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Fairness of Israel-Hamas Coverage in Dispute

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Each Side Sees a Tilt Toward the Other
Juan Williams Calls Biden ‘Third Black President’
Diving into Financial Plight of Black Farmers
Athletic Lifts Up Parker’s Focus on Black Baseball
223 Journalists Have Left Ortega’s Nicaragua
Letter: Peace Seekers Don’t Deserve Blowback

Short Takes: Asian American Journalists Association; Zuri Berry; Felicia Somnez; former sports director’s father-daughter kidney transplant; John H. Johnson statue; Ebony-Lionsgate partnership; Miguel Fernandez; from being on TV to selling TVs and back again; Latin American Conference on Diversity in Journalism, DRC reporter accused of criminal defamation; Nigeria praises importance of the press.

Homepage photo: The Israeli military’s ongoing campaign in Gaza has resulted in numerous civilian casualties, with at least seven journalists killed since the beginning of the operation. (Credit: BNN network)

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Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah, killed by shelling in Alma al Shaab in southern Lebanon, is the latest fatality of a media worker in the Israel-Hamas conflict. (Credit: YouTube)

Each Side Sees a Tilt Toward the Other

As the expansion of the war between Israel and Hamas begins, and another journalist is counted among the dead, critics are questioning the impartiality of the Western media. The loudest voices are coming from those who say Palestinian suffering has historically not been given its due, but others criticize the media’s failure to use even harsher language to describe Hamas.

“Last weekend’s massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas is a war crime that merits clear international condemnation,” reads a fund-raising email from the nonprofit, left-leaning investigative outlet The Intercept. “Israel’s response — a full-scale siege of 2.2 million Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip — may well be an act of genocide. But you won’t read that in nearly any other U.S. news outlet.”

“The loss of human life is always tragic,” wrote Bishara A. Bahbah, a columnist for Arab America. “A lost life could be a father, mother, son, or daughter. However, a life is a life. Unfortunately, the United States and many Western people value human lives differently. If it was that of a Palestinian, it is usually described as that of a terrorist or simply referred to as a number. If it is that of an Israeli, then the family’s name, age, and picture are plastered worldwide.”

On NPR Friday, Hanan Ashrawi a former Palestinian peace negotiator based in Ramallah, a Palestinian city on the West Bank, told co-host Leila Fadel that one can’t use Hamas atrocities “to malign a whole nation. There’s a predisposition, and it’s a racist predisposition to judge Palestinians, to label them. These are, you know, vicious, inhuman, human animals and so on. It — to me, that was extremely painful, a major smear campaign against the Palestinians as a whole. And to justify what is going on in Gaza, which is close to genocide, this is unacceptable, especially by people who are in position to take decisions.”

The National Writers Union declared Friday, “Too much of the mainstream press has leaned on unconfirmed information and the representations of Israeli military and government officials, to the exclusion of other sources. We know from past experience, including the mistakes of the post-9/11 period, the role that the media can play in manufacturing consent for unjust war.”

Yet Amy Spiro of the Times of Israel reported, “In a briefing to foreign reporters on Thursday, President Isaac Herzog lamented the international media’s inability over the years to see Hamas as a murderous terrorist group bent on killing Israelis, instead continually criticizing Israel’s responses.”

Spiro continued, Israel’s city of ” ‘Sderot has been attacked time and again for years and years, and suffered thousands and thousands of missiles,’ Herzog told a gathering of international journalists at his residence. ‘And the world kept on repeating the slogan “disproportionate Israeli response,” ‘ the president said, referring to criticism of Israeli strikes on Gaza following Hamas rocket attacks.

“Every time this havoc was inflicted on these villages and towns, we were told ‘disproportionate response,’ he added. ‘I’m asking myself whether the international community and the international media is now understanding what a false interpretation of the reality that was. Do they now believe us that we are faced with one of the most cruel enemies on earth?”

In Britain, BBC Derby sports reporter Noah Abrahams resigned, the BBC reported Thursday, because the organization would not refer to Hamas as “terrorists.”

BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson had written Wednesday, “Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn — who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

Colleagues of slain Palestinian journalists at their funeral Tuesday in Gaza. (Credit: Mohammed al-Hajjar, Middle East Eye)

“We regularly point out that the British and other governments have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but that’s their business. We also run interviews with guests and quote contributors who describe Hamas as terrorists.”

Adding to the confusion is the disinformation spread on social-media platforms. “The European Commission on Thursday made a formal, legally binding request for information from Elon Musk’s social media platform X over its handling of hate speech, misinformation and violent terrorist content related to the Israel-Hamas war,” Kelvin Chan reported for the Associated Press.

