AGAINST THE CURRENT: By Steven Cowan

The New Zealand government has joined 27 other countries calling for an “immediate end” to the war in Gaza. The joint statement says  “the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths”.

It goes on to say that the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.

But many of the countries that have signed this statement stand condemned for actively enabling Israel to pursue its genocidal assault on Gaza. Countries like Britain, Canada and Australia, continue to supply Israel with arms, have continued to trade with Israel, and have turned a blind eye to the atrocities and war crimes Israel continues to commit in Gaza.

• READ MORE: NZ and allies condemn ‘inhumane’, ‘horrifying’ killings in Gaza and ‘drip feeding’ of aid
• At least 65 killed in Gaza attacks as Israel sends tanks into Deir el-Balah
• UK, France and 23 other nations demand Israel’s war on Gaza ‘must end now’
• PSNA calls on NZ to urgently condemn Israeli weaponisation of starvation
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

It’s more than ironic that while Western countries like Britain and New Zealand are calling for an end to the war in Gaza, they continue to be hostile toward the anti-war protest movements in their own countries.

The British government recently classified the protest group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” group.

In New Zealand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, has denounced pro-Palestine protesters as “left wing fascists” and “communist, fascist and anti-democratic losers”. He has pushed back against the growing demands that the New Zealand government take direct action against Israel, including the cutting of all diplomatic ties.

The New Zealand government, which contains a number of Zionists within its cabinet, including Act leader David Seymour and co-leader Brooke van Velden, will be more than comfortable with a statement that proposes to do nothing.

‘Statement lacks leadership’
Its call for an end to the war is empty rhetoric, and which Israel will duly ignore — as it has ignored other calls for its genocidal war to end.  As Amnesty International has said, ‘the statement lacks any resolve, leadership, or action to help end the genocide in Gaza.’

New Zealand has declined to join The Hague Group alliance of countries that recently met in Colombia.

It announced six immediate steps it would be taking against Israel. But since The Hague Group has already been attacked by the United States, it’s never been likely that New Zealand would join it.

The National-led coalition government has surrendered New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in favour of supporting the interests of a declining American Empire.

Republished from Steven Cowan’s blog Against The Current with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“If words shape our consciousness, then the media holds the keys to minds.”

This sentence is not merely a metaphor, but a reality we live daily in the coverage of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, where the crimes of the occupation are turned into “acts of violence”, the siege targeting civilians into “security measures”, and the legitimate resistance into “terrorist acts”.

This linguistic distortion is not innocent; it is part of a “systematic mechanism” practised by major Western media outlets, through which they perpetuate a false image of a “conflict between two equal sides”, ignoring the fact that one is an occupier armed with the latest military technology, and the other is a people besieged in their land for decades.

Here, the ethical question becomes urgent: how does the media shift from conveying truth to becoming a tool for justifying oppression?

• READ MORE: Silencing the messenger: Israel kills journalists, while the West merely censors them – David Robie

Western media institutions promote a colonial narrative that reproduces the discourse of Israeli superiority, using linguistic and legal mechanisms to justify genocide.

But the rise of global awareness through social media platforms and documentaries like We Are Not Numbers, produced by youth in Gaza, exposes this bias and brings the Palestinian narrative back to the forefront.

Selective coverage . . .  when injustice becomes an opinion
“Terrorism”, “self-defence”, “conflict” . . . are all terms that place the responsibility for violence on Palestinians while presenting Israel as the perpetual victim. This linguistic shift contradicts international law, which considers settlements a war crime (according to Article 8 of the Rome Statute), yet most reports avoid even describing the West Bank as “occupied territory”.

More dangerously, the issue is reduced to “violent events” without mentioning their contexts: how can the Palestinian people’s resistance be understood without addressing 75 years of displacement and the siege of Gaza since 2007? The media is like someone commenting on the flames without mentioning who ignited them.

The Western media coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza represents a blatant model of systematic bias that reproduces the Israeli narrative and justifies war crimes through precise linguistic and media mechanisms. Below is a breakdown of the most prominent practices:

Stripping historical context and portraying Palestinians as aggressor

Ignoring the occupation: Media outlets like the BBC and The New York Times ignored the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories since 1948 and focused on the 7 October 2023 attack as an isolated event, without linking it to the daily oppression such as home demolitions and arrests in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Misleading terms: The war has often been described as a “conflict between Israel and Hamas”, while Gaza is considered the largest open-air prison in the world under Israeli siege since 2007. Example: The Economist described Hamas’s attacks as “bloody”, while Israeli attacks were called “military operations”.

Dehumanising Palestinians
Language of abstraction: The BBC used terms like “died” for Palestinians versus “killed” for Israelis, according to a quantitative study by The Intercept, weakening sympathy for Palestinian victims.

Victim portrayal: While Israeli death reports included names and family ties (like “mother” or “grandmother”), Palestinians were shown as anonymous numbers, as seen in the coverage of Le Monde and Le Figaro.

Israeli political rhetoric: Media outlets reported statements by Israeli leaders such as dismissed defence minister Yoav Gallant, who described Palestinians as “human animals”, and Benjamin Netanyahu, who called them “children of darkness”, without critically analysing this rhetoric that strips them of their humanity.

Distorting resistance and linking it to terrorism
Misleading comparisons: The October 7 attack was compared to “9/11” and described as a “terrorist attack” in The Washington Post and CNN, reinforcing the “war on terror” narrative and justifying Israel’s excessive response.

Fake news: Papers like The Sun and Daily Mail promoted the story of “beheaded Israeli babies” without evidence, a story even adopted by US president Joe Biden, only to be disproven later by videos showing Hamas’ humane treatment of captives.

Selective coverage and suppression of the Palestinian narrative
Silencing journalists: Journalists such as Zahraa Al-Akhras (Global News) and Bassam Bounni (BBC) were dismissed for criticising Israel or supporting Palestine, while others were pressured to adopt the Israeli narrative.

Defaming Palestinian institutions: The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal claimed the Palestinian death toll figures were “exaggerated”, ignoring UN and human rights organisations’ reports that confirmed their accuracy.

Manipulating legal and ethical terms
Denying war crimes: Deutsche Welle stated that Israeli attacks are “not considered war crimes”, despite the destruction of hospitals and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians.

Legal misinformation: The BBC referred to Israeli settlements in the West Bank as “disputed territories”, despite the UN declaring them illegal.

The Israeli military joins settlers in attacks because terrorizing Palestinians is state policy. But Western media doesn’t report it that way.

This is what decades of occupation looks like. pic.twitter.com/PwHxad4vCV

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) July 18, 2025

Double standards in conflict coverage
Comparison with Ukraine: Western media linked support for Ukraine and Israel as “victims of aggression”, while ignoring that Israel is an occupying power under international law. Terminology shifted immediately: “invasion”, “war crimes”, “occupation” were used for Ukraine but omitted when speaking of Palestine.

According to a 2022 study by the Arab Media Monitoring Project, 90 percent of Western reports on Ukraine used language blaming Russia for the violence, compared to only 30 percent in the Palestinian case.

This contradiction exposes the underlying “racist bias”: how is killing in Europe called “genocide”, while in Gaza it is termed a “complicated conflict”? The answer lies in the statement of journalist Mika Brzezinski: “The only red line in Western media is criticising Israel.”

False neutrality: Sky News claimed it “could not verify” the Baptist Hospital massacre, despite video documentation, yet quickly adopted the Israeli narrative.

Consequences: legitimising genocide and marginalising Palestinian rights
Western media practices have contributed to normalising Israeli violence by portraying it as “legitimate defence”, while resistance is labelled as “terrorism.”

