
celebrating Purim were also prominent. These examples paralleled the US news items, but
were placed in a vastly different cultural context through their journalistic representation.
698 HILLEL NOSSEK AND DAN BERKOWITZ
Memories of the Holocaust
This theme was clearly brought out through a strong emphasis on the youth of the
victims, children snatched away in the flush of youth. One injured woman declared: ‘‘This is
Jewish destiny. One day though, that little Jew is going to get up and strike back’’; a
Holocaust survivor reported, ‘‘I thought of Auschwitz’’ (Segev and Nesher, 1996). Activist
Yehuda Vaksman, father of Nachashon Vaksman, a soldier that was kidnapped and
murdered by Palestinian terrorists, was similarly quoted: ‘‘We hunted Nazis for fifty years.
What is happening in Israel now is also a crime against humanity: the murder of innocent
children, women and men’’ (Zinger, 1996). Readers’ letters further presented this linkage,
as in this excerpt:
We put ourselves on the railway tracks, we won’t get off the train anymore . . . Maybe
terrorism scares us because it takes us back to the history we escaped from, and most of
us believe ourselves rid of*a history in which we were only objects, passive bodies that
the hand of the terrorist turns into corpses. (Kasuto, 1996)
Images of War and Zionism
Another clear theme compared the warlike occurrence to actual wartime situations.
One parallel was to the Gulf War, drawing a connection to possible recurrence of the
Holocaust despite the existence of an Israeli state. At the narrative level, stories brought up
images of an attack on the heart of the country, and the panic and fear accompanying the
salvo of rockets. ‘‘Yesterday Tel Aviv was reminiscent of the Scuds days’’, wrote Ha’aretz
commentator Yoel Markus (1996b). Journalist Uzi Benziman (1996) vividly continued this
comparison metaphorically:
The security guards on the buses are the plastic sheeting, the soldiers at the bus stations
are the gas masks, closure is the equivalent of Patriot missiles . . . public reaction also
takes the country back to the days of the Gulf War: on the one hand, the government is
helpless because of the nature of the threat, while on the other hand, citizens live in a
state of intense fear. In the middle are savage enemies who succeed in sowing terror and
producing victims with primitive weapons.
The Zionist ethos was raised by mentioning Israel’s past wars and victories over its
enemies, a symbol of its strength. ‘‘Then we were a tiny community, fighting for our life,
now we are a strong nation and no longer tiny’’ wrote Yaron London (1996) in his column,
while describing a 1947 car bomb explosion in Ben Yehuda Street. Similarly, Shlomit
Hareven (1996) wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth , ‘‘In the War of Independence, more people
were killed here in a day than have died from two years of terror’’. In the same vein, the
Yom Kippur War was brought into the storytelling: ‘‘On the fifth day of the Yom Kippur
War, Israel’s existence was threatened, or at least that is how it looked in the field’’, wrote
Sever Plotzker (1996b) in an item that appealed to the public not to be afraid after the
Dizengoff attack. Yehezkel Dror (1996) wrote, ‘‘We emerged from the Yom Kippur War, and
we will also emerge from the suicide crisis’’. And writer Ephraim Kahana (1996) claimed
that early detection of suicide bombers would foil a surprise like the Yom Kippur War.
Finally, links to Zionism went beyond war to speak about settlement of the land.
One victim*a little girl from a long-established moshav collective settlement*was
eulogized in this context: ‘‘This family personifies the values of settling the land’’ (Golan, A.,
TELLING ‘‘OUR’’ STORY THROUGH NEWS OF TERRORISM 699
1996). Another victim was linked to roots in the underground military organization Hagana
(Golan, S.-L., 1996).
To summarize this analysis of Dizengoff Centre coverage, a clear reference appears
to the master narrative of the Holocaust and the Zionist revival of Israel. Although similar
elements sometimes appeared in the US news coverage, the cultural context cast news of
the attack as a response to a security threat and the self-confidence of the Israeli people.
Coverage evoked mythical narratives about the Holocaust and the revival of Israel.
Location of the attack in the centre of Tel Aviv during a Jewish holiday created a very close
cultural proximity that shaped chronicle and story layers that produced a very different
narrative treatment from that in the American news.
Terrorism Becomes More Proximate to America: The East, the Wild West,and the Holocaust
Approximately six years had passed between the time of the Dizengoff Centre
bombing in 1996 and a bombing at the Hebrew University, Mount Scopus Campus
cafeteria in 2002. The second Intifada, following the Al-Aqsa Mosque uprising in
September 2000, led to a series of bombings in Israel by Palestinians and quick retaliations
by the Israeli army. The United States had been attacked within its borders on September
11, 2001, transforming the well-settled East back into the mythical Wild West. By the time a
Palestinian group set off a bomb at a Hebrew University cafeteria, violence had become a
fixture in the US news and Americans were fearing attacks from all directions.