“Representatives for X did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The company’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, said earlier that the site has removed hundreds of Hamas-linked accounts and taken down or labeled tens of thousands of pieces of content since the militant group’s attack on Israel. One social media expert called the actions ‘a drop in the bucket.’ ”

Wired identified video game footage passed off as Hamas attacks, a three-year-old video from the Syrian civil war made to look like it was taken this weekend, and images of fireworks in Algeria being shared as Israeli strikes on Hamas, the Voice of America wrote.

In a nationally televised address late Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas as the army prepares for an expected ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, according to a separate AP dispatch. “Israel has been pounding Gaza with airstrikes since Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented cross-border attack last Saturday, killing over 1,300 people in a brutal rampage. Early Friday, Israel ordered half of Gaza’s population to evacuate their homes.”

That’s in Israel’s south. But at its northern border with Lebanon, a journalist preparing for an expansion of the war there, where the more powerful Hezbollah holds sway, another journalist was killed. “An Israeli shell landed in a gathering of international journalists covering clashes on the border in south Lebanon, killing a Reuters videographer and leaving six other journalists injured,” the AP’s Hassan Ammar reported Friday.

“An Associated Press photographer at the scene saw the body of Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah (pictured) and the six who were wounded, some of whom were rushed to hospitals in ambulances. Images from the scene showed a charred car. . . .”

Tamara Qiblawi wrote Friday for CNN, “Any conflict erupting here could pour fuel on the raging fire of the current Hamas-Israel war by drawing in the most powerful paramilitary group in the Middle East: Iran-backed Hezbollah.”

On Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that at least 10 journalists had been killed in Gaza and Israel since the previous Saturday, Oct. 7.

Referring to the Gaza Strip, the International Federation of Journalists Friday urged that the “United Nations and in particular UNESC protect these journalists and their rights and maintain their access to the internet and other communications so they can inform the local Palestinian population and the world about the war in Gaza.”

The United Nations said it considers it “impossible” for residents to follow Israel’s orders that half of Gaza’s population evacuate their homes within 24 hours. Such a movement could not take place without devastating humanitarian consequences, U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said. He appealed for the order to be rescinded.

According to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, no foreign journalists currently report from the Gaza Strip or have access to enter the region to cover this conflict. Only Palestinian journalists can report on what is happening.

“In the past, Haaretz has worked with freelance reporters in Gaza, who file stories under pseudonyms,” Esther Solomon, the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, told CNN’s Oliver Darcy. “But Solomon said she doesn’t believe the odds of doing so at the moment are very good. And that is a significant problem, she said, because ‘there is no complete coverage of a war unless you have access to credible information on the Palestinian side as well,’ ” Darcy wrote.

Solomon also told Darcy, “One Haaretz journalist showed up the other day in an area that the militants were, but not one of the hot beds, and he had to run out of his car and lie on the ground and they shot up his car along with two others. So you can take precautions, but what can you do? This is an extraordinarily dangerous time. Sometimes, it’s not intentional, you are in the line of fire.”

BBC Arabic’s reporter Adnan Elbursh and his team discover their own neighbors, relatives and friends are among those injured and killed. (Credit: BBC)

The situation has become personal for journalists in other ways, big and small. The BBC reported Thursday, “Gaza City’s main hospital, Al Shifa, is at breaking point, with hundreds of seriously injured people filling the hallways and bodies lying in corridors and outside, as staff work under immense pressure.

“Inside, BBC Arabic’s reporter Adnan Elbursh and his team discover their own neighbours, relatives and friends are among those injured and killed.”

Back in the United States, Samira Nasr (pictured), whose father is Lebanese and whose mother is Trinidadian, apologized for writing on her Instagram Stories Tuesday night: “Cutting off water and electricity to 2.2 million civilians…This is the most inhuman thing I’ve seen in my life.” The post prompted an outcry from those who saw it as downplaying the atrocities committed by Hamas, Alexandra Steigrad reported Wednesday for the New York Post.

Nasr’s 2020 appointment as editor of the U.S. edition of Harper’s Bazaar made her the first woman of color to hold the top job at the then-153-year-old fashion publication.

Meanwhile, the debate over coverage continues.

CNN correspondent Nic Robertson went into horrifying detail to confirm the carnage Hamas militants left behind at the Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a small village near the Gaza border, Ken Meyer reported Tuesday for Mediaite.

“Israeli forces were able to liberate the town after two days of fighting Hamas gunmen, but in a video Robertson posted to CNN’s Instagram account, he explained there were ‘bodies everywhere,’ some of which were decapitated.

“ ‘There were so many murdered members of this Kibbutz,’ he said. ‘Men, women, children, hands bound, shot, executed, heads cut.’ ” There was no need for disinformation.

