In a season when wars seem to arrive in our living rooms faster than we can make sense of them, a team of researchers at the Centre for Media Transition has asked a question older than any single conflict: when a newspaper or broadcaster tells us about a war, whose story does it carry? Across four Australian outlets, The Australian, the ABC, 9News.com.au and The Guardian, they compared coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war, and found that the two stories were told in strikingly different ways. The lesson they draw is less about any one headline than about the quiet ch
How the fog of war puts journalism in the frame: Australian coverage of Israel–Gaza and Ukraine diverged sharply
The study notes rising Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the humanitarian consequences that outlets increasingly emphasised as the conflict continued.
Russian narratives received almost no interpretive authority
Mark
What's the headline finding here?
Mimi
That the same newsrooms framed two wars differently. In Israel–Gaza, Israeli frames dominated 49% of articles and Palestinian frames 32%. In Ukraine, Western and Ukrainian frames dominated 67%, and Russian frames 0%.
Mark
Zero is striking.
Mimi
It is. Russian narratives were mostly quoted to be disparaged, and context like NATO expansion and the Minsk Agreements got little space.
Luke
Before we run with that, the 0% is about frames treated as dominant, not about Russian views appearing at all. And it's one team's coding of a sample of articles.
Mark
Fair. Did the outlets differ on Gaza?
Mimi
Hugely. The Guardian's sample was 54% Palestinian frames, the ABC 38%, 9News 27%. The Australian was 3%, with 71% Israeli frames.
Luke
Worth noting those shifted with events. The ABC, 9News and Guardian moved toward humanitarian coverage as deaths rose, but the volume was smaller. The study doesn't tell us why each outlet chose as it did.
Mark
So is this proof of bias?
Mimi
The authors are careful. Where there's broad consensus, as on Russia, one-sided framing isn't automatically advocacy. Gaza is more polarised.
Luke
And they leave the final question open: whether default one-sided framing is still journalism. That's an argument, not a measurement.
Il Polso
- Since October 2023, Australian readers have been caught between accusations of bias from every direction, and trust in the news is being tested in real time.
- In the Israel-Gaza coverage, Israeli frames dominated nearly half the sampled articles, while The Australian leaned almost entirely toward Israeli perspectives at 71 percent.
- As Palestinian casualties climbed, the ABC, 9News.com.au and The Guardian shifted weight toward humanitarian suffering, though the conflict's widening strained every outlet's attempt to balance it.
- In Russia-Ukraine coverage, Western and Ukrainian narratives carried the day, and Russian frames treated as authoritative in none of the surveyed articles, sharpening doubts about whether one side is being quietly declared the default.
- The researchers are left asking whether one-sided default framing still counts as journalism, and whether the duty to engage views a reporter rejects survives when advocacy becomes the newsroom's habit.
In a season when wars seem to arrive in our living rooms faster than we can make sense of them, a team of researchers at the Centre for Media Transition has asked a question older than any single conflict: when a newspaper or broadcaster tells us about a war, whose story does it carry? Across four Australian outlets, The Australian, the ABC, 9News.com.au and The Guardian, they compared coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict and the Russia-Ukraine war, and found that the two stories were told in strikingly different ways. The lesson they draw is less about any one headline than about the quiet choices of emphasis, omission and context that shape what a reader comes to believe, and about whether a journalist's default voice can still be called fair when one side's account keeps winning the argument by default.
Researchers at the Centre for Media Transition set out to answer a question that has followed war reporting for three years: when Australian outlets cover a conflict, whose story do they tell? They studied four outlets, The Australian, the ABC, 9News.com.au and The Guardian, across two wars, Israel and Gaza, and Russia and Ukraine. The answers, they found, diverged sharply.
The context is a long quarrel over objectivity. Since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and the Israeli campaign in Gaza that followed, coverage has drawn accusations of bias from both sides, amplified by social media and by newer online outlets that often criticise legacy media as timid. Coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has drawn milder public criticism. The authors note that trust tends to fall when audiences sense a journalist is advocating one side.
The team looked at framing, the everyday choices about what to include and omit, what to emphasise and how to contextualise, and which sources support the dominant account. In Gaza coverage, the outlets shifted between Israeli and Palestinian framing as events changed. Overall, Israeli frames dominated 49 percent of articles and Palestinian frames 32 percent. The ABC, 9News.com.au and The Guardian gave growing weight to the humanitarian toll on Palestinians as deaths rose, while still presenting Israeli security concerns. The Australian was the outlier, using Israeli frames in 71 percent of its sample, rarely giving Palestinian frames space, and linking pro-Palestinian advocacy in Australia with antisemitism and social division.