Unlike the Dizengoff Centre incident, the Hebrew University bombing was relatively
easy for Americans to understand, and*even more important* it had much higher
cultural proximity because several Americans were injured and five Americans were killed.
Now Jewish Americans became heroic frontier victims of an attack, once again facing a
Holocaust-like situation through repeated deaths from Palestinian bombs.
An initial story in the Times quickly began dramatic story-telling that built a sense of
gruesome carnage and fear, while gory details intensified the emotional level of the
situation:
Through a bedlam of screams and crashing glass, students fled in horror from the
cafeteria, in the Frank Sinatra Student Center, some trailing blood onto the concrete
courtyard of Nancy Reagan Plaza. (Bennet and Kifner, 2002)
The names of Sinatra and Reagan quickly cemented this event as American, while
additional mention of American connections brought the story even closer to home:
In Washington, the State Department reported the deaths of the three Americans, two
women and one man. One victim, Janis Ruth Coulter of New York City, was identified
tonight by the American Friends of Hebrew University. (Bennet and Kifner, 2002)
A New York Times news item focused directly on the US connection: ‘‘Americans got
a shocking reminder this week that their connection to the conflict here is not just
strategic, but personal, even intimate’’ (Bennet, 2002).
Development of the victim as sacrificial hero*a key theme of the Wild West
story*came out more fully in second-day coverage. One story, for example, emphasized
the victims’ personal missions aimed at social betterment:
700 HILLEL NOSSEK AND DAN BERKOWITZ
But they had things in common: All were Americans on a spiritual journey, passionate
about life, about their studies or work and especially about their belief in Judaism and
their commitments to Israel. And they were all killed on Wednesday by a terrorist’s bomb
at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. (McFadden, 2002)
Stories about individuals highlighted the goodness of each victim, making clear how
that person was heroic in his or her social ideals. Victim Benjamin Blutstein of Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania was described by his father:
He was pushing the envelope intellectually . . . He was able to move around in several
different worlds. The religious world and the green-haired, body-pierced secular world.
He didn’t have any of that stuff, but he could hang out with people like that and feel
comfortable. (McFadden, 2002)
USA Today vilified the attackers of these heroes through a quote by White House
spokesman Ari Fleischer, who asserted that President Bush ‘‘believes very deeply that Islam
is a religion of peace, and there are people who use the pretext of religion as an excuse to
kill’’ (Keen, 2002). Similarly, a New York Times item (Bennet and Kifner, 2002) stated that the
bomb was placed by ‘‘killers who hate the thought of peace and therefore are willing to
take their hatred to all kinds of places, including a university’’. An editorial, ‘‘Mideast Terror
Brought Home’’ (Editorial Desk, 2002), emphasized the enemy’s crudeness and brutality:
Last Wednesday was a day of celebration for many in Gaza City. They handed out sweets
and thousands danced in the streets. The cause: seven Jews, five of them American, had
been massacred by a remote-control bomb at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.
This dyadic clash between Heroic and Villain was also cast within a larger, ongoing
story of the Holocaust, much like Israeli news had done during the Dizengoff bombing.
This story was woven through the news and opinion pieces of USA Today , surfacing first in
a column about media bias in Middle East news, and referring to a Jewish publication that
included an article about a Jewish woman and her German lover. Discussing Jewish
tragedy and its links between Israel and the United States, American professor Samuel
Freedman (2002) wrote about how ‘‘Palestinians merrily slaughter Israeli civilians’’, evoking
a sense of Holocaust-like persecution and genocide. The ongoing struggle was
exemplified by the reference to the Hebrew University bombing. Later in that piece, the
same writer continued the connection as he described Israel as ‘‘a plucky nation born from
the ashes of the Holocaust’’.
It is important to mention here that opinion pieces reflect both their author’s
vantage point and an editorial selection process. Thus, when one reader’s letter claimed
that ‘‘. . .like Germany’s Nazis, Arabs living in Gaza and on the West Bank are seeking
nothing less than a new ‘final solution’’’, the inclusion of this letter was thus the result of
an editorial decision to connect the bombing with the Holocaust (Editorial page, August 5,
2002). Similarly, when another reader criticized American backing of Israel as a impetus for
the Hebrew University bombing, he connected it to ‘‘a still powerful guilt over the
Holocaust’’ (Editorial page, August 5, 2002).