Deepening Palestinian isolation: By stripping them of the right to narrate, as shown in an academic study by Mike Berry (Cardiff University), which found emotional terms used exclusively to describe Israeli victims.

Undermining international law: By ignoring reports from organisations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which confirm Israel’s commission of war crimes.

Violating journalistic ethics . . .  when the journalist becomes the occupation’s lawyer
Journalistic codes of ethics — such as the charter of the “International Federation of Journalists” — unanimously agree that the media’s primary task is “to expose the facts without fear”. But the reality proves the opposite:

In 2023, CNN deleted an interview with a Palestinian survivor of the Jenin massacre after pressure from the Israeli lobby (according to an investigation by Middle East Eye).

The Guardian was forced to edit the headline of an article that described settlements as “apartheid” after threats of legal action.

This self-censorship turns journalism into a “copier of official statements”, abandoning the principle of “not compromising with ruling powers” emphasised by the “International Journalists’ Network”.

Toward human-centred journalism
Fixing this flaw requires dismantling biased language: replacing “conflict” with “military occupation”, and “settlements” with “illegal colonies”.

Relying on international law: such as mentioning Articles 49 and 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention when discussing the displacement of Palestinians.

Giving space to victims’ voices: According to an Amnesty report, 80% of guests on Western TV channels discussing the conflict were either Israeli or Western.

Holding media institutions accountable: through pressure campaigns to enforce their ethical charters (such as obligating the BBC to mention “apartheid” after the HRW report).

Conclusion
The war on Gaza has become a stark test of media ethics. While platforms like Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye have helped expose violations, major Western media outlets continue to reproduce a colonial discourse that enables Israel. The greatest challenge today is to break the silence surrounding the crimes of genocide and impose a human narrative that restores the stolen humanity of the victims.

“Occupation doesn’t just need tanks, it needs media to justify its existence.” These were the words of journalist Gideon Levy after witnessing how his camera turned war crimes into “normal news”.

If Western media is serious about its claim of neutrality, it must start with a simple step: call things by their names. Words are not lifeless letters, they are ticking bombs that shape the consciousness of generations.

Refaat Ibrahim is the editor and creator of The Resistant Palestinian Pens website, where you can find all his articles. He is a Palestinian writer living in Gaza, where he studied English language and literature at the Islamic University. He has been passionate about writing since childhood, and is interested in political, social, economic, and cultural matters concerning his homeland, Palestine. This article was first published at Pearls and Irritations social policy journal in Australia.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Opposition fractures, pro-government consolidates

At stake for the 54 contesting Venezuelan political parties were seats for 285 National Assembly deputies, 24 state governors, and 260 regional legislators.

The pro-government coalition won all but one of the governorships, taking three of the four states previously held by the opposition. The loss of the state of Barinas was particularly symbolic, for this was the birthplace of former President Hugo Chávez, and especially so, because the winner was Adán Chávez, the late president’s older brother.

Likewise, the Chavista alliance swept the National Assembly, securing 253 out of 285 seats. Notable exceptions were the election of opposition leaders Henrique Capriles and Henri Falcón, both of whom are former presidential candidates.

The New York Times reported the same outcomes but spun it as the “results [rather than the vote]…stripped the opposition of some of the last few positions it held,” inferring fraud.

However, this election outcome was not unexpected, as the opposition was not only divided but also had a significant portion opting to boycott the vote. The pro-government forces enjoyed a unified effort, an efficient electoral machine, and grassroots support, especially from the communal movement.

“After 32 elections, amidst blockades, criminal sanctions, fascism and violence,” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro affirmed, “today we showed that the Bolivarian Revolution is stronger than ever.”

Opposition self-implodes

The headline from Le Monde spun the voting thus: “Venezuela holds divisive new elections.” Contrary to what the headline suggests, the divisiveness was not the government’s doing, but due to the opposition’s perennial internecine warfare.

While the pro-government Great Patriotic Pole alliance around the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV) “works in unison,” according to opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the electoral opposition is divided into three warring camps. They, in turn, were surrounded by a circular firing squad of the far-right abstentionists, calling for a vote boycott.

The abstentionists were assembled around Maria Corina Machado. She had been pardoned for her involvement in the short-lived 2002 US-backed coup but was subsequently disqualified from running for office for constitutional offenses. Following Washington’s lead, which has not recognized a Venezuelan presidential election as legitimate since 2012, the far-right opposition rejected electoral means for achieving regime change and has even pleaded in effect for US military intervention.

Machado’s faction, which claimed that Edmund González Urrutia won the 2024 presidential election, does not recognize their country’s constitutional authority. Consequently, when summoned by the Venezuelan Supreme Court, they refused to present evidence of their victory, thereby removing any legal basis for their claimed victory to be accepted. Machado maintained that voting only “legitimizes” the government, bitterly calling those participating in the democratic process “scorpions.”

Machado spent the election in self-imposed hiding. She further dug herself into a hole, after urging even harsher punishing US sanctions on her own people, by appearing to support Trump’s sending of Venezuelan migrants to the CECOT torture prison in El Salvador.

El Pais sympathized with her as “driven by the strength of the pain of being a mother who has been separated from her three children.” The WaPo described the middle-aged divorcé from one of the wealthiest families in Venezuela as a “courageous leader” whose “three children are exiled abroad.” In fact, her adult children live comfortably in the US and Colombia.

To this manufactured sympathy for the privileged, Venezuelan-Canadian sociologist Maria Paez Victor asks, “Where are the defenders of the human rights of Venezuelans?” She excoriates the collective West for its selective concern for human rights, emphasizing the neglect of Venezuelans’ rights amid external pressures and US sanctions.

The disputed Essequibo

The headline for The New York Times’s report spun the elections with: “Venezuela is holding an election for another country’s land.” This refers to the elections for governor and legislators in Essequibo (Guayana Esequiba in Spanish), which is, in fact, a disputed land.

For nearly two centuries, Venezuelans have considered that region part of their country, having wrested it from Spanish colonialists in 1835. In the questionable Paris Arbitral Award, with the US representing Venezuela, the Essequibo was handed over to the UK in 1899 (then colonial British Guiana and now the independent nation of Guyana). Ever since, it has been contested territory.

In 1962, Venezuela formally revived its claim at the UN, asserting that the 1899 award was null and void. Not surprisingly, the Times sides with Guyana, or more precisely with what they report as “Exxon Mobil’s multibillion-dollar investments” plus “military ties with the US.”

This first-time vote for political representation in the Essequibo is seen by Venezuelans across their political spectrum as an important step to assert their claim. It follows a referendum in 2023, which affirmed popular support for the Essequibo as part of their national territory. The actual voting was held in the neighboring Bolivar state.

On cue, the western-aligned press criticized the vote on the Essequibo as a “cynical ploy” by the Maduro administration to divert attention from other pressing problems. Meanwhile, they obscure the increasing US military penetration in neighboring Guyana and in the wider region.

Yet even the NYT had to admit: “Claims to the Essequibo region are deeply ingrained among many Venezuelans… [and even] María Corina Machado, the most prominent opposition leader, visited the area by canoe in 2013 to advance Venezuela’s claim.” Venezuelan journalist Jésus Rodríguez Espinoza (pers. comm.) described the vote as “an exercise in national sovereignty.”

Illegal sanctions – the elephant in the room

A WaPo opinion piece claims, “that the actual root cause of poverty has been a lack of democracy and freedom,” as if the US and its allies have not imposed sanctions deliberately designed to cripple the Venezuelan economy. These “unilateral coercive measures,” condemned by the UN, are illegal under international law because they constitute collective punishment.