In Ukraine coverage, Western and Ukrainian narratives dominated 67 percent of sampled articles, and Russian narratives were treated as authoritative in none. Russia's arguments about NATO expansion were largely left unexamined, and Putin was often portrayed as irrational.
The authors are careful not to equate source choice with advocacy. Where broad consensus backs one side, as in Russia's war, that may reflect the facts. Israel and Gaza is more contested, with documented violations on several sides. Still, they ask whether a journalist's duty to engage views they reject survives when one side's reading becomes the default, and whether that is still journalism.
Researchers at the Centre for Media Transition set out to test a question that has hung over war reporting for three years: when Australian outlets cover a conflict, whose story do they tell? They looked at four outlets, The Australian, the ABC, 9News.com.au and The Guardian, and at two wars, Israel and Gaza, and Russia and Ukraine. The answers, they report, were very different.
The backdrop is a fight over objectivity. Since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, and through Israel's retaliation against Gaza, now three years long, coverage has been accused of bias in both directions, on social media as much as in conservative media. Headlines have been parsed and corrected by online critics, and newer journalism players have clashed loudly, often angrily, with legacy outlets. At the center is a tension between the objectivity traditional media claim and the advocacy that internet journalists say delivers more truth. Coverage of Russia's attack on Ukraine, by contrast, has drawn milder public criticism. The authors note that studies show trust falls when audiences sense a journalist is advocating one side, and that audiences prefer news that includes a range of views.
The study focused on framing: the ordinary choices about what to include, omit, emphasise and contextualise, and which sources support the dominant account. It also looked at journalistic voice, which can become evaluative or subjective despite a reporter's efforts. The team examined coverage of events that were significant in the news cycle, and asked which voices got more space, whose stories were personalised or depersonalised, and which historical and contemporary context was prioritised or set aside.
On Israel and Gaza, covering 2023 to 2026, the outlets shifted between Israeli and Palestinian framing as events on the ground changed. Overall, Israeli frames were dominant in 49% of surveyed articles and Palestinian frames in 32%. All four outlets engaged closely with Israeli narratives after the October 7 attack. As the Palestinian death toll rose and events in Gaza raised alarm, the ABC, 9News.com.au and The Guardian gave more weight to the humanitarian consequences for Palestinians. Palestinian frames made up 38%, 27% and 54% of their respective samples, though the volume of coverage was smaller. These outlets kept reporting Israeli security concerns as counterclaims while centring Palestinian victimhood, until the conflict widened to involve the US, Iran, Lebanon and the Gulf states.
The Australian stood apart. It privileged Israeli perspectives across all the events surveyed, emphasising victimhood, security and self-defence; 71% of its sample used Israeli frames as dominant. Only 3% used Palestinian frames, and the history of the conflict was marginalised. It was also the only outlet to link pro-Palestinian advocacy in Australia with antisemitism and social division. It criticised the Greens for their vocal support of Palestinians, and it grouped the most radical pro-Palestinian voices with moderate ones, particularly around Australia's recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN.
The Ukraine pattern, across 2022 to 2026, was lopsided in a different way. Western and Ukrainian narratives were dominant in 67% of sampled coverage across all four outlets, and the prominent voices were overwhelmingly Western and Ukrainian. Russian narratives received almost no interpretive authority: none of the surveyed articles treated Russian frames as dominant. When Russia's description of a "special military operation" appeared, it was mostly to disparage it.
As a result, the authors say, post-Soviet geopolitical complexity was downplayed, including Russian arguments that NATO's eastward expansion was threatening and that Moscow did not see NATO as a defensive alliance. Reporting often cast Putin as irrational, and Russia as both threatening and fragile: economically weak yet able to withstand sanctions, unable to conquer Ukraine yet able to wage war on Europe. Evaluative voice was far more evident than in Gaza coverage, framing the war through Soviet and Russian expansionism, while the controversial Minsk Agreements were largely unexplored.
The authors do not say that source privileging automatically equals advocacy. Where broad consensus backs one side, as with Russia's war, it may reflect that consensus. Israel and Gaza is polarised, with documented violations of international humanitarian law against Palestinians and by Hamas on October 7. Still, they argue, the duty to engage views a journalist rejects does not vanish under objectivity, though it can under advocacy, when one side's reading becomes the default. Then, they ask, is it still journalism?
Citazioni salienti
The obligation to analyse viewpoints a journalist may not accept does not simply disappear in objective journalism, but it can in advocacy journalism.— Study authors, Centre for Media Transition (paraphrased)
Vuoi la storia completa?
Leggi l'originale su The Conversation ↗