Do you condemn Hamas? Do you condemn Hamas? Do you condemn Hamas? It seems to be the only question reporters in the West are capable of asking, especially when interviewing any Palestinian representative.
From Husam Zomlot to Bassem Youssef, there is no reprieve from the demands to answer a question contrived simply to justify the actions of the Israeli government. If the question is not answered with a swift denouncement of Hamas, interviewees risk being labeled as terrorist sympathizers, a category into which Arabs and Muslims have been shoved for decades.
To reply to such a repetitive question with a simple affirmative neglects the complexity of the issue. There is no justification for the loss of a human life, as is acknowledged by those interviewees. They will point out, however, that the attack by Hamas did not occur in a vacuum. It was a result of decades of violent occupation by the state of Israel. However, that does not seem to fit the narrative of Israel or the U.S., and it is certainly not the answer journalists are probing for.
How often are Israeli officials or citizens asked if they condemn the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF? It appears not often, especially when compared to their Palestinian counterparts. This is but a small example of the way Western media presents a clear bias in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
It is important to note that household media names like BBC or CNN have very few reporters with on-the-ground access to Gaza, as it has been sealed by Israel. Much of the information that is being reported on by these outlets is provided by the Israeli government or unreliable Middle Eastern sources such as Al Jazeera, which has historically expressed anti-semitism.
The absence of access to reliable information causes the spread of misinformation and potentially disinformation, something journalists should be actively combating. However, it appears that they are failing to do this. For instance, CNN reported live that Hamas had beheaded 40 babies, which President Biden claimed that he had seen photos of. The original source was Israeli soldiers, who then refused to back the claim with evidence. That CNN article has been removed, and the anchor had to apologize. The White House also had to rescind the claim.
The notion that Hamas beheaded 40 babies, though unsupported, is a falsity that still persists because of the missteps made by CNN and the White House. The videos of the conference Biden held to announce his false eyewitness account are now unavailable unless shown by other news sources. The interview between BBC reporter Lewis Vaughn Jones and Husam Zomlot that came under fire for Jones’ insistence on Zomlot’s condemnation of Hamas is difficult to find as well. It is important to remove inaccurate information from a platform, but with almost no acknowledgment of the mistakes, it feels like an attempt to erase the evidence of their subjectivity.
The general public is no longer solely reliant on mass media for news and people have been able to utilize the power of social media to connect and share information, as there are Palestinian and Middle Eastern reporters in Gaza risking their lives to post footage on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), relaying the carnage from the inside.
This hardly makes social media a perfect resolution, as it too is heavily responsible for the spread of misinformation and propaganda. However, it enables the productive sharing of first-person footage that news coverage is failing to do. The shortcomings and harm produced by Western news’ subjectiveness are not going unnoticed either. Journalists around the world are calling this to attention and demanding better from their field.
In the last few decades, trust in the media has depleted significantly, and the intent to polarize viewers has utterly consumed the content and the integrity of journalism. Regardless, it is still unnerving to witness the propagation of the West’s dehumanizing narrative of Palestinians and its genocidal agenda by those who are supposed to be the preeminent method of surveillance for the people.
It is truly loathsome and alarming to observe my field debase itself. I truly implore my fellow student journalists, who are the future of reporting, to reflect on whether they want to be a watchdog or a leashed one.
Kirsten Abbey is a junior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Kirsten know by emailing her at ka239920@ohio.edu.