But the fact that Venezuelans had to vote while being subjected to illegal coercion is completely ignored by the corporate press. That is, the existence of sanctions is recognized, but instead of exposing their illegal and coercive essence, the press normalizes them. The story untold by the press is the courage of the Venezuelan people who continue to support their government under such adverse conditions.

Disparaging the election

Washington and its aligned press cannot question the popular sweep for the Socialist Party’s alliance in Venezuela, because it is so obvious. Nonetheless, they disparage the mandate. The chorus of criticism alleges the fraudulent nature of previous elections, although it is a geopolitical reality that Washington considers any popular vote against its designated candidates illegitimate.

For this particular election, these State Department stenographers focused on the supposedly low turnout. In fact, the turnout was typical for a non-presidential election contest and fell within the same percentage range as US midterm elections.

Moreover, the pro-government slate actually garnered more votes than it had in the previous regional elections. The Chavista core of older, working class women remains solid.

When Elvis Amoroso, president of Venezuela’s authority (CNE), qualified the turnout percentages to apply to “active voters,” he meant those in-country. Due to the large number of recent out-migrations, a significant number are registered but cannot vote because they are abroad.

What was notably low was the voting for the highly divided opposition, with major factions calling for a boycott. Further, the opposition had been discredited by revelations that some had received and misused hundreds of millions of dollars from USAID. More than ever, the inept opposition has exposed itself in a negative light to the broad electorate. 

The overwhelming sentiment on the street in Venezuela is for an end to partisan conflict and for continuing the slow economic recovery. Challenges ahead include inflationary winds, a rising unofficial dollar exchange rate, and, above all, the animus of the Trump administration, which is currently in internal debate over whether to try to deal the Bolivarian Revolution a quick or a slow death. Either way, destabilization efforts continue.

To which Socialist Party leader and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said: “No one can stop our people. Not sanctions, nor blockades, nor persecution – because when a people decide to be free, no one can stop them.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Roger D. Harris.

The BBC’s role is not to keep viewers informed. It’s to persuade them a clear crime against humanity by Israel is, in fact, highly complicated geopolitics they cannot hope to understand

You can tell how bad levels of starvation now are in Gaza, as the population there begins the third month of a complete aid blockade by Israel, because last night the BBC finally dedicated a serious chunk of its main news programme, the News at Ten, to the issue.

But while upsetting footage of a skin-and-bones, five-month-old baby was shown, most of the segment was, of course, dedicated to confusing audiences by two-sidesing Israel’s genocidal programme of starving 2 million-plus Palestinian civilians.

Particularly shocking was the BBC’s failure in this extended report to mention even once the fact that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been a fugitive for months from the International Criminal Court, which wants him on trial for crimes against humanity. Why? For using starvation as a weapon of war against the civilian population.

I have yet to see the BBC, or any other major British media outlet, append the status “wanted war crimes suspect” when mentioning Netanyahu in stories. That is all the more unconscionable on this occasion, in a story directly related to the very issue – starving a civilian population – he is charged over.

Was mention of the arrest warrant against him avoided because it might signal a little too clearly that the highest legal authorities in the world attribute starvation in Gaza directly to Israel and its government, and do not see it – as the British establishment media apparently do – as some continuing, unfortunate “humanitarian” consequence of “war”.

Predictably misleading, too, was BBC Verify’s input. It provided a timeline of Israel’s intensified blockade that managed to pin the blame not on Israel, even though it is the one blocking all aid, but implicitly on Hamas.

Verify’s reporter asserted that in early March, Israel “blocked humanitarian aid, demanding that Hamas extend a ceasefire and release the remaining hostages”. He then jumped to 18 March, stating: “Israel resumes military operations.”

Viewers were left, presumably intentionally, with the impression that Hamas had rejected a continuation of the ceasefire and had refused to release the last of the hostages.

None of that is true. In fact, Israel never honoured the ceasefire, continuing to attack Gaza and kill civilians throughout. But worse, Israel’s supposed “extension” was actually its unilateral violation of the ceasefire by insisting on radical changes to the terms that had already been agreed, and which included Hamas releasing the hostages.

Israel broke the ceasefire precisely so it had the pretext it needed to return to starving Gaza’s civilians – and the hostages whose safety it proclaims to care about – as part of its efforts to make them so desperate they are prepared to risk their lives by forcing open the short border with neighbouring Sinai sealed by Egypt.

Yesterday, an Israeli government minister once again made clear what the game plan has been from the very start. “Gaza will be entirely destroyed,” Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, said. Gaza’s population, he added, would be forced to “leave in great numbers to third countries”. In other words, Israel intends to carry out what the rest of us would call the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, as it has been doing continuously for eight decades.

What is the point of the BBC’s Verify service—supposedly there to fact-check and ensure viewers get only the unvarnished truth—when its team is itself peddling gross distortions of the truth?

The BBC and its Verify service are not keeping viewers informed. They are propagandising them into believing a clear crime against humanity by Israel is, in fact, highly complicated geopolitics that audiences cannot hope to understand.

The establishment media’s aim is to so confuse audiences that they will throw up their hands and say: “To hell with Israel and the Palestinians! They are as bad as each other. Leave it to the politicians and diplomats to sort out.”

In any other circumstance, it would strike you as obvious that starving children en masse is morally abhorrent, and that anyone who does it, or excuses it, is a monster. The role of the BBC is to persuade you that what should be obvious to you is, in fact, more complicated than you can appreciate.

There may be skin-and-bones babies, but there are also hostages. There may be tens of thousands of children being slaughtered, but there is also a risk of antisemitism. Israeli officials may be calling for the eradication of the Palestinian people, but the Jewish state they run needs to be preserved at all costs.

If we could spend five minutes in Gaza without the constant, babbling distractions of these so-called journalists, the truth would be clear. It’s a genocide. It was always a genocide.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

The BBC’s role is not to keep viewers informed. It’s to persuade them a clear crime against humanity by Israel is, in fact, highly complicated geopolitics they cannot hope to understand

You can tell how bad levels of starvation now are in Gaza, as the population there begins the third month of a complete aid blockade by Israel, because last night the BBC finally dedicated a serious chunk of its main news programme, the News at Ten, to the issue.

But while upsetting footage of a skin-and-bones, five-month-old baby was shown, most of the segment was, of course, dedicated to confusing audiences by two-sidesing Israel’s genocidal programme of starving 2 million-plus Palestinian civilians.

Particularly shocking was the BBC’s failure in this extended report to mention even once the fact that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been a fugitive for months from the International Criminal Court, which wants him on trial for crimes against humanity. Why? For using starvation as a weapon of war against the civilian population.

I have yet to see the BBC, or any other major British media outlet, append the status “wanted war crimes suspect” when mentioning Netanyahu in stories. That is all the more unconscionable on this occasion, in a story directly related to the very issue – starving a civilian population – he is charged over.

Was mention of the arrest warrant against him avoided because it might signal a little too clearly that the highest legal authorities in the world attribute starvation in Gaza directly to Israel and its government, and do not see it – as the British establishment media apparently do – as some continuing, unfortunate “humanitarian” consequence of “war”.

Predictably misleading, too, was BBC Verify’s input. It provided a timeline of Israel’s intensified blockade that managed to pin the blame not on Israel, even though it is the one blocking all aid, but implicitly on Hamas.

Verify’s reporter asserted that in early March, Israel “blocked humanitarian aid, demanding that Hamas extend a ceasefire and release the remaining hostages”. He then jumped to 18 March, stating: “Israel resumes military operations.”

Viewers were left, presumably intentionally, with the impression that Hamas had rejected a continuation of the ceasefire and had refused to release the last of the hostages.

