The mainstream U.S. media coverage of the killing of the prominent Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in occupied Palestine could have been worse.
The New York Times and the others could have just ignored the fact that she was shot in the head while reporting, almost certainly by the Israeli military. In a powerful interview, this site’s Yumna Patel explains that since 2000, 50 Palestinian journalists have been killed, and the world doesn’t know the names of any of them. And the Times, to its credit, did add a brief profile of Shireen to its main report, explaining that she was well-known in Palestine and across the Arab world for her years of reporting for the Al-Jazeera network. Meanwhile, nearly all of the thousands of Palestinians who the Israeli occupation kills in Gaza and the West Bank remain nameless.
But otherwise the mainstream media fell for the Israeli government’s longtime strategy: react immediately to bad news by putting out false or unproven statements, knowing that the Americans will take the bait with a “both-sides say — who knows what’s true?” story.
Israel’s strategy worked again. Its military said immediately that “Palestinian gunmen” had been in the area, and may/did kill Shireen Abu Akleh. Israel promptly also released a misleading video, which it said implicated the Palestinians. The first U.S. media reports, predictably, fell into the trap.
But the Israeli strategy to cover up the truth ran into trouble immediately. First, two eyewitnesses, fellow Palestinian journalists who were alongside Abu Akleh when she was killed, said the Israeli military had clearly targeted them. Then, an investigator from the respected Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem got to the scene, and immediately further undermined the Israeli version. As Gregg Carlstrom, a Mideast correspondent for the (conservative) Economist magazine, noted on Twitter after reading the B’Tselem report: “Unless Palestinian bullets can turn corners and climb stairs, this [misleading Israeli military video] has nothing to do with her death.”
Carlstrom added in another tweet,
I’ve been to enough of these things (Israeli military operations in occupied Palestine) to say it’s rather hard to mistake a journalist — unarmed, in a blue vest and civilian clothes — for an armed soldier in olive drab. I’ve seen Shireen kitted out in a vest and helmet. Can’t imagine anyone mistaking her for a soldier.
In fairness, the mainstream press does have to continue reporting the Israeli reaction. But let’s say a similar killing had happened in Ukraine: the American media would have quoted the eyewitnesses, cited the human rights report — and put the Russian dishonesty lower in their reports, in a perfunctory sentence that signaled to the audience that you shouldn’t take this seriously.
Instead, the Times, the Washington Post and National Public Radio all continued to give prominent billing to the Israeli version of the story. All three used a framing that continued to implicitly raise doubts; the first sentences from all of them cited “the Al-Jazeera network” and the “Palestine health ministry” as the sources that charged the Israeli military with responsibility for the killing. The implicit subtext is that ‘naturally, her radical Arab employer and the Palestinian Authority will blame Israel.’ The Times put the actual eyewitnesses all the way down in paragraph 10, after first giving Israel ample room to continue muddying. (The Post, to its credit, cited the witnesses in the third paragraph; NPR in paragraph 4.)
Neither the Times nor the Post included the B’Tselem finding anywhere. The online NPR report did include a tweet from the human rights group. (This site has long pointed out how the New York Times in particular ignores B’Tselem’s reports.)
Today’s New York Times coverage continues to promote the Israeli narrative. Here’s one of the latest updates: “The bullet that killed the journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on Wednesday has become the central point of contention between competing efforts by Israelis and Palestinians to investigate who shot her.” The paper’s brief update gives Israel 4 paragraphs to continue muddying the story — and nowhere follows up with either the eyewitnesses or B’Tselem.
Still, the coverage could have been even worse. A firestorm of criticism on social media is forcing the mainstream to at least cover the story in some detail. One encouraging fact seems to stand out: Shireen Abu Akleh was well known, liked and respected, including by her journalistic colleagues, which will help to keep her memory alive.
MSNBC Ayman Moyheldin sitting in for Chris Hayes Wednesday night/May12th did a segment. Made it up on you tube within the hour.
Makes a strong point about how Israel should not be allowed to get away with investigating themselves. We know this report is surprising given the decades of a wall around reporting the facts about the I/P conflict, those killed etc. A tall wall of silence that has been up for decades, starting to crumble a tiny bit
“Armed with Cameras”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qg9pt5Ivd0
Last night I watched the PBS Newshour to see whether they covered this story, and if so, how.
They did cover it, and their coverage was absolutely appalling. But the PBS Newshour, along with the rest of the mainstream media, has been severely self-censoring about Israel for years. As usual, the report was devoid of all context, which is apparently a standard requirement of the Israelis. And the bulk of the report was dominated by pure Israeli PR. The Newshour staff was permitted to slip in a tiny quote from “Breaking the Silence”, and they may have felt that was a great achievement. But it was vague and probably OK’d by the Israeli minder. And in any case it was buried by the bulk of the report.
The Newshour staff is intelligent enough that they MUST know they are being thoroughly dishonest in their reporting about Israel, and matters where Israel is involved, including wars in the Middle East and American elections. For example,
“Forward columnist and Emily’s List leader relate ‘gigantic,’ ‘shocking’ role of Jewish Democratic donors”
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2016/04/forward-columnist-and-emilys-list-leader-relate-gigantic-shocking-role-of-jewish-democratic-donors/
It’s sad to see PBS betraying its viewers, journalism, the Constitution, democracy, and justice.
The media has failed to learn a single thing from their complicit dealings and coordinated propaganda with the Israeli government.
It was nearly a year ago to the day that the IDF used and manipulated the mainstream media into broadcasting that Israel had begun a ground invasion in Gaza, in an attempt to lure Hamas fighters out into the open so that they could pick them off with targeted strikes. The media fell for it, the IDF boasted about it, and a year later they’re pulling the same shit and the media are willfully and unhesitatingly assisting them… again!
No outlet worth its salt would dare post or link to highly suspect, highly edited, unverified video in a foreign language with dubiously translated captions and absolutely devoid of context to substantiate such a wild claim, yet they fell for it hook line and sinker when Israel’s Foreign Ministry (of all fuckin’ branches of government) supplied it.
It was shameful how many mainstream media outlets not just did exactly this, breaking protocol and virtually every rule of journalism in regards to prefacing it by at least saying that the “video has yet to be verified”, but also when it was immediately debunked by B’Tselem, and the Israeli government was forced to backpedal after being caught it their own lies, the mainstream completely and utterly failed to admit to their error or print a single retraction or correction!
It’s disgusting that they almost exclusively and repeatedly seem to do this for one and only one nation on Earth.
VIDEO:
Journalism Under Attack! Israel’s Targeting of Palestinian Journalists with Ramzy Baroud – YouTube
“Journalism Under Attack! Israel’s Targeting of Palestinian Journalists with Ramzy Baroud”
“Today we Deep Dive into Israel’s targeting of Palestinian journalists.
“This morning, veteran Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was shot dead by Israeli forces while reporting for Al Jazeera from a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin, occupied West Bank.
“Eye witnesses say Israeli snipers shot at her and a colleague, Ali al-Samoudi, who was also wounded by a bullet in the back, despite them both wearing press vests and helmets.
“According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), at least 46 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israel since the year 2000 and no one has been held to account.
“Dr. Ramzy Baroud is the founding editor of The Palestine Chronicle and a distinguished author of many books, including his latest work alongside Prof. Ilan Pappé “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders & Intellectuals Speak Out” which can ordered now:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Vision-L…
So far Ayman Moheyldin, Mehdi Hassan, Ali Velshi, and Morning Joe, all on MSNBC, “dared” to cover this. CNN may have done so, but we know how that usually goes. You can almost sense Wolf Blitzer trying hard not to go over that line!