The negotiations for creating a coalition government in Israel brings at the table of

discussions experienced politicians. The task though it is not easy for the elected
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the following I will compare how
two newspapers, considered broadsheet papers, “ABC.News” and “The Jerusalem
Post” are presenting the current political situation. I will compare the profile of the
two media, their targeted audience, dates of issuing the articles and authors.
Further, I will compare type of vocabulary used; the journalistic genre used looking
also into the content of the messages, quotes given throughout the articles and
some possible ethical issues.

Comparing circulation between the two media, “The Jerusalem Post” is reaching
five times less audience in the online media than “ABC.News”. Comparing their
general orientation, one is targeting an audience with Zionist views while the other
is reaching to the general public. Although both are considered to be part of what it
is generally called “mainstream media”, “The Jerusalem Post” is presented to be a
Zionist publication. Its most recent article underlines this idea:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion while “ABC.news” claims is to be „Your trusted source
for breaking news, analysis, exclusive interviews, headlines, and videos”.
Comparing circulation figures one can see a big gap between the two newspapers.
“The Jerusalem Post is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem. It is the largest
English-language Jewish newspaper in Israel. On paper it has a circulation between
40,000 for international readers and a maximum of 80,000 during weekends.
According to the advertisement section of the newspaper
(https://www.jpost.com/advertise) the online version of “The Jerusalem Post” reaches
10 to 12 million unique monthly visitors. In comparison, according to
abcnews.go.com Traffic and Engagement Analysis (
https://www.similarweb.com/website/abcnews.go.com/#traffic) ABC news had 49,6 million
viewers last month. As part of the American broadcast network, ABC News is
classified as “mainstream media” that delivers news slightly biased towards left
wings views. (https://www.allsides.com/news-source/abc-news-media-bias and
https://www.thefactual.com/blog/is-abc-news-biased/).

The journalists preferred by the editorial teams of the two newspapers reveals
different types of approaches but both adapted to reach the targeted audience. The
“ABC” editorial team published a collective work from the Associated Press news
agency while “The Jerusalem Post” entrusted the task to explain latest negotiations
regarding a new Israeli government to one of its own employee who majored in
Philosophy and Jewish Thought, Eliav Breuer, Knesset correspondent for the
paper. The dates when the articles were published 26th of November, for ABCnews
and 2nd of December for The Jerusalem Post is important to appreciate the quality
of work done by the AP team. In absence of dramatic changes in the situation, the
content of the article is still valid one week later! Comparing the two articles, one
could think that both were issued at the same time. This is because the information
given in the ABCnews article is of general coverage.

From the content point of view, the ABCnews offer, from title to the end of its
article, a comprehensive and objective summary about how the Israeli
administration will be organized and what are the main new changes that will be
made. In The Jerusalem Post article we are given a section in time, the present
moment of the ongoing negotiations under a biased title. Ben-Gvir is the main
character in both articles. He is a politician publicly known for his far-right
speeches and about to become head of Public Security Ministry. Informative and
equidistance shown in the ABC article’s title: “Far- right Ben-Gvir to be Israeli’s
national security minister” contrasts with Jerusalem Post that chose a point of view
from the very beginning wondering: “What will Itamar Ben-Gvir’s new ~private
army~ look like?”

“ABC.news” delivered an informative and structured article while in The

Jerusalem Post” the reader is invited to be critical. The extremist rhetoric of Ben-
Gvir is presented in the ABC article where we can find several examples of future
minister’s extremist views, no comment or subtext is attached to these examples.
On the other hand, journalist Eliav Breuer, resorts to words that induce criticism.
Expressions like “Ben-Gvir expanded domain”, “Ben-Gvir and (his) running
mate”, or “reasoning seemed quite simple at face value” cannot be tagged as biased
but because the author resorts to adjectives, colloquial word like “mate” or
metaphors, the effect is of a subtext that is criticizing the quality of the future
minister.

A comparison in quotes used shows another difference between the two papers.
Only one quote in the ABC article and two for the Jerusalem Post. The difference
is not important in the number of quotes given but in the sources. Surprisingly,
ABC fails to give most relevant information about the person, the quote. Likud
lawmaker Yariv Levin is cited as such falling to say that he is relevant to the article
because he is, at present time, member of Knesset and used to be minister of
Internal Security. For the more argumentative and personal approach in the
Jerusalem Post we have a quote for the main character of the article in what future
minster says: “the minister… should have the power to dictate the policy and
control its budget” Second quote is from a senior police officer cited by main paper
in Israel, Haaretz, telling about his concerns that future minister would attempt to
take de facto control of police.

The ethical issues that might rise from using citations in order t stir public feelings
against a politician are debatable if the media itself is pretending to be objective or
not. Although, it is shows that Jerusalem Post is biased in its article, the reader
expects such a content just by reading the title of the article.

In conclusion, both articles succeed to give the necessary general information.

Both articles mark main changes that will be made in the future cabinet. The
differences between the two reside in the audience targeted. Neutral tone of the
ABC news contrasts with the more engaged and critical Jerusalem Post.