This article originally appeared on WND.com
Guest by post by Bob Unruh
Legacy media reporters across the West are failing the public by refusing to disclose the bias that is coming out in reports regarding Hamas’ terrorism against Israel, and the Middle East democracy’s response, according to a new report.
The problem is that the media, without qualification or explanation, is quoting Hamas’ narrative on what is developing in Gaza.
According to an Investigative Project on Terrorism, one problem was with CNN.
That organization said, “As Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip entered its 17th day today, the death toll climbed to over 5,085, according to latest reports.”
But the “source” was the “Palestinian Information Centre,” which likely gets its messaging from Hamas.
And then from the BBC, which said, “More than 5,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in air and artillery strikes carried out by the Israeli military in response, according to Gaza’s health ministry.”
Similar claims came from the Washington Post, CNBC, The Guardian, Euronews and the New York Times, the report said.
“It’s also worth noting that none of the [examples] remind readers about the general unreliability of information coming out of Gaza because it is so tightly controlled by a ruthless terrorist organization that swiftly prevents reporters from contradicting its narrative,” the report informed.
The report notes that the ethical code of the International Federation of Journalists (representing 600,000 media professionals from 140 countries) “specifically requires that ‘urgency…in the dissemination of information shall not take precedence over the verification of facts, sources…’”
But reporters in those legacy media organizations haven’t been doing that, the report said.
They, instead, “often fail to remind readers of several crucial facts relevant to the reliability of information sourced from Hamas.”
Why?
“There are no checks and balances on Hamas from any governmental or political institution. It is a de facto Islamist dictatorship with a tyrannical rule akin to that of the Taliban,” the report said.
Further, “There is no freedom of speech or assembly under Hamas in Gaza.”
Previously, Human Rights Watch concluded: “…the PA and Hamas use detention to punish critics and deter them and others from further activism. In detention, security forces routinely taunt, threaten, beat, and force detainees into painful stress positions for hours at a time.”
In 2019 there were protests in Gaza, and Hamas’ security forces “moved quickly to quell the protests that brought hundreds of people into the streets in at least four camps and towns across Gaza this month to demand better living conditions. The security forces beat demonstrators, raided homes and detained organizers, journalists and participants, about 1,000 people in all.”
And, the report said, “There is no freedom of the press in Gaza.”
In fact, it said journalists’ families have been threatened when there appear “stories unfavorable to Hamas.”
But the downfall to the reporting is that, “Hamas’ control of the Western press is particularly relevant when it comes to reporting anything contrary to Hamas’ preferred narrative in any conflict with Israel, given how much the Western media obsesses over that conflict,” the report said.
The red flags are waving because of the “stark contrast to the information provided by Israeli government officials, hospitals, and other sources.”
One recent example was Hamas’ swift claim of 500 dead from an explosion at a Gaza hospital.
Turns out it was a Hamas rocket, and it hit a parking lot, not the hospital.
But it was used by Hamas to “turn global public opinion against Israel,” the report said.
And Al Jazeera, Associated Press and Time bought into the lie.
“None of these mentioned that the casualty count couldn’t be independently verified, or that initial death tolls reported from a war zone are notoriously unreliable – especially when coming from a cynical source like Hamas,” the analysis said.
Copyright 2023 WND News Center
