The media at home and abroad

On Friday morning, there was an incident in Jerusalem. What happened, essentially, was a man grabbed the gun of an Israeli security guard, shot him, and then ran. Another guard followed, gunfire was exchanged, and the man was killed. Here are the headlines from three major news outlets immediately following the event*:

Palestinian killed in Jerusalem (BBC)
Ten hurt in attempted attack in J'lem Old City (Haaretz)
Gun fight in Jerusalem kills one, injures 10 (Reuters)

Same story, three very different headlines. USA Today and the New York Times aren't even reporting it.

Read the three stories. See how they're written. He goes from being a "Palestinian man" in one story to being an "Arab man" in another. Only BBC brings up Israel's "occupation" of Jerusalem while Reuters is the only one to mention that a similar incident happened in May. BBC's focuses on the assailent being killed, Haaretz's focuses on the victims, and Reuter's mentions both.

I don't know what really happened; I wasn't there. However, it does show how the media can spin things how they want them. Apparently this isn't uncommon, according to my Jewish friends, to have news stories showing Israel in a negative light. It makes me wonder what the effect of this type of reporting has on public opinion of the whole situation in Israel, Palestine, and elsewhere. I'm not saying it's antisemitism, and I'm not saying it's not. It's just interesting, that's all.

[edit: follow-up stories here and here, including video footage of the attack.]

* The headlines have since changed