None of that is true. In fact, Israel never honoured the ceasefire, continuing to attack Gaza and kill civilians throughout. But worse, Israel’s supposed “extension” was actually its unilateral violation of the ceasefire by insisting on radical changes to the terms that had already been agreed, and which included Hamas releasing the hostages.

Israel broke the ceasefire precisely so it had the pretext it needed to return to starving Gaza’s civilians – and the hostages whose safety it proclaims to care about – as part of its efforts to make them so desperate they are prepared to risk their lives by forcing open the short border with neighbouring Sinai sealed by Egypt.

Yesterday, an Israeli government minister once again made clear what the game plan has been from the very start. “Gaza will be entirely destroyed,” Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, said. Gaza’s population, he added, would be forced to “leave in great numbers to third countries”. In other words, Israel intends to carry out what the rest of us would call the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, as it has been doing continuously for eight decades.

What is the point of the BBC’s Verify service—supposedly there to fact-check and ensure viewers get only the unvarnished truth—when its team is itself peddling gross distortions of the truth?

The BBC and its Verify service are not keeping viewers informed. They are propagandising them into believing a clear crime against humanity by Israel is, in fact, highly complicated geopolitics that audiences cannot hope to understand.

The establishment media’s aim is to so confuse audiences that they will throw up their hands and say: “To hell with Israel and the Palestinians! They are as bad as each other. Leave it to the politicians and diplomats to sort out.”

In any other circumstance, it would strike you as obvious that starving children en masse is morally abhorrent, and that anyone who does it, or excuses it, is a monster. The role of the BBC is to persuade you that what should be obvious to you is, in fact, more complicated than you can appreciate.

There may be skin-and-bones babies, but there are also hostages. There may be tens of thousands of children being slaughtered, but there is also a risk of antisemitism. Israeli officials may be calling for the eradication of the Palestinian people, but the Jewish state they run needs to be preserved at all costs.

If we could spend five minutes in Gaza without the constant, babbling distractions of these so-called journalists, the truth would be clear. It’s a genocide. It was always a genocide.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

About 1000 pro-Palestinian protesters marked World Press Freedom Day — May 3 — today by marching on the public broadcaster Television New Zealand in Auckland, accusing it of 18 months of “biased coverage” on the genocidal Israeli war against Gaza.

They delivered a letter to the management board of TVNZ from Palestine Solidarity Network (PSNA) co-chair John Minto declaring: “The damage [done] to human rights, justice and freedom in the Middle East by Western media such as TVNZ is incalculable.”

The protesters marched on the television headquarters near Sky Tower about 4pm after an hour-long rally in the heart of the city at a precinct dubbed “Palestine Square” in the Britomart transport hub’s Te Komititanga Square.

• READ MORE: Human rights group calls for probe into attack on Freedom Flotilla ship
• RSF condemns Israeli targeting of Gaza journalists – then slandering them in death
• RSF 2025 World Press Freedom rankings
• RSF World Press Freedom Index 2025: economic fragility a leading threat to press freedom
• Other Gazan journalist reports

Several opposition politicians spoke at the rally, calling for a ceasefire in the brutal war on Gaza that has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians with no sign of a let-up.

Labour Party’s disarmament and arms control spokesperson Phil Twyford was among the speakers that included Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson and Ricardo Menéndez March.

All three spoke strongly in support of Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Davidson said the opposition parties were united behind the bill and all they needed were six MPs in the coalition government to “follow their conscience” to support it.

Appeals for pressure
They appealed to the protesters to put pressure on their local MPs to support the humanitarian initiative.

In The Hague this week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard evidence from more than 40 countries and global organisations condemning Israel over its actions in deliberately starving the more than 2 million Palestinians by blockading the besieged enclave for more than the past two months.

Only the United States and Hungary spoke in support of Israel.

A senior diplomat from Qatar, a leading mediator country in the war, told the ICJ that Israel was conducting a “genocidal war against the Palestinian people” and weaponising humanitarian aid.

Mutlaq al-Qahtani, Qatari Ambassador to The Netherlands, also said there were “new trails of tears in the West Bank mirroring Gaza’s fate”.

Israel executing ‘genocidal war’ against Gaza, Qatar tells ICJ.    Video: Al Jazeera

Among the speakers in the Auckland rally, one of about 30 similar protests for Palestine across New Zealand this weekend, was coordinator Roger Fowler of the Auckland-based Kia Ora Gaza humanitarian aid organisation, who denounced the overnight drone attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla aid ship Conscience in international waters after leaving Malta.

The ship was crippled by the suspected Israel attack, endangering the lives of some 30 human rights activists on board. Fowler said: “That’s 2000 km away from Israel, that’s how desperate they are now to stop the Freedom Flotilla.”

He reminded protesters that Marama Davidson and retired trade unionist Mike Treen had been on previous aid protest voyages in past years trying to break the Israeli blockade, but there was no New Zealander on board in the current mission.

Media ‘credibility challenge’
Journalist and Pacific Media Watch convenor Dr David Robie spoke about World Media Freedom Day. He paid a tribute to the sacrifices of 211 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel — many of them targeted — saying Israel’s war on Gaza had become the “greatest credibility challenge for journalists and media of our times”.

Many protesters carried placards declaring slogans such as “TVNZ your biased reporting is shameful. Where is your integrity?”, “Journalists are not targets” and “Caring for the children of Palestine is what it’s about.”

After marching about 1km between Te Komititanga Square and the TVNZ headquarters, the protesters gathered outside the entrance chanting for fairness and balance in the reporting.

“TVNZ lies. For the past 18 months they have been nothing but complicit,” said one Palestinian speaker to a chorus of: “Shame!”

He said: “Every time TVNZ lies, a little boy in Gaza dies.”

Another Palestinian speaker, Nadine, said: “Every time the media lies, a little girl in Gaza dies.”

Deputation delivers TVNZ letter
A deputation from the protesters delivered the letter from PSNA’s John Minto addressed to the TVNZ board chair Alastair Carruthers but found the main foyer main entrance closed so the message was left.

Minto’s two-page letter calling for an independent review of TVNZ’s reporting on Palestine and Israel said in part:

“Over the past 18 months of industrial scale killing of Palestinians by the Israeli military in Gaza we have been regularly appalled at the blatantly-biased reporting on the Middle East by Television New Zealand.

“TVNZ’s reporting has been relentlessly and virulently pro-Israel. TVNZ has centred Israeli narratives, Israeli explanations, Israeli justifications and Israeli propaganda points on a daily basis while Palestinian viewpoints are all but absent.

“When they are presented they are given rudimentary coverage at best. More often than not Palestinians are presented as the incoherent victims of Israeli brutality rather than as an occupied people fighting for liberation in a situation described by the International Court of Justice as a “plausible genocide”.

“This pattern of systemic bias and unbalanced reporting is not revealed by TVNZ’s complaints system which focuses on individual stories rather than ingrained patterns of pro-Israel bias.

“Every complaint we have made to TVNZ has, with one minor exception, been rejected by your corporation with the typical refrain that it’s not possible to cover every aspect of an issue in a single story but that over time the balance is made up.

“Our issue is that the bias continues throughout TVNZ’s reporting on a story-by-story, day-by-day basis — the balance is never achieved. The reporting goes ahead just the way the pro-Israel lobby is happy with.”

The rest of the letter detailed many examples of the alleged systematic bias, such as failing to describe Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem and as “Occupied” territory as they are designated under international law, and failing to state the illegality of Israel’s military occupation.

Minto concluded by stating: “It is prolonging Israel’s illegal occupation, its apartheid policies, its ethnic cleansing and theft of Palestinian land. TVNZ is part of the problem – a key part of the problem.”