Meyer continued, “Robertson later joined Anderson Cooper on air to share a talk he had with Major General Itai Veruv, who invited journalists into the kibbutz to see the atrocities for themselves:

” ‘What I saw, hundreds of terrorists in full armor, full gear, with all the equipment and all the ability make a massacre. Go from apartment to apartment, from room to room and kill babies, mothers, fathers in their bedrooms… They locked themselves in the protection rooms of their houses and people were out with their children and they killed them. They killed babies in front of their parents, and then killed the parents. They killed parents and we found babies between the dogs and the family killed before him. They cut heads of the people. . . .

“French reporter Margot Haddat posted a picture she independently verified, displaying the massacred while saying in a translation, ‘It’s so macabre that no one wanted to reveal it until they had 100 percent confirmation.’ “

Jake Tapper says, “This is a thousand Israelis, most of them civilians, being targeted and slaughtered and there’s no context that justifies that. There just isn’t.” (Credit: Mediaite/YouTube)

On Thursday, CNN anchor Jake Tapper responded to questions about providing the larger context.

Tapper told Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin and Diana Falzone, “There is a context to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But I don’t think there’s any justification for killing babies and raping women. There are rules of war. And targeting civilian populations with war crimes are not part of that. Now, people can say, well, the Israelis do this or the Israelis do that. And I certainly ask tough questions of Israelis. I can point people to those interviews if they want, but that’s not the point. This isn’t a playground argument. This is a thousand Israelis, most of them civilians, being targeted and slaughtered and there’s no context that justifies that. There just isn’t.

“I’m all for historical context in terms of coverage of a larger war. But I don’t think when bodies are still warm, in the most horrific act of violence against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, I think that stepping back at that moment, I think you run the risk of seeming as if you are trying to justify something that I am guessing nobody was actually trying to justify. All acts of violence against civilians need to be covered in a very, very sensitive way to the civilians. There’s always going to be time for context in terms of larger issues.

“But like one of the things that is not helpful is to blame civilians for acts of their government. I mean, there was plenty of time weeks and months after 9/11 to talk about the United States and its role in the world. But that never justified anything that happened to the innocent people killed on 9/11. It might have been relevant in some geopolitical way for a discussion far, far down the road. It certainly was not something that anybody wanted to talk about on September 12th.”

Juan Williams Calls Biden ‘Third Black President’

Taking a cue from novelist Toni Morrison’s designation of Bill Clinton 25 years ago as “our first Black president,” commentator Juan Williams is calling Joe Biden our third, “by Morrison’s standard.” Being third takes into account the actual first Black president, Barack Obama. (Photo: Williams and Biden, credit: Facebook)

Ariel Zilber reported Thursday in the New York Post that Williams “is taking heat on social media” for the comparison, made in a column Monday for The Hill.

Williams wrote that Biden “can talk about naming the first Black secretary of defense, former General Lloyd J. Austin. He also selected Charles Q. Brown, an Air Force General, as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Biden also stripped confederate names from military bases.

“And in all the negotiations over the debt ceiling, Biden put his trust in a Black woman, Shalanda Young, Biden’s director of the Office of Management and Budget and the first Black person in that job.

“Apart from elevating Black people, Biden’s record includes real help for Black America:

“Biden has achieved the lowest Black unemployment rate on record. He lowered the cost of prescription drugs and hearing aids; he has the faster rate of creation of Black-owned small business in the last 25 years; he can point to an increase in Black enrollment in government-sponsored health care plans and a double-digit reduction in Black child poverty.

“Last week he cut $9 billion more in student loan debt. He has fought to cut student loan burdens which disproportionately weigh on low-income students and a large share of Black students.

“Biden failed to get past GOP obstruction on police reform and voter suppression. But he took on Republican standing in the way of new laws to stop voter suppression. He bluntly asked them if they ‘want to be on the side of Dr. [Martin Luther] King or George Wallace?’

“Biden has lived up to the pledge he made on the night when he declared victory in the presidential election. Standing next to [Vice President Kamala] Harris he told Black voters: ‘You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours.’ . . . “

Rancher Nate Bradford Jr. “Black farmers and ranchers, it’s a dying deal,” Bradford says. The industry has changed so much that the “only ones who gonna survive now is people who are big operations.” (Credit: April Simpson/Center for Public Integrity)

Diving into Financial Plight of Black Farmers

“Black farmers and cattle ranchers are a dwindling lot, living on less land and battered by financial hardships and uncertainties that place a heavier burden on them than on their white counterparts,” April Simpson wrote Oct. 3 for the Center for Public Integrity.

The subhead noted that Black farmers are “living on less land and carrying heavier financial burdens than white farmers. The USDA, once part of the problem, wants to turn things around.”

