Zen wisdom tells us that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. Yet it’s easy to fall into the illusion that when we see news about the Gaza war, we’re really seeing the war.

We are not.

What we do routinely see is reporting that’s as different from the actual war as a pointed finger is from the moon.

The media words and images reach us light years away from what it’s actually like to be in a war zone. The experience of consuming news from afar could hardly be more different. And if we hold beliefs or unconscious notions that media outlets are conveying war’s realities, that only ends up obscuring those realities all the more.

Inherent limitations on what journalism can convey are compounded by media biases. In-depth content analysis by the Intercept found that coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”

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What is most profoundly important about war in Gaza — what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized — has remained almost invisible for the U.S. public. There is extensive coverage, most of it superficial and repetitious, as rising death........

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