By Becket Adams
Sunday, November 12, 2023
The coverage in the United States of the war between Israel and Hamas is comically lopsided in the Palestinians’ favor. That much is not in question. But the reasons for the disparity are worth teasing out.
One view holds that a considerable number of reporters and editors stateside are simply anti-Israel, if not outright antisemitic. But a more complicated, less sinister explanation might be that the skewed coverage is simply a product of that paternalistic belief held by so many American newsmen that says it’s their duty to “protect” readers and special-interest groups from news coverage that may feed various -isms and phobias. It’s a savior complex wherein they pull their punches, leaning heavily into ludicrous euphemisms and obscuring facts and reality, because they believe that, in their capacity as information gatekeepers, it’s their responsibility to manage the public’s perceptions and emotions.
It’s patronizing, it’s insulting, and it’s antithetical to the role that journalism is supposed to play in terms of maintaining a well-informed polity. But it’s definitely something major news media do from time to time. We see this constantly in cases where news organizations selectively withhold the race, religion, and sometimes even the name of accused and suspected criminals. We see this when newsrooms become selectively shy about identifying party affiliations in stories involving political scandals. The press is here to make sure you don’t get the wrong impression. This savior approach to journalism seems a more realistic, and charitable, explanation for much of what is wrong with American news coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Journalistic assumptions could be summed up like so: Gaza needs rescuing from a technologically and militarily advanced opponent, and, by God, the U.S. media are here to help! Muslims in America need protection from Islamophobia, and, by God, American journalists and editors are here to help!
Take, for instance, the coverage of the death of Paul Kessler, a Jewish man in Southern California who was killed this week when he was allegedly struck in the head during a clash between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters. Witnesses claim a “verbal altercation broke out between [Kessler] and a young pro-Palestinian protester,” the Israel-based news outlet Ynetnews was the first to report on November 6. “Suddenly, the protester struck the older man in the head with a megaphone he was holding.”
The report added, “The injured man fell to the ground bleeding and was rushed to the hospital. His death was confirmed to have been caused due to a brain hemorrhage. Israelis who were present at the scene described it as ‘a terrifying sight’ and expressed shock that such an incident took place in their neighborhood.”
The Ventura County medical examiner announced Tuesday that an autopsy showed Kessler died from “blunt force head trauma,” and that his death has been listed as a homicide. (Though this designation does not necessarily mean a crime was committed, it does mean that his death “occurred at the hands of another person or the actions of another person contributed to the death,” as the medical examiner explained.) The police also announced that a 50-year-old man was detained and is cooperating with authorities, though he has not been arrested.
But why did Americans learn of Kessler’s death first from a foreign-based newsroom? Where were the New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, and NBC News?
One might suspect that American media were slow to cover the story because they’re sticklers for confirmation, but this idea falls apart when one considers how they’ve comported themselves these past several years. The idea falls apart even further when one considers these same newsgroups aren’t hesitant to repeat allegations that aid the Palestinian cause. Finally, the idea turns into dust completely when one considers how these news groups covered Kessler’s death when they did eventually get around to reporting on it.
“Man dies after hitting head during Israel and Palestinian rallies in California, officials say,” reads NBC News’s headline.
He just happened to hit his head? The article itself mentions that Kessler’s death has been categorized as a homicide. How NBC determined that this detail was not worth mentioning in the headline is anyone’s guess. At the New York Times, a headline read, “Jewish Man Dies After Altercation at Dueling Protests in California.” Say, did something happen at said “altercation,” or did the man have a heart attack or something? At the Associated Press, “Jewish man dies after confrontation during pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations.” Also at the AP, a headline read, “Man involved in confrontation with Jewish protester who died called 911 and cooperated with police.” Each of these reports mentions that Kessler’s death is listed as a homicide, yet, amazingly, not one editor thought it worth mentioning in the headline.
If the purpose of these headlines was to say something without saying much of anything at all, then they succeeded.
Elsewhere, the Washington Post backed itself into a corner this week when it allowed itself to be bullied by junior staffers into retracting a political cartoon critical of Hamas leadership. The cartoon, drawn by Pulitzer winner Michael Ramirez, depicts Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad accusing Israel of attacking civilians, all while Palestinian children are strapped to his body as human body armor. Washington Post staffers revolted, demanding that management do something about a cartoon that commits the sin of representing an objective fact regarding Hamas’s use of human shields in its long-running war against Israel. Management relented.
“The reaction to the image convinced me that I had missed something profound, and divisive, and I regret that,” opinion-page editor David Shipley said in a public mea culpa. “Our section is aimed at finding commonalities, understanding the bonds that hold us together, even in the darkest times.”
He adds, “In this spirit, we have taken down the drawing . . . [and] we will continue to make the section home to a range of views and perspectives, including ones that challenge readers. This is the spirit of opinion journalism, to move imperfectly toward a constructive exchange of ideas at all possible speed, listening and learning along the way.”
What rot.
First, as Reason’s Nick Gillespie rightly notes,
The idea that this cartoon must be removed in the name of social comity or common decency or “the bonds that hold us together” is risible. If this sort of specific critique of Hamas is considered beyond the pale of public discussion by a newspaper that prides itself on speaking truth to power, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong in America. And it’s not going to be fixed by memory-holing newspaper cartoons, even or especially in our “darkest times.”
Second, the Washington Post’s capitulation looks even more cowardly when one considers another political cartoon it published in 2014 that the paper’s management has not seen fit to suppress. That one features a caricature of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu punching a Palestinian baby in the face as an armed Hamas militant looks on unamused. The cartoon even bears the caption, “Israel pounds Hamas targets in Gaza.” It’s the exact same criticism as the one leveled by Ramirez but from the other side!
Yet there was no staff outcry in 2014 for cartoonist Ann Telnaes’s depiction of a suspiciously long-nosed Netanyahu assaulting an infant. There have been no demands from newspaper staff for the cartoon’s removal. The Washington Post has issued no groveling apologies. The cartoon was never removed. In fact, you can still see an animated version of it right now on the Washington Post’s YouTube page.
When you add it all up — the Ramirez cartoon, the slowness to report on Kessler’s death and the general unwillingness to be specific about the circumstances of his demise, and the U.S. press’s rush to report Palestinian falsehoods, including that Israel had leveled a hospital in Gaza, not to mention repeating unverifiable “Gaza Health Ministry” (a.k.a. Hamas) casualty numbers — one gets the distinct impression that American newsrooms have their finger on the scale for Palestinians.
Whether it’s for sinister reasons or out of a misguided understanding of their own role, they’re not serving the public interest.
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