The letter called for an independent investigation.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

What could possibly go wrong with Ameri-snitchers running around their communities?

Don’t like your neighbor’s dog running through your yard? Call ICE. Don’t want to pay for work an immigrant just performed for you? Call ICE. Co-worker not religious or patriotic enough? Call the government’s anti-Christian bias hotline!

Calling ICE on Your Neighbors

In January, Tom Homan, appointed by Trump to oversee deportation efforts, announced plans for a government hotline where individuals can report undocumented immigrants in their communities. Homan stated, “I’m hoping people start calling ICE and reporting because we have millions of people in this country that can be force multipliers for us if they just call us with information.”

“Experts warn government-inspired informing can devolve into corrupt acts and score-settling,” Forbes’ Stuart Anderson reported. “Businesses are likely to become targets during the Trump administration’s immigration raids. Given the nature of bureaucracies, officials will assign a top priority to generating large numbers of arrests without concern for collateral impacts.”

Trump’s Anti-Christian Grievance Hotline

For decades, prominent Religious Right leaders have complained about anti-Christian bias. In early February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.

Politico’s Robbie Gramer and Nahal Toosi recently reported that “The [State Department] … will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information ‘involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration’ and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms. … Some State Department officials reacted to the cable with shock and alarm, saying that even if well-intentioned, it is based on the flawed premise that the department harbors anti-Christian bias to begin with, and warning it could create a culture of fear.”

“The instructions are clear,” Daily Kos’ Alex Samuels recently pointed out. “Give names, dates, and locations of the alleged bias, with a task force set to meet on April 22 to review the ‘evidence.’ The goal? To collect examples of religious discrimination under the Biden administration, because nothing says “freedom of religion” quite like your coworkers quietly documenting your every move for a federal task force.”

According to the Guardian:

One example of the ‘bias’ the department wants reported includes ‘mistreatment for opposing displays of flags, banners or other paraphernalia’ – a thinly veiled reference to Pride flags displayed at US embassies under the previous administration. The cable also specifically points to ‘policies related to preferred personal pronouns’ as potentially discriminatory against religious employees.

George W. Bush’s Operation TIPS

In early March  2002, professional sidekick Ed McMahon (look up Johnny Carson) introduced Attorney General John Ashcroft to an enthusiastic audience of representatives from more than 300 Neighborhood Watch groups meeting in Washington, D.C. Ashcroft unveiled an expanded mission for the Neighborhood Watch Program, announcing a grant of $1.9 million in federal funds to help the National Sheriffs’ Association double the number of participant groups to 15,000 nationwide.

According to the government’s web page at citizencorps.gov/watch.html, “Community residents will be provided with information which will enable them to recognize signs of potential terrorist activity, and to know how to report that activity, making these residents a critical element in the detection, prevention, and disruption of terrorism.” Under the supervision of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), “Terrorism prevention” was intended to become the “routine mission” of the Neighborhood Watch Program, the web site pointed out.

The new thrust of Neighborhood Watch is just part of the Bush Administration’s plan to set up a whole network of citizen snitches. In August, for instance, it will unveil a new Justice Department initiative called Operation TIPS, which stands for Terrorist Information and Prevention System.

Operation TIPS “will be a nationwide program giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity,” says the citizencorps.gov web site. Involving one million workers in ten cities during the pilot stage, Operation TIPS will be “a national reporting system…. Every participant in this new program will be given an Operation TIPS information sticker to be affixed to the cab of their vehicle or placed in some other public location so that the toll-free number is readily available.”

Encouraging people to skulk around their neighborhoods in search of immigrants, and at government workplaces hunting anti-Christian bias is a totally anti-American undertaking. Trump’s policies could easily lead to abuse and misuse, including racial profiling, false reports and personal vendettas. It could also foster fear and mistrust within communities.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bill Berkowitz.

What could possibly go wrong with Ameri-snitchers running around their communities?

Don’t like your neighbor’s dog running through your yard? Call ICE. Don’t want to pay for work an immigrant just performed for you? Call ICE. Co-worker not religious or patriotic enough? Call the government’s anti-Christian bias hotline!

Calling ICE on Your Neighbors

In January, Tom Homan, appointed by Trump to oversee deportation efforts, announced plans for a government hotline where individuals can report undocumented immigrants in their communities. Homan stated, “I’m hoping people start calling ICE and reporting because we have millions of people in this country that can be force multipliers for us if they just call us with information.”

“Experts warn government-inspired informing can devolve into corrupt acts and score-settling,” Forbes’ Stuart Anderson reported. “Businesses are likely to become targets during the Trump administration’s immigration raids. Given the nature of bureaucracies, officials will assign a top priority to generating large numbers of arrests without concern for collateral impacts.”

Trump’s Anti-Christian Grievance Hotline

For decades, prominent Religious Right leaders have complained about anti-Christian bias. In early February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.

Politico’s Robbie Gramer and Nahal Toosi recently reported that “The [State Department] … will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information ‘involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration’ and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms. … Some State Department officials reacted to the cable with shock and alarm, saying that even if well-intentioned, it is based on the flawed premise that the department harbors anti-Christian bias to begin with, and warning it could create a culture of fear.”

“The instructions are clear,” Daily Kos’ Alex Samuels recently pointed out. “Give names, dates, and locations of the alleged bias, with a task force set to meet on April 22 to review the ‘evidence.’ The goal? To collect examples of religious discrimination under the Biden administration, because nothing says “freedom of religion” quite like your coworkers quietly documenting your every move for a federal task force.”

According to the Guardian:

One example of the ‘bias’ the department wants reported includes ‘mistreatment for opposing displays of flags, banners or other paraphernalia’ – a thinly veiled reference to Pride flags displayed at US embassies under the previous administration. The cable also specifically points to ‘policies related to preferred personal pronouns’ as potentially discriminatory against religious employees.

George W. Bush’s Operation TIPS

In early March  2002, professional sidekick Ed McMahon (look up Johnny Carson) introduced Attorney General John Ashcroft to an enthusiastic audience of representatives from more than 300 Neighborhood Watch groups meeting in Washington, D.C. Ashcroft unveiled an expanded mission for the Neighborhood Watch Program, announcing a grant of $1.9 million in federal funds to help the National Sheriffs’ Association double the number of participant groups to 15,000 nationwide.

According to the government’s web page at citizencorps.gov/watch.html, “Community residents will be provided with information which will enable them to recognize signs of potential terrorist activity, and to know how to report that activity, making these residents a critical element in the detection, prevention, and disruption of terrorism.” Under the supervision of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), “Terrorism prevention” was intended to become the “routine mission” of the Neighborhood Watch Program, the web site pointed out.

The new thrust of Neighborhood Watch is just part of the Bush Administration’s plan to set up a whole network of citizen snitches. In August, for instance, it will unveil a new Justice Department initiative called Operation TIPS, which stands for Terrorist Information and Prevention System.

Operation TIPS “will be a nationwide program giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity,” says the citizencorps.gov web site. Involving one million workers in ten cities during the pilot stage, Operation TIPS will be “a national reporting system…. Every participant in this new program will be given an Operation TIPS information sticker to be affixed to the cab of their vehicle or placed in some other public location so that the toll-free number is readily available.”

Encouraging people to skulk around their neighborhoods in search of immigrants, and at government workplaces hunting anti-Christian bias is a totally anti-American undertaking. Trump’s policies could easily lead to abuse and misuse, including racial profiling, false reports and personal vendettas. It could also foster fear and mistrust within communities.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bill Berkowitz.

Seven weeks into the Gaza ceasefire deal, Israel has openly resumed its war crimes in Gaza — blocking humanitarian aid — with the tacit support of the international mainstream media, reports Al Jazeera’s media watchdog programme The Listening Post.

