By Lars Kiær et al.
Mediekritisk Netværk in collaboration with Narrativet (red.)
We are proud to present the report “Imbalance and dehumanization in Danish media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict”, which presents a quantitative analysis of headlines from national Danish broadcaster DR. It is developed from an original report in Danish, published in March 2025.
The report reveals significant imbalances in DR’s use of sources, framing of victims and perpetrators, and coverage of key issues.
Main findings
- Large predominance of Israeli sources: The analysis shows that Israeli sources were cited by far the most and increasingly more than Palestinian sources. In what is portrayed as a bilateral war, official Israeli sources were cited six times as often as official sources from Gaza/Palestine and four times as often as Hamas.
- Marginalization of Palestinian voices: Civilian Palestinians were increasingly less heard as their living conditions worsened. The last 3 months of the analyzed period (late summer 2024) featured no civilian Palestinian voices at all.
- Downplaying Palestinian victims: Fewer than one in five headlines about dead and killed Palestinians, including general descriptions and totals, explicitly mentioned that they were Palestinians. Only one in ten headlines about Palestinians killed in specific attacks did this. At the same time, in every other headline about killed Palestinians, DR created doubt about the credibility of the fatal news by using expressions such as ‘reportedly’.
- Failure to assign responsibility: Two out of three headlines about Palestinian killings failed to name Israel as the perpetrator. Half of the headlines identified neither the Palestinians killed nor the Israeli perpetrators.
- Israel was covered the most: Israel (including public representatives) was included in almost every other headline, but mostly in headlines not about killed Palestinians, and with an increasing trend over the period. Words containing ‘ Israel ‘ were included in 40% of the headlines, while words containing ‘ Palestine ‘ were included in fewer than 10%.
- Declining focus on emergency aid and war crimes: Emergency aid was in focus in the spring of 2024, but was largely not covered in the last three months of the period. War crimes were covered very little and even less in the last three months.
Conclusions
The numbers speak for themselves across several parameters: DR’s coverage of the war has been systematically unbalanced in Israel’s favor. The consequences should not be underestimated, as DR may, in the worst case, have misinformed the public and contributed to creating acceptance of Israel’s violent war actions on a false basis.
This is particularly critical since headlines shape how news is perceived by media consumers, and thus the public’s view of the war and the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
We urge DR to take the necessary steps to be able to live up to its public service responsibility in the future. It is our hope that the report will contribute to an important debate about the media’s coverage of war and journalistic ethics. We encourage all media enthusiasts to read the report and participate in the debate on social media.
Background
The report is based on a review and analysis of all 1559 relevant headlines from www.dr.dk about the current Israel-Palestine ‘armed conflict’ in the period 7 October 2023 and one year ahead.
Our purpose is to contribute to a more nuanced and critical approach to media coverage in Denmark and help media – as well as media consumers – evaluate whether they are living up to their responsibilities as factual and impartial news providers.
The analysis and report were developed in collaboration with Narrativet (red.) – a volunteer group focusing on Danish media’s choice of words and editorial line in news headlines through visual posts on social media.
Download
The full report can be downloaded here
Contact
For questions, please reach out via kontakt@mediekritisk.dk
