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Alternate FocusOff the Charts (2006)

Like most Americans, Alison Weir, the editor of a small-town newspaper in California, knew very little about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, other than what she had gleaned from the evening news or newspaper headlines. As a journalist, her attention was on issues much closer to home. Neither a muslim nor a jew, she nevertheless became more curious about the topic of the Palestinian uprising. And as she researched it, she became increasingly suspicious that the American media were not telling us the whole story. Months later, she traveled to the occupied territories as an independent journalist to find out for herself what the U.S. media seemed to be omitting. Three months after returning from Palestine, Alison Weir quit her job and founded If Americans Knew, an organization dedicated to quantifying the ways in which the American media was misinforming the public about the conflict. Ms. Weir explains her group's methodology, analyzes the data, and reports on the key findings. Producers: Paul Chek and John Odam (2006)


This movie is part of the collection: Alternate Focus

Producer: Alternate Focus
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: Israel, Palestine, Media, "If Americans Knew"

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Reviewer: amymog - - January 15, 2009
Subject: Fascinating & eye-opening
Very thoughtful and convincing video. Everyone should watch this!

Reviewer: Angel22 - - October 11, 2006
Subject: Skewed and partial
An interesting and educational exercise in presenting data in a skewed fashion, all the while ignoring two central issues: the number of Palestinian victims being higher than Israelis is due to the large involvement of Palestinian children in battles against Israeli forces, and of course Palestinian terrorism, which Alison Weir doesn't even have the honesty to mention once. As a result, her whole demonstration of alleged US media bias in favor of Israel falls flat on its face. Had she included the key factor of Palestinian terrorism as the main reason Israel was forced to set up checkpoints and a security barrier, she would have made more sense. As it is, her report is nothing more than an exercice in useless Palestinian propaganda.