Weir said she knew nothing about the conflict between Israel and Palestine nine years ago, but became interested in the issue at the beginning of the Second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising in September 2000.
"Like most Americans, I skimmed the headlines and I accepted the confusion that I found because there are many major issues in the world," Weir said.
During the Second Intifada, Weir said she noticed extensive reporting about attacks on Israel, but comparatively little coverage about the Palestinian perspective.
Weir then developed a scientific study of the mainstream media's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she said. She compared the number of Israeli and Palestinian deaths collected by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, with those reported by the American media. Weir found that all three major television networks ABC, NBC and CBS reported on Israeli deaths three or four times more frequently than they reported Palestinian fatalities.
All three networks would also frequently do follow-up stories about Israeli deaths, leading to a greater number of reports than the number of Israelis who died, Weir said.
To demonstrate the perceived coverage imbalance, Weir also cited data on the number of children who died in the two countries in 2004.
"This I feel is more significant, as all of us feel children are illegitimate targets of a strike," Weir said.
Although the number of deaths for Israeli children had decreased from previous years by 2004, B'Tselem counted 179 deaths among Palestinian children, an increase from previous years.
"Our media told us this was a period of reduced violence," despite the increased number of deaths amongst the Palestinian children, she said. "From an Israeli-centric point of view, this was a period of reduced violence."
Even National Public Radio, which has been criticized by pro-Israeli groups, demonstrated this bias, Weir said. NPR reported 90 percent of Israeli deaths, but less than one-third of Palestinian deaths, she said. The organization essentially reports an equal number of deaths regardless of the actual data, Weir said, which is a distortion of what is going on in the conflict. The media has also failed to report on deaths of Westerners, often humanitarians, who were aiding Palestinians.
This bias is unique to the American media, Weir said, as Israelis obtain much of their information on current events from national news outlets like Haaretz, a leading daily newspaper in Tel Aviv. U.S. news organizations have also ignored dissent in Israel, including stories of citizens who refused to serve in the Israeli military, she said.
The American media has also largely ignored nonviolent forms of protest in Palestinian territories, Weir said, opting rather to depict Palestinians as terrorists. By traveling throughout Gaza and the West Bank, Weir said she found most Palestinians were not misogynistic or anti-American. Weir said she only felt unsafe when she was around the Israeli military.
"Whenever I told Palestinians that I was an American and I always identified myself as an American the invariable response was Welcome,'" she said.
The United States gives $7 million to $10 million daily to Israel, Weir said, which has been used to contribute to a humanitarian crisis in Palestine.
"This is intentionally created poverty through our tax money," she said.
Weir's lecture was followed by a performance of "Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza" by Margo Lee Sherman. The play had been written in 2009 by British playwright Caryl Churchill, who was inspired to write the play in response to the conflict in Gaza from 2008 to 2009.
