Charts and statistics part 1 - (Conflicts)

I have blogged before about the BBC's obsessive coverage of the ongoing Palestinian battle to destroy Israel as compared with the BBC's coverage of other "conflicts". Augean Stables (a blog I visit less often than I should) has devised some interesting graphic representations one of which I reproduce here:

Isn't that interesting? It becomes more interesting when you note Virgil Hawkins comment that:

"I have also done a fair bit of work on this ‘media footprint’ of conflicts. To give an example, if you compare the number of news items on CNN over the first two years of conflict in the DRC and Israel-Palestine, compare it to the respective death tolls, and then do the mathematics, you find that the life of one person in Israel-Palestine is roughly equal to 49,000 Congolese lives (for CNN). More people really need to know about how and why this state of affairs is allowed to persist…

My most detailed data/conclusions are in my book, Stealth Conflicts: How the World’s Worst Violence Is Ignored (http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754675068)."

You can read more about this disparity in coverage at the original Stealth Conflicts article, at Augean Stables earlier piece that points out "that .06 percent of those killed in wars since 1950 died in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and .3 percent of the Muslims killed in conflicts since then were killed by Israelis." and at Augean Stables 2007 piece that includes this fact "What Percentage of those killed in conflicts since 1950 died in the Arab-Israeli conflict? ... The answer is, about .06% or 1 in 1700 deaths. Whereas 11 million Muslims have been killed in these conflicts, only .3% died in the Arab-Israeli conflict and over 90% were killed by fellow Muslims.".

Or you could read my earlier articles on this matter:
Numbers Matter
The vitriol it inspires is downright weird
Lauren Booth - unbiased?
Another story that the BBC won't be covering, preparing instead to cover Israel's wickedness


Breath of the Beast has his own take on the graphics, well worth a look.


So as I have said before, what is so special about the Israel/Palestinian conflict that the BBC have to report every story about it whilst all but ignoring the more serious conflicts in Africa?