ABSTRACT
The intifada was unique to a particular time and a particular place, but lessons with wider implications and applications can be drawn from it. As the Chernobyl disaster and the intifada showed, nations can deny the press access to the scene of an event but they no longer can prevent their own residents and those of other countries from gaining knowledge of the event through fax, radio, and satellite dishes. Throughout the intifada, the press was hardly a mirror. With the collapse, Israeli officials and apologists reacted like wounded animals, lashing out at the press indiscriminately but doing very little to ameliorate their own situation. In terms of media coverage, the Palestinians blundered into a short-term success of quite remarkable proportions and then marched boldly into failure. The media-reality therapy among political leaders, which is going on around the globe, undoubtedly will pose new challenges for journalists.
