The Morality And Immorality Of Gaza War Reporting
Date
11/14/2023 1:15:53 AM
(MENAFN- Asia Times) Who would want to be a journalist covering the conflict in Gaza? It seems that every day a new accusation of bias surfaces on social media. Live reporting is prone to the dangers of speculation, mistakes and disinformation traps for the unwary.
If you add in the most explosive dateline in the world, then the accusations of bias come thick and fast. On the other hand, Phil Chetwynd , global news director at AFP, a French news agency, says:“Our work has never felt more important.”
In this conflict, most of the dangerous reporting has been done by Palestinian journalists living inside Gaza, with foreign correspondents limited to coverage from inside Israel and the West Bank. To date, 40 journalists are reported to have been killed in the fighting, 35 of them Palestinian.
Jon Donnison , a BBC correspondent, was accused of anti-Israel bias when reporting in the immediate aftermath of the explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital on October 17.
Donnison said that the Israeli military had been contacted for comment and was still investigating:“But it is hard to see what else this could be really given the size of the explosion other than an Israeli air strike or several air strikes.”
Following Israel's denial, the deputy chief executive of BBC News Jonathan Munro said the“language wasn't quite right” but that“at no stage did we actually say it was caused by the Israelis.”
The BBC has also been under fire for not using the word“terrorists” to describe Hamas militants. This long-standing BBC tradition of not labeling one side or the other in a conflict as terrorists, has been condemned in some media and at Westminster but has been rigorously defended by veteran correspondents, including John Simpson :
Embedded with antagonists
A month after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, several of these respected news organizations also came under attack for allegedly being at the locations suspiciously quickly.
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