Ah yes. The clever trick where a journalist publishes their own opinion as objective news by quoting "what people are saying about the news" (that is, by finding a quote they agree with or just making up an "anonymous" one). It's not opinion journalism and it's certainly not bias - it's just good reporting.

Now, of course there are usually some imbalances. One might point out that it's a little unfair to quote both sides equally, because the Israelis are often trying to be self-critical and the Palestinians are nearly always out of their minds batshit crazy. Also, the ordering seems consistently imbalanced - Palestinian quotes are often in the headlines while the Israeli quotes are stuck in the middle with something like "... but, under attack, Israeli officials said...". But since both sides have quotes, there's supposedly no bias.

OK, so obviously those excuses are stupid and obviously the journalists are trying to demonize Israel. These techniques are used day in and day out in articles about Israel - this is nothing new? Well, yes and no. Obviously, the techniques are routine. So routine that we cracked a joke about them offhandedly in an earlier post - they've become tropes rather than fodder for fisking, because they're just so obvious that you can't believe that journalists still think that they're being subtle.

But there is something a little unique about the kinds of Palestinian quotes that are being thrown into headlines right now. We wrote at the beginning of the morning about the unusual degrees of freedom that journalists are allowing themselves this morning. Given a story that's "closer to truth than usual", journalists are going the extra mile in their headlines:

Syria condemns Israeli "massacre" in Gaza (Reuters)

Abbas, Haniya condemn Israeli 'massacre' (AFP)

FM Gul Condemns Israel over 'Massacre' of 18 Palestinians (Zaman)

FWIW, there are hundreds of Arab and Muslim newspapers with those headlines. But if the world doesn't expect them not to demand genocide as the price for Israel accidentally killing Hamas human shields, then us pointing out that they're biased seems a little beside the point.

To some extent, these obvious violations of neutrality - and, for what it's worth, fairness or reasonability - are the only option that journalists really have. Every other day of the year, they're demonizing Israel in ways either disproportionate to what they're reporting on or on account of wild-eyed Palestinian make-believe Jenin massacres. So now that there really are a lot of dead civilians involved, they have to take an extra step to somehow distinguish this story of an Israeli "massacre" from all the other stories of Israeli "massacres" - not that accidental deaths from cross-fires usually count as "massacres", but the fact that the number of dead civilians isn't totally made up calls for an escalation in anti-Israel story writing.

Previously: BBC On Pope Benedict - Weasel Quote Someone Else Trick, Weasel Words Mean Never Having To Observe That Hezbollah Commits War Crimes, "Everyone Knows" (Something Totally False About Israel) Weasel Quote Someone Else Trick