Localising the Reporting of the 2014 Gaza War by the South African Press

Abstract

ABSTRACT The longstanding Palestinian–Israeli conflict sees considerable attention worldwide and despite continuing downsizing, prominent international news organisations and agencies continue to maintain bureaus in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This enables news outlets beyond the region, who lack the resources to produce original reporting, to provide their audiences with coverage of this distant conflict. Concerns have been raised about the dependence on such material, however. Using the 2014 Gaza war as a case study, this article examines news production practices in the South African context. The research involved a quantitative content analysis of news output during the war by prominent English print outlets in the country. This was supplemented with interviews with locally based media professionals. Despite relying entirely on international news material, the different outlets employed a variety of innovative strategies to localise the war for their readerships. It is these practices which demonstrate resilience in the face of significant challenges facing the commercial media in the country. The study contributes to enhancing scholarship on news production relating to the broader Israeli–Palestinian conflict in non-Western contexts. In addition, it provides important insights with respect to news production in South Africa related to this and other distant political disputes.