Links between the Hebrew University bombing and the Holocaust were plentiful in a
feature story about Israeli Forensic Medicine head Yehuda Hiss (Gilmore, 2002). In a
Holocaust-like reference, the story described how Hiss had ‘‘examined more than 40,000
corpses’’ in his career and had not taken a vacation from that work in two years. The
Hebrew University bombing, the article explained, had ‘‘shaken even this seasoned
TELLING ‘‘OUR’’ STORY THROUGH NEWS OF TERRORISM 701
pathologist’’. To build the Holocaust connection, the story described Hiss as a Polish Jew
‘‘whose own family survived World War II and the Holocaust’’. And much like the outcry
following the Holocaust, Hiss referred to his conversation with a young soldier: ‘‘The young
man kept asking me why did this happen’’.
In all, for the Hebrew University bombing, the United States was no longer an
outside observer coming to the Israeli’s rescue. Because American Jews had been killed,
the situation was recast from somebody else’s victims and somebody else’s frontier to
America’s victims and America’s Wild West, reflecting a post-9/11 shift in the American
collective consciousness. In combining the notion of victims and Jewishness, USA Today in
particular drew on the Holocaust narrative as a means of telling a grander story*one that
transcended the bombing*to reiterate one of humanity’s greatest failings.
American Jews in an Anti-Semitic World
The focus of the story that stood out in narrative terms was the global Jewish
element, distinct from the Israeli element. The Jewish frame was very strongly established
by the words of a student from the Netherlands: ‘‘‘Look, my grandfather, Willy Bornstein,
was deputy commander of the partisans in Amsterdam. I decided to follow his path: First, I
will survive, then I’m going to fight anti-Semitism every way’, he said clenching his fist’’
(Grin, 2002). Supporting this war-on-anti-Semitism narrative was an item that dealt with
the arrival of French students concerned about rising anti-Semitism at home (Sheleg,
2002).
As part of the non-Israeli story, Yedioth Ahronoth also emphasized the Jewish and
non-Israeli frame. In spite of a large headline which read ‘‘Exceptional Foreign Ministry
Trainee Killed Before Assignment Overseas’’ (Aichner and Meiri, 2002), David (Diego)
Ladowski, who was killed in the attack, is described as a new immigrant despite having
lived in Israel for 10 years. He is not a ‘‘real’’ Israeli, not a Sabra, and the story emphasizes
how he emigrated from Argentina under the Na’aleh Project and that his parents followed
him five years later. ‘‘‘He was a real Zionist’, recalled yesterday friends of David Ladowski,
who immigrated to Israel ten years ago from Argentina’’ (Aichner and Meiri, 2002),
apparently trying to ‘‘make him part of us’’, despite the distinction presented.
The second Israeli slain in the attack, Levana Shapira, is treated by Yedioth Ahronoth
the same way. On page 2, Shapira was described as American, not Israeli, despite having
lived in Israel for 33 years. ‘‘They [the American dead] were killed with the person
responsible for them, also an American citizen, apparently while she took them on a tour
of the campus’’ (Ariffe et al., 2002). We should qualify this by noting that on page 4 the
same day, there is a eulogy, but it is entirely informative and does not discuss the matter
of the victim’s identity.
As for the emphasis on the Jewish frame, the report introduces a highly mythical
element regarding someone killed in the bombing, who had converted to Judaism after
taking Holocaust Studies* ‘‘Her sister: ‘In recent years, her whole life was her new religion
and work with Jewish students’’’ (Amit, 2002). Another Jewish student said: ‘‘Now not only
are our hearts tied to Israel but also our blood’’ (Amit, 2002); ‘‘Before she died Dina Carter
said: I have no other home, Israel is my home’’ (Adato and Meiri, 2002). And: ‘‘What
happened on September 11 showed that no one is safe in this world. Violence and terror
are everywhere. The question is therefore where you want to die. I want to die as a Jew in
Israel’’ (Golan-Meiri, 2002).
702 HILLEL NOSSEK AND DAN BERKOWITZ
Unlike the coverage in Ha’aretz , Yedioth Ahronoth does not place the bombing
within a general frame of international terrorism. Although Yedioth Ahronoth treats the
bombing similarly (in some instances) to its foreign news coverage, i.e., it is ‘‘their’’ story,
the Jewish theme emerges clearly and develops into a narrative from the very first day.