“Seventeen months into the Israeli genocide in Gaza we have reached another critical stage — Israel has resumed its blockade of humanitarian aid and has threatened to cut of the supply of water and power to desperate Palestinians,” says presenter and programme founder Richard Gizbert.

“All because Hamas has refused to change the deal the two sides signed seven weeks ago and free more Israeli captives.

• WATCH MORE: Other Gaza programmes at The Listening Post
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“The headlines now coming out of the international media would have you believe that Hamas and not the Netanyahu government had demanded these changes to the ceasefire agreement.

“Israeli officials somehow insist there is enough food in Gaza and you will not see many Israeli news outlets reporting on the undeniable evidence of malnutrition.”

Presented by Richard Gizbert

Lead contributors:
Daniel Levy – President, US/Middle East Project
Saree Makdisi – Professor of English and comparative literature, UCLA
Samira Mohyeddin – Founder, On the Line Media
Mouin Rabbani – Co-editor, Jadaliyya

On our radar:

The LA Times’ new AI “bias meter” — which offers a counterpoint to the paper’s opinion pieces, has stirred controversy. Tariq Nafi explores its role in a changing media landscape that’s cosying up to Donald Trump.

Are the ADL’s anti-Semitism stats credible?
The Anti-Defamation League is one of the most influential and well-funded NGOs in the US — and it’s getting more media attention than ever.

The Listening Post’s Meenakshi Ravi reports on the organisation, its high-profile CEO, and its troubling stance: Conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Featuring:
Omar Baddar – Political and media analyst
Eva Borgwardt – National spokesperson, If Not Now
Emmaia Gelman – Director, The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

This programme was first broadcast on 8 March 2025 and can be watched on YouTube. 

‘Hell plan’ – Israel’s scheme for Gaza.   Video: AJ The Listening Post

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Seven weeks into the Gaza ceasefire deal, Israel has openly resumed its war crimes in Gaza — blocking humanitarian aid — with the tacit support of the international mainstream media, reports Al Jazeera’s media watchdog programme The Listening Post.

“Seventeen months into the Israeli genocide in Gaza we have reached another critical stage — Israel has resumed its blockade of humanitarian aid and has threatened to cut of the supply of water and power to desperate Palestinians,” says presenter and programme founder Richard Gizbert.

“All because Hamas has refused to change the deal the two sides signed seven weeks ago and free more Israeli captives.

• WATCH MORE: Other Gaza programmes at The Listening Post
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“The headlines now coming out of the international media would have you believe that Hamas and not the Netanyahu government had demanded these changes to the ceasefire agreement.

“Israeli officials somehow insist there is enough food in Gaza and you will not see many Israeli news outlets reporting on the undeniable evidence of malnutrition.”

Presented by Richard Gizbert

Lead contributors:
Daniel Levy – President, US/Middle East Project
Saree Makdisi – Professor of English and comparative literature, UCLA
Samira Mohyeddin – Founder, On the Line Media
Mouin Rabbani – Co-editor, Jadaliyya

On our radar:

The LA Times’ new AI “bias meter” — which offers a counterpoint to the paper’s opinion pieces, has stirred controversy. Tariq Nafi explores its role in a changing media landscape that’s cosying up to Donald Trump.

Are the ADL’s anti-Semitism stats credible?
The Anti-Defamation League is one of the most influential and well-funded NGOs in the US — and it’s getting more media attention than ever.

The Listening Post’s Meenakshi Ravi reports on the organisation, its high-profile CEO, and its troubling stance: Conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Featuring:
Omar Baddar – Political and media analyst
Eva Borgwardt – National spokesperson, If Not Now
Emmaia Gelman – Director, The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

This programme was first broadcast on 8 March 2025 and can be watched on YouTube. 

‘Hell plan’ – Israel’s scheme for Gaza.   Video: AJ The Listening Post

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Image by Jakayla Toney.

The United States government has been the primary enabler of the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli war machine against the Palestinian people of Gaza. It has provided essentially unlimited military support and diplomatic cover since October 7, and an important factor in allowing that to occur has been the role played by the mainstream media, whose coverage of Israel-Palestine has been so biased and misleading that it has kept many Americans ignorant about the meaning of the events in the Middle East.

In this article we will examine a recent episode of The Daily, a podcast produced by The New York Times. On February 26, 2025 it presented an interview with Jerusalem Bureau chief Patrick Kingsley about the end of the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and the prospects for the future. The episode is instructive in that the Times’ bias is revealed clearly in how it dehumanizes Palestinians, conceals the power imbalance between the two parties, whitewashes war crimes, misrepresents ceasefires and other peace efforts, and erases the historical context.

Much has been written about the American mainstream media’s pro-Israel bias, especially since October 7.

An analysis by The Intercept examined the coverage of Gaza in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. It found that in the first six weeks after the October 7 attack, these outlets used terms like “slaughter” or “massacre” nearly 200 times when referring to the killing of Israelis, but only five times in reference to Palestinians. This stark contrast in language occurred even as the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks had already reached 20 times the number of Israelis killed in the Hamas attack.

In April of 2024, The Intercept revealed a leaked internal memo from The New York Times that provided editorial guidance to its journalists covering the Israel-Hamas conflict. The memo instructed reporters to avoid using terms such as “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land. Additionally, it advised against using the term “Palestine” except in very rare cases and recommended steering clear of the phrase “refugee camps” to describe areas in Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians. In addition, the memo claims that words like “slaughter,” “massacre” and “carnage” are often too emotional to describe Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Ironically, the stated purpose of the memo was to issue “guidance like this to ensure accuracy, consistency and nuance in how we cover the news,” as a Times spokesman told The Intercept.

Protests against both the genocide and Western support for it have succeeded in bringing the topic of Israel-Palestine to light, and Americans are now more aware of the scale of Israel’s atrocities—currently and since the beginning of the conflict—than ever before.

The United States’ continuing blind support for Israel’s repeated violations of international law can be blamed on the weapons industry, the Israel lobby, Christian Zionism and good old-fashioned racism. (After all, one justification for the creation of the Israeli state, as argued by Zionism’s founding father, Theodor Herzl, was that it would be “… part of a defensive wall for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”)

But the mainstream media in the West must also bear much of the responsibility. The work of the special interest groups mentioned above would be much more difficult to accomplish were it not for the media’s misleading coverage of the events in the Middle East.

The editors of the Times, as evidenced in the memo alluded to above, are very much aware of the power of language, and in this episode of The Daily, both Kingsley and the interviewer, Rachel Abrams, go to great effort to use terminology that paints Israel in a positive light while demonizing the Palestinians.

There are dozens of examples in the twenty-five minute interview, in which the Israelis captured by Hamas are referred to as hostages, while the Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are labelled prisoners. (The Times is far from the only outlet using the same terminology.) The reasons for this choice are obvious. The term “prisoner” has a strong connotation of guilt. Hostages are presumed innocent, but prisoners have likely committed crimes and do not deserve our sympathy. In reality, thousands of the detained Palestinians have never even been charged with a crime, and many were abducted by the IDF after October 7, presumably as trading chips in a future exchange. How could they be thought of as anything other than hostages?

Even the descriptions of the conditions of the Israeli captives differs markedly from those of the Palestinians. Upon their release the Israeli hostages “looked extremely gaunt, malnourished, starved … emaciated,” while the Palestinians were held in “difficult conditions.” There was no mention of the “widespread torture in custody, including through beatings, starvation and other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment,” or the fact that “at least sixty Palestinian detainees have died while in Israeli custody since 7 October 2023,” as documented by human rights organizations.

