Proving the German Media Bias Against Palestinians

The results were first assessed according to region: Israel or Palestine? The findings are clear: Of the 4,853 headlines analyzed, 2,100 (43.3 percent) could be traced back to Israeli sources, but only 244 headlines (5 percent) could be traced back to Palestinians.

For every headline based on Palestinian sources, seven came from Israeli sources in Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, and eight in Tagesschau. In the case of Bild, the ratio was one to eighteen. This means that Israeli sources made it into the headlines of the leading German media outlets more times in the first week of news coverage than Palestinians did in the first six months.

The situation is no better when it comes to information from other countries in the region. In the sixteen months of the study, all Lebanese, Iranian, Yemeni, and Syrian sources combined produced 293 headlines (6 percent of the total) — like this one about the collapse of Lebanon’s power supply as a result of Israeli attacks: “Lebanon Shuts Down Its Last Power Plant.”

Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Tagesschau, and Bild all devoted roughly the same number of headlines to Israeli sources in the first three weeks of coverage.

And information stemming from Israel’s closest ally made the headlines comparatively often. US sources accounted for 580 headlines (12 percent) — that’s similar to the number for all fifty-seven predominantly Arab and Muslim countries combined (593 in total). Der Spiegel had a particularly strong affinity for the United States’ perspective on the world. In its reporting, about one in six headlines around news events in the Middle East was based on information from the United States (17.1 percent).

Without doubt, focusing solely on the country of origin of sources allows for limited conclusions about journalistic practices in newsrooms. Editors do not select their sources based on nationality, but rather on journalistic criteria such as relevance, timeliness, availability, and credibility. Given that most news events since October 7, 2023, have taken place in the Gaza Strip, you’d expect news outlets would use a large number of Palestinian sources, such as eyewitnesses, rescue workers, and reporters, as well as representatives of international organizations and NGOs. At least, that’s the theory.

In practice, on top of the tendency to use Israeli sources, another preference stands out: government statements. Of the 4,853 headlines examined, 3,517 (72.5 percent) were based on statements from governments, intelligence services, and the military. For the sake of comparison, this analysis included state-like actors such as Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Die Zeit showed the greatest preference for information from state officials (79.1 percent) and Bild the least (59.5 percent). In the latter case, this is mainly due to the high proportion of tabloid stories such as “Hamas Wanted to Sell the Heads of Killed Soldier,” which the editorial team often took from Israeli media.

This high proportion of government-sourced information would be cause for concern in reporting on any topic. But a lack of scrutiny of official statements has a particularly serious impact on war and crisis reporting, as propaganda and disinformation are part of every warring party’s arsenal. Media outlets should therefore handle such information with particular caution and restraint.

But the opposite is the case when it comes to leading media outlets in Germany using, above all, Israeli government statements for their reporting: Israel’s military and government are by far the most important sources in news coverage of the Middle East in Germany. In each of the media outlets examined, at least one in three headlines (an average of 35.5 percent) was based on statements and information from official Israeli sources. In contrast, only 194 headlines (4 percent) were based on official Palestinian sources — even though the latter’s credibility when it comes to casualty figures has, unlike the Israeli army’s figures, been repeatedly confirmed by the United Nations, NGOs, and academic studies.

If you look at exactly when Palestinian sources are used for headlines, the bias is even heavier. German media outlets seem mostly to find official Palestinian statements newsworthy only when they address the deaths of Hamas members (“Hamas Leader Haniyeh Killed in Tehran!”), Palestinian acts of violence against Israel (“Hamas Claims Responsibility for Attack in Jerusalem”), the progress of ceasefire negotiations (“Hamas Rejects Brief Ceasefire”), or internal Palestinian conflict (“Abbas Distances Himself from Hamas Actions”).

Of the eighty-four cases in which official Palestinian statements were used for headlines in Der Spiegel, only thirty-seven headlines provided information about Israeli acts of violence and/or their consequences for the Palestinian civilian population (2.1 percent of headlines in total). At Die Zeit, fourteen out of foryt-two headlines fell into this category (1.7 percent), at the Tagesschau it was nineteen out of fifty-two headlines (1.5 percent), and at Bild not a single one.

Other sources for Palestinian casualty figures, such as Palestinian doctors, hospitals, and rescue workers, also received little attention. In the sixteen months of reporting by Tagesschau, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, and Bild, such sources made it into just ten of 4,853 headlines (0.2 percent).

Due to Israel’s closing-off of the Gaza Strip, foreign reporters have had no opportunity to verify information themselves. In the circumstances, we might expect the media to make particularly strong use of independent sources. But that has not happened.