Simpson wrote, “One study found that Black farmers lost $326 billion in land — and wealth — between 1920 and 1997 alone. Today’s Black-owned farms are smaller and earn less than farms owned by white people.”

Describing “Dancing with the Devil,” an accompanying podcast about Black farmer Nate Bradford Jr., the Center says, “This year, we follow Bradford’s fight to survive against the long, documented history of government discrimination against Black farmers. New episodes dropping every Tuesday in October 2023.”

Rob Parker, at right, with fellow sports journalists at the summer’s National Association of Black Journalists convention in Birmingham, Ala. Parker was inducted into the NABJ Hall of Fame. (Credit: X)

Athletic Lifts Up Parker’s Focus on Black Baseball

“Rob Parker has accomplished a lot in a journalism career that has nearly covered four decades. He’s been on television, currently hosts a national radio show and has been a columnist read nationwide. He also was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Hall of Fame in August,” Jason Jones wrote Tuesday for The Athletic.

“But that’s not why Parker beams with pride these days. He’s all smiles about his website, MLBbro.com, and what it’s doing for young journalists, Black and Brown baseball players and fans. Parker started the site in 2021, and it partnered with Major League Baseball this season to have its content shared by the league.

“MLBbro follows MLB’s minority players from the past and present while also identifying up-and-coming prospects. In turn, MLBbro staffers have appeared on MLB television and have received help and career development from the league — which has no editorial control over the content on the website.

“ ‘It’s about the staff and giving these younger people opportunities,’ Parker said. ‘I mentor a lot of people in the business, but this is by far the greatest thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve had some great jobs, great opportunities, high-profile gigs. This is the best.’

“MLBbro staffers are credentialed across the league, including the postseason. The mission is simple: ‘We’re just trying to give players a voice and a platform,’ said Parker, who has been seen, read and/or heard on ESPN, Fox Sports and several other media outlets. ‘And the response from them has been tremendous.’

“MLBbro’s success isn’t just about views on the site. It also is about building the generation of young minority baseball journalists and serving a community of players who often do not see journalists of color consistently.

“What started as a staff of 14 has grown to more than 60, and Parker couldn’t be more pleased. The growth has given opportunities to young journalists who are interested in baseball but might have been unfamiliar with getting involved in covering the sport. . . .”

Riot police prevent journalists from carrying out coverage in 2021. (Credit: Confidencial)

223 Journalists Have Left Ortega’s Nicaragua

“At least 223 Nicaraguan journalists have left Nicaragua for security reasons or have been banished since April 2018,” when demonstrations against Daniel Ortega’s regime broke out, the international EFE news agency reported Tuesday.

The news agency cited a report by the regional network Voces del Sur and the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy,

“The report, titled ‘Defamation, accusations and use of stigmatizing language: the “opaque voice” of government spokespersons against independent journalism in Nicaragua,’ states that at least six communications professionals were forced into exile between July and September 2023, and two others were banned from entering the country.”

The analysis pointed out that “the few journalists who continue to work in the country are in many cases expelled from covering events by police officers, while their counterparts from official media outlets are guaranteed the best angles for taking photographs and access to statements.”

Nicaragua ranks 158 of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index.

Also, “for the first time in Nicaragua’s history, the small nation of 6.5 million is a major contributor to the mass of people trekking to the U.S. southern border, having been displaced by violence, repression and poverty,” Alfonso Flores Bermúdez and Frances Robles reported in December for The New York Times.

Short Takes

For those with a similar struggle as Brandon Roddy in the news industry, Roddy has this advice: “Learn how to do everything. You might learn how to do something and find out that you enjoy doing that more than the job you thought you wanted.” (Credit: Brandon Roddy)

Letter: Peace Seekers Don’t Deserve Blowback

To the editor:

The horrific acts of violence and inhumanity by Hamas against Israeli civilians must be condemned by any and all who value the sanctity of human life. Unfortunately for far too many people, the pursuit of vengeance is championed instead.

Apparently it is wrong to seek peace and the end of violence in Israel. To conflate every Palestinian as a supporter of Hamas is an acceptable narrative in far too many American media platforms.

When one dares to seek peace and the end of violence in Israel and offers up a narrative and opinion not reflective of the majority of politicians and media talking heads, one immediately becomes a candidate for cancel culture and vicious attacks on one’s character.

I refuse to surrender my humanity and respect for all life; rather, I stand for the pursuit of peace and the dignity of all lives without any reservations or retreat.

Greg Thrasher

Director

Plane Ideas

Oct. 12, 2023

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Richard Prince’s Journal-isms originates from Washington. It began in print before most of us knew what the internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a “column.” Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity. Send tips, comments and concerns to Richard Prince at journal-isms+owner@groups.io

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