The scenes during the release of the Israeli hostages were described by both Abrams and Kingsley as “ghoulish,” while those of the Palestinians’ release were “uncomfortable.”

The low value of Palestinian life is reinforced by the fact that no Palestinian prisoner is treated as an individual throughout the interview. We don’t learn anything about their stories, their names, their work, their families. They are faceless and anonymous.

Meanwhile, nearly four minutes are spent on the tragic story of the Israeli Bibas family, whose bodies Hamas returned last week.

The Bibases are real. They are a family. They have names and faces. Kingsley discusses “the most unsettling and disturbing hostage release ceremony … when the bodies of three Israeli civilians from the same family, two very young boys, Ariel Bibas and his brother, Kfir Bibas, four years old and eight months old, respectively, at the time of their capture … and their mother, Shiri Bibas, a thirty-two-year-old accountant.”

The ceremony was “seen in Israel as enormously disrespectful, ghoulish essentially …. This family had been one of the main emblems of Israeli trauma … and to see the spectacle of these two young children and their mother returned in this way and then on top of that to learn that their mother Shiri was in fact still in Gaza was an immensely triggering and re-traumatizing event.” After the bodies were returned, “that family was finally able to have some degree of closure.”

It is during the discussion of the Bibas family that the first and only mention of the suffering of Palestinians throughout the interview occurs.

“Hamas claims that Netanyahu was to blame for the deaths of the tens of thousands of Palestinians,” Kingsley says, responding to Abrams’ comment about Hamas’ decision to display images of Benjamin Netanyahu’s face as Dracula on the coffins of the members of the Bibas family.

Another example of language manipulation is the naming of the events in Gaza since October 7. The genocide is referred to as a war, which carries a connotation of two equally strong parties, instead of one of the most powerful (nuclear-armed) militaries in the world backed by its superpower patron versus a guerrilla organization firing homemade rockets constructed despite a brutal seventeen-year siege forced upon the people of Gaza. The IDF tries to propagate this misleading terminology by inflating the ratio of “militants” killed to civilians killed.

Kingsley names October 7 as the beginning of the war, thereby completely erasing its historical context. Gone are the Zionist occupation of 78% of historic Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1947-1949, the occupation of the remaining 22% of historic Palestine and expulsion of a further 300,000 Palestinians in 1967, and the brutal fifty-seven year-long regime of killing, occupation, military control, home demolitions, Apartheid, incarceration, theft of land and resources, settlement expansion, and enforcement of extensive movement restrictions through checkpoints, roadblocks, and the separation barrier. Gone is the Israeli blockade of Gaza since 2007, restricting the movement of people and goods, which has led to severe humanitarian crises, including shortages of food, medicine, and clean water. Not mentioned are the murderous assaults on the Strip—euphemistically called “mowing the lawn”—that the IDF engages in every years as a deterrent to all Arabs in the region. None of that is relevant for the Times’ journalists. The only context, we are told, is that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

Kingsley does mention 1948 and 1967, but only in the context of Trump’s plan to expel the residents of Gaza, but he once again uses language absolving the Zionists of any responsibility.

“Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee their homes,” says Kingsley, speaking of 1948. He adds, perhaps realizing that he has come perilously close to assigning blame to someone other than the Palestinians themselves, “or fled their homes during the war surrounding Israel’s creation.” The perpetrators of the campaign of ethnic cleansing are not mentioned. Who forced the Palestinians to leave? Did there just happen to be a war as Israel was being created? No mention of the Zionist plan to ethnically cleanse all of historical Palestine. No mention of the 300,000 Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces before the war even began.

Kingsley also absolves Israel of any wrong-doing during the current cease-fire.

“Several mini-crises aside,” he says, “it [the cease-fire] has gone roughly to plan,” completely ignoring the violations that Israel has committed. In fact, the Gaza Government Media Office (GMO) has documented over 350 instances of Israeli violations since the ceasefire began, including military incursions, gunfire, airstrikes, heightened surveillance, and the obstruction of humanitarian aid. According to the GMO, Israeli forces have continued to target Palestinians, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries despite the ceasefire. There have also been delays preventing displaced families from returning to northern Gaza and the failure to meet the agreed-upon levels of aid and emergency relief entering the enclave.

In conclusion, The New York Times’ coverage of Gaza is a case study in media bias, shaping public perception through selective language, omission of crucial historical context, and a dehumanization of Palestinian suffering. The podcast episode of The Daily analyzed in this article exemplifies these tactics, from its asymmetrical language around hostages and prisoners to its erasure of decades of Israeli occupation and violence. By presenting a distorted version of events, the Times plays a significant role in sustaining US political and military support for Israel, ultimately enabling further atrocities against Palestinians. As more people become aware of this systemic bias, it is imperative to challenge mainstream narratives and seek out independent and critical journalism to uncover the full truth of the situation in Gaza.

The post NY Times Continues To Show Extreme Bias in Gaza Coverage appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard Hardigan.

Ja’Ronn Alex, a news reporter for KKCO/KJCT, was tackled and choked outside the Grand Junction, Colorado, TV station on Dec. 18, 2024, after being followed while driving a news vehicle and challenged over his nationality, according to police records and news reports.

A Colorado man, Patrick Egan, was arrested at the scene and charged with bias-motivated crimes and second-degree assault by strangulation — both felonies — and harassment by following and ethnic intimidation, a misdemeanor.

Alex told police that he believed Egan had followed and attacked him because of his ethnicity as a Pacific Islander.

The police affidavit said that Alex was driving back to the station from an assignment when Egan began following him in Delta, about 40 miles away. KKCO said in multiple reports that Alex was driving in a news vehicle, and Grand Junction’s Daily Sentinel newspaper reported that the vehicle had the TV station’s logos, citing KKCO/KJCT.

According to the affidavit, Alex said that Egan, who was driving a taxi, pulled up next to his car at a stoplight in Grand Junction and shouted “something to the effect of: ‘Are you even a U.S. Citizen? This is Trump’s America now! I’m a Marine and I took an oath to protect this country from people like you!’”

Alex then called the station’s general manager, Stacey Stewart, who told him to drive straight to the secure station building. Egan continued to follow Alex to the station, where both men parked in front of the building and got out of their cars. Egan chased Alex as he began to run toward the front door of the station, demanding to see his identification and asking him if he was an American, the affidavit said.

Egan then tackled Alex to the ground, put him in a headlock and began to strangle him. At that point, several station employees ran outside, pulled Egan away from Alex and held him down until police arrived. The attack was partially captured on surveillance cameras, the affidavit said.

Witnesses told police that Egan choked Alex for 45 to 90 seconds, and that his face turned red and he appeared to have difficulty breathing.

Alex, who sustained minor injuries in the attack, declined to comment. Stewart said she could not comment on the attack beyond the stations’ news reports.

At Egan’s initial court appearance on Dec. 23, Alex said of Egan: “He knows where I work, he knows exactly who I work for, and he still decided to charge at me and put me in a headlock.”

Egan appeared in court on Jan. 2, where KKCO reported that the judge kept a protection order in place. Egan posted $20,000 bail later that day.

His lawyer, Ruth Swift, did not return a voicemail requesting comment.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Random House (2024)

Acclaimed journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates returned to nonfiction with his essay collection The Message, published on October 1, only to be met with patronizing dismissal and a whiff of racism on CBS Mornings (9/30/24).

Coates left journalism to spend several years teaching and writing fiction, and intended to return to essay writing by producing a piece similar to George Orwell’s “Why I Write.” What he ended up with was The Message, a collection of three essays that explore “how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.” Coates visits Senegal, South Carolina and Palestine—exploring how the narrative of each place is constructed and perpetuated by journalists and media organizations.