The United Nations and its numerous sub-organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and UNICEF, with their thousands of staff members, experts, and representatives, provide a large amount of credible information and easily accessible statements every day. But, comparatively speaking, they rarely make the headlines in German media.

Of the 4,853 headlines examined, 389 (8 percent) were attributable to international organizations. Their chances of making it into a headline were highest in Tagesschau (10.6 percent) and lowest in Bild (2.6 percent). Across all the media outlets, information from international organizations was used for headlines significantly less often than official Israeli statements. For every headline based on information from the UN and other international organizations, there were three or four based on official Israeli sources in Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, and Tagesschau, and fourteen in Bild.

A large portion of these headlines had to do with affairs in which international organizations were not only sources but also acted in or were affected by the events — for example, when aid deliveries were stopped by Israeli soldiers, UNRWA representatives defended themselves against accusations of “terrorism” (“Head of UNRWA Defends the Agency Against Criticism from Israel”), or when a spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, commented on the latest Israeli shelling (“UNIFIL Reports Observation Tower Destroyed”).

German newsrooms have virtually no interest in information from the dozens of international NGOs active in the Gaza Strip. Organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, Oxfam, and the German aid group Crisis Aid for Disaster and Emergency Support (CADUS) produce valuable and comprehensive information every day.

In addition, there are numerous reports and regular statements from human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem. In sixteen months of reporting, information from these sources made it into only fifty-five of the 4,853 headlines (1.1 percent). That’s equivalent to the number of times Israeli military and government sources were used in the first three and a half days.

Reports by other media outlets are another source of information in the daily news business. This also applies to coverage of the Middle East in Germany. In total, statements from other media outlets (excluding statements by politicians) were used for headlines in Bild, Tagesschau, Die Zeit, and Der Spiegel 425 times (8.8 percent). The figures range from 5.8 percent for Tagesschau to 15.3 percent for Bild. These media outlets share a strong preference for Israeli press reports.

Of the total headlines, 192 (4 percent) were based on information from Israeli media such as the television stations Channel 12 and Channel 14, or Israeli daily newspapers such as Yedioth Ahronoth, the Jerusalem Post, and Haaretz. Information from Palestinian media, on the other hand, was used for just six headlines (0.1 percent). If we add in the fifteen cases in which news reports from Lebanon were used for headlines, as well as the twenty-two instances for media outlets in all other predominantly Arab countries, we arrive at forty-three headlines based on Arabic media reports (0.9 percent). From a journalistic perspective, this is surprising, given that media organizations such as the Palestinian news agency Wafa and the TV channel Al-Jazeera regularly report on relevant events quickly and comprehensively and have an unparalleled network of correspondents and contacts in the region.

The lack of interest in the information provided daily by Palestinian and Lebanese reporters — and the entire Arab media landscape — is perhaps the clearest sign that German newsrooms are unwilling to provide their audiences with an accurate picture of events in the Middle East. While Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Tagesschau, and Bild regularly reserve the most prominent place in their reporting for the narratives of the Israeli army and government, reports that contradict the official Israeli narrative are overlooked, even when they are confirmed by independent sources such as NGOs, the UN, journalists, and eyewitnesses.

How do Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Tagesschau, and Bild explain this discrepancy? What problems do they themselves see in their reporting? How do they assess the credibility of individual actors such as the Israeli army, the Palestinian Ministry of Health, or the United Nations, and what implications does that have for their reporting? No editorial team provided concrete answers to these and other questions. While Bild and Tagesschau did not answer at all, the public relations departments of Die Zeit and Der Spiegel at least responded.

“We inform our audience about the events with the greatest possible care and diversity of sources,” said a spokesperson for Die Zeit. In addition to various agencies as well as international and regional media sources, they use “the official channels of all relevant actors in the region, additional primary and secondary sources, as well as in-house expertise,” explained the spokesperson for Der Spiegel. While Die Zeit ignored the request for comment on the results of this investigation, Der Spiegel rejected the findings overall as “inaccurate.”

When asked about the challenges in their day-to-day reporting, Der Spiegel and Die Zeit pointed out that the Israeli army prevents international media from accessing the Gaza Strip. “This makes independent verification considerably more difficult,” said Der Spiegel. That is certainly true. But as this analysis of the journalistic practices of Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Tagesschau, and Bild shows, closed borders are by no means the only problem facing German media. In addition to decisions of the Israeli army, decisions made in German newsrooms also obstruct reporting on the Middle East.