MCD Interviews Abu-Fadil on Intn’l Media’s Double Standard Gaza Coverage

International (mostly Western) media have exercised double standards in covering Israel’s war on Gaza following an attack by Hamas militants, Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil told Monte Carlo Douwaliya radio.

The media have dehumanized Palestinians and minimized the harm to which they’ve been subjected by Israel’s onslaught whereas these same outlets have exhibited sympathy towards Ukranians’ conflict with Russia, she said as the Gaza war began to unfold.

“It’s hard to ignore the blind bias favoring Israel and deafening transgressions in the media,” she said. “I’ve been in the media sphere for over 50 years and have never seen such disgraceful coverage as I’ve witnessed since the outbreak of the “Aqsa Flood” operation by Hamas and the war Israel has launched on Gaza.”

She cited, among other examples, the BBC’s reference to Hamas having “killed” 700 Israelis at a music festival in its October 7 attack whereas when Israel launched its offensive on Gaza, Palestinians “died,” as if they had collectively succumbed to a heart attack.

This reflects the higher value the BBC places on Israelis than on Palestinians, Abu-Fadil noted, adding that it was shameful.

In another example, she said CNN deleted a controversial video segment in which an Israeli army spokesman claimed during a field trip accompanying foreign journalists to the Rantissi Children’s Hospital in Gaza that Hamas had used the facility to detain Israeli hostages it had captured in its October attack.

The spokesman pointed to a handwritten paper in Arabic saying it listed the names of terrorists with their shifts in guarding the hostages, when it was clear to anybody with knowledge of the language it was a simple calendar of the days of the week.

“One of the most enthusiastic journalists eager to cover this misleading news was CNN’s international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson, who doesn’t read Arabic, so just like a parrot he repeated the Israeli tune in all ignorance and dishonesty,” Abu-Fadil said. “CNN had to delete this segment from its YouTube channel and official website and justified it by saying the report was long.”

It was a flimsy and unconvincing excuse, Abu-Fadil added.

You can hear the entire interview here [https://www.mc-doualiya.com/%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%AC/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%82%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9/20231129-%D8%B3%D9%82%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B2%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AA%D8%BA%D8%B7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AD%D8%B1%D8%A8-%D8%A5%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%8A%D9%84-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%BA%D8%B2%D8%A9 ].

Deadlines, Competition Shouldn’t Precede Media Ethics: Abu-Fadil

Use and abuse of social media has become the “new battleground” in conflict coverage with Gaza being a recent example.

“A click is often faster than legwork to obtain information and shape it into good story form,” said Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil. “I believe the same rules apply to social media as legacy media in terms of coverage and good journalism, albeit in more condensed form and at greater speed: accuracy, balance, fairness, ethics.”

She discussed the implications in “Information wars: how journalists navigated social media in the Israel-Palestine conflict,” for the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

Screen shot of WAN-IFRA's Information Wars

Screen shot of WAN-IFRA’s Information Wars

Read more from Abu-Fadil on emotions, comments, images and videos used by warring factions via social media in a blogpost by Lucy Dean. A [PDF] version is available here.

MU Director Analyzes U.S. Media’s Gaza Coverage

America’s NBC News buckled under pressure when it pulled correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin from Gaza after he tweeted about witnessing Israel’s killing of four boys on a beach, Media Unlimited director Magda Abu-Fadil told Al Arabiya English.

Ayman Mohyeldin (NBC-Al Arabiya)

Ayman Mohyeldin (NBC-Al Arabiya)

She said the Arab-American Mohyeldin, who was later reassigned to cover Gaza, acted professionally and that his reporting of the conflict pitting Israel against mostly unarmed civilians in the besieged and densely-populated strip accurately reflected events on the ground.

The comments can be downloaded here [PDF].

In earlier remarks also to Al Arabiya English, Abu-Fadil scrutinized the New York Times’  coverage of the war on Gaza saying she was surprised to learn the paper had been attacked for being anti-Israel.

She cautioned that media evaluation requires sustained monitoring and that lone tweets or occasional op-eds don’t determine a newspaper’s slant.

The comments can be downloaded here [PDF].