The reason for this may be that Yedioth Ahronoth is a popular newspaper, which wishes to
bring its readers ‘‘closer’’ to the subject and simplify it for them.
Discussion and Conclusions
We began this study by asking first, if the cultural proximity of a terrorist occurrence
affects its telling in either a chronicle or story mode. Our analysis found that culturally
proximate occurrences*those hitting closer to a culture and its values*tended to be
based more on story and less on chronicle, although elements of both appeared in both
proximate and less proximate occurrences. That is, the journalistic duality was less of a
factor in proximate stories, while the journalistic perspective increased for stories that
were less culturally proximate.
Our second research question asked if cultural proximity of a terrorist occurrence
affects the degree to which mythical elements are used to convey an occurrence. At first
glance, this question seems to be the converse of the first one, because mythical narratives
belong to the ‘‘story’’ form of news, and story is the opposite of chronicle. Looking deeper,
though, we found that the very nature of mythical elements was different between
culturally proximate and less proximate occurrences. The key seems to be that less
culturally proximate occurrences become more abstract and require more mythwork to
accomplish the journalistic task. Culturally proximate tasks seemed to get at mythical
content related to the cultural threat at hand, while the non-threatening less proximate
occurrences worked more at a broad ideological level.
Our third research question asked about the comparative mythical narratives
between two cultures with news coverage of the same terrorist event, with most of the
impact facing one of the two cultures. From the ideology of journalistic objectivity,
anybody from any culture should cover the same event the same way. We found here,
though, that the same story was told in different ways depending on the cultural proximity
of the occurrence.
As Table 2 shows, when we examined the American coverage of these events, we
found that if the event is presented as having cultural proximity, then intra-cultural mythic
elements are chosen, or more precisely, universal elements are chosen and placed in the
TABLE 2
Comparison of the coverage of the two terrorist events by the US and Israeli press
Country EventDizengoff 1996 Mount Scopus 2002
United Culturally distant Culturally proximateStates Extra-cultural myth: Wild West narrative Intra-cultural myth: Victim/Trickster
narrativeIsrael Culturally proximate Culturally distant
Intra-cultural myth: The Holocaust and therevival of Israel (Israeli perspective) narrative
Extra-cultural myth: Anti-Semitism(Jewish perspective) narrative
TELLING ‘‘OUR’’ STORY THROUGH NEWS OF TERRORISM 703
local cultural context. The victim, villain and hero myth and other myths are present cross-
culturally (Lule, 2001). However, as our study discovered, the Israeli and the American
coverage put a different spin on them. If an event is positioned as being culturally remote,
myths are chosen relative to the local identity. In America’s case, reference was to the Wild
West narrative, in which hostile forces challenged the American identity. The same applied
to the Israeli narrative, which concerned anti-Semitism in its widest sense, namely a threat
to the Jews.
Comparing the coverage of the two events in the Israeli press reveals an interesting
journalistic practice. In both occurrences, the journalist’s narrative provided an anchor for
the cultural narrative frame of the coverage and the mythic elements that appeared. This
was especially conspicuous in the case of the attack on Mount Scopus, where emphasis on
the attack site indicated a degree of cultural distance: it was more concerned with Jewish
identity than Israeli identity. The attack in Dizengoff Centre*with its high cultural affinity
in Israel*brought a more localized and enduring cultural narrative involving the
Holocaust and revival of the Jewish state as was found in major terrorist attacks in the
past (Nossek, 1994).
Cultural affinity thus affects the choice of myth used: if an event has an affinity with
the local culture, the mythical reference will have a localized intra-cultural flavor, tied in
with reaffirmation of intra-cultural unity. However, if an event is positioned as culturally
distant, references will be extra-cultural, involving the society vis-a-vis outside forces.
Regardless, the role of this mythical work is to restore cultural identity through news
content when identity of a nation-state undergoes significant challenge.
As for the effect of this journalistic practice, two different approaches may surface.
The functional approach suggests that the journalist represents society: retelling the meta-
narrative of a society in crisis situation allows coherence and integration to overcome the
crisis. In the Israeli case, this surfaced through the story of the holocaust and the revival of
Israel. In contrast, the critical approach suggests that hegemony shapes the story, with
journalists telling the story of the ruling elite and government.
For foreign news, the crisis is somewhere else and mythical newswork helps make
the story closer and meaningful to the audience. Functionally, this becomes a means to
explain the government’s policy, much as the critical approach will suggest.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to Ronie Kolker and Tally Gross for their assistance in data collection and
content analysis of the Israeli press and to Dina Gavrilos for her help in an earlier version
of this research.
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