The longest of the essays, and the most discussed, is on Palestine. Coates goes beyond the now widely accepted call for a ceasefire, or even a call for an arms embargo: He condemns the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and says Israel’s existence as an ethnostate is fundamentally wrong. Coates has been met with praise, but also blatant dismissal—the second response being exemplified on CBS Mornings.

‘In the backpack of an extremist’

Tony Dokoupil (CBS Mornings, 9/30/24): Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay on Palestine “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.”

Host Tony Dokoupil began the interview with an aggressive monologue that effectively dismissed Coates’ and his worldview, painting him as a radical not worth listening to:

I want to dive into the Israel and Palestine section of the book, it’s the largest section of the book…. I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off, the publishing house goes away…the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.

It is hard to imagine a white author as celebrated as Coates receiving such an immediate dismissal, not just of their writing, but the very basis of their political beliefs. Dokoupil forwent an attempt to have a substantive conversation by accusing Coates of “extremism.” (The “backpack” reference seemed like an attempt to insinuate a sympathy for terrorism, as Minority Report noted—10/2/24.)

More than two minutes into the 7-minute long segment, Dokoupil still hadn’t let Coates talk about his own book. The host continued to lambaste the author, suggesting Coates was either ignorant of Middle Eastern history or creating a false narrative:

I found myself wondering, why did Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I’ve known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very smart guy, very talented guy, why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the first and second intifada…the cafe bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits?

And is it because you just don’t believe that Israel, in any condition, has a right to exist?

Coates pointed out that Dokoupil’s narrative is the one constantly perpetuated by corporate media, and that his own concern is “with those who don’t have a voice, who don’t have the ability to talk”—in this case, the Palestinians. He noted that no establishment US news outlet has a Palestinian-American bureau chief, or even correspondent, and spoke of the suffering he saw during his trip to Israel and Palestine.

Dokoupil chose not to engage with Coates’ criticisms of the Israeli state. Instead, he pointed out acts of violence experienced by Israel—which are greatly outnumbered by the acts of violence Israel has inflicted on Palestinians—and continually pivoted the conversation to try and make Coates answer whether or not he believes Israel has a right to exist, rather than engaging with the issues that Coates wrote about.

In response to the right-to-exist question, Coates said that no country has established their ability to exist through rights, but rather through force: “Israel does exist. It’s a fact. The question of its right is not a question that I would be faced with with any other country.”

‘What offends you about a Jewish state?’

Ta-Nehisi Coates (CBS Mornings, 9/30/24): “I am against a state that discriminates against people on the basis of ethnicity.”

Dokoupil accused Coates of writing a book that “delegitimizes the pillars of Israel,” and finally stopped beating around the bush and asked him outright: “What is it that so particularly offends you about a Jewish state? A Jewish safe place, rather than any other country?”

Dokoupil’s questioning of Coates followed the disingenuous argument that to condemn the state and actions of Israel is to be antisemitic. The exchange between the two exemplifies the issue with Palestine coverage in American media: Israel-centric viewpoints are undeniably the dominant narrative, and challenging that narrative is simply not accepted, even by one in the media fold. Those who do so are either implicitly or explicitly accused of antisemitism and dismissed out of hand.

The CBS Mornings interview called to mind the recent comments by CNN host Jake Tapper, who spread a lie attributing an antisemitic remark to Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and asked Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to condemn the nonexistent comment. Tlaib had challenged the arrest of arrest of peaceful pro-Palestine protesters, suggesting that their being singled out for punishment on the basis of their views indicated a bias—and because she did so, she was herself faced with spurious charges of bias.

Coates stated in both his profile with New York magazine (9/23/24) and an interview with the New York Times (9/29/24) that he knew people would take issue with The Message. He told New York that he knew he would face backlash, and his career would likely suffer for speaking on behalf of the Palestinian people:

I’m not worried…. I have to do what I have to do. I’m sad, but I was so enraged. If I went over there and saw what I saw and didn’t write it, I am fucking worthless.

Dokoupil proved Coates’ expectations were well-grounded. Still, at every point during the nearly 7-minute exchange, he responded calmly and rationally, stating his belief that Israel is an apartheid state, comparable to the Jim Crow–era South: “There’s nothing that offends me about a Jewish state. I am offended by the idea of states built on ethnocracy, no matter where they are.”

Dokoupil’s questioning of Coates was more an interrogation than an interview, and the patronizing tone and racism that Coates encountered on CBS is a part of a media ecosystem that continuously uplifts pro-Israel voices and leaves out pro-Palestine ones.

Messages to CBS may be sent here. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Elsie Carson-Holt.

CNN‘s Jake Tapper took a baseless accusation made on X and elevated it to a national story, smearing Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib as antisemitic.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (Detroit Metro Times, 9/13/24) described the indicted protesters as “people that just want to save lives, no matter their faith or ethnicity.” 

In an interview with the Detroit Metro Times (9/13/24), Tlaib accused Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel of “biases” in her prosecution of pro-Palestinian protesters and not other protesters:

“We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest,” Tlaib says. “We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”

Tlaib went on to blame the influence of academic officials for the prosecutions: “I think people at the University of Michigan put pressure on her to do this, and she fell for it.”

It’s a pretty straightforward charge that drew no particular notice for many days. A week later, Nessel—who is Jewish—posted on X (9/20/24): “Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as attorney general. It’s antisemitic and wrong.”

‘Quite an accusation’

Referring to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s prosecution of pro-Palestine protesters, Jake Tapper (CNN, 9/22/24) asserted that “Congresswoman Tlaib is suggesting that…she’s only doing it because she’s Jewish and the protesters are not.”

Nessel’s accusation is clearly groundless, as anyone reading Tlaib’s actual quote can see. But CNN‘s Jake Tapper (9/22/24), interviewing Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, presented the false accusation as fact, and used that newly invented fact to try to force Whitmer to condemn Tlaib for something she didn’t do.

Tapper quoted only one sentence from the Metro Times report—the one beginning “it seems the attorney general decided…”—followed by Nessel’s accusation. Tapper then asked Whitmer: “Do you think that Tlaib’s suggestion that Nessel’s office is biased was antisemitic?”

When Whitmer tried to avoid the bait, Tapper pressed on:

Congresswoman Tlaib is suggesting that she shouldn’t be prosecuting these individuals that Nessel says broke the law, and that she’s only doing it because she’s Jewish and the protesters are not. That’s quite an accusation. Do you think it’s true?

Contrary to Tapper’s assumption, some of the protesters charged by Nessel are, in fact, Jewish (CAIR, 9/23/24).

Tapper’s remarkable misrepresentation had ripple effects in corporate media, as other journalists (and their editors) repeated the smear without bothering to do any factchecking. Jewish Insider‘s Josh Kraushaar (9/22/24) reported on Tapper’s interview and mischaracterized Tlaib’s Metro Times interview as having “claimed that Nessel is only charging the protesters because she’s Jewish.” (The article later changed the word “claimed” to “suggested,” as if that were more accurate.)

CNN‘s Dana Bash (9/23/24) brought Tapper’s interview up on air the next day, comparing Whitmer’s response to Sen. Tom Cotton refusing to condemn Donald Trump’s declaration that if he loses, “it’s the fault of the Jews.” CNN political director David Chalian responded, perpetuating the smear as fact: “It’s not very hard to say that Rashida Tlaib saying that Dana Nessel is pursuing charges because she’s Jewish is an antisemitic thing to say.”

‘Never explicitly said’

USA Today‘s Ingrid Jacques (9/24/24) charged Tlaib with antisemtism even after Metro Times (9/23/24) confirmed that Tlaib never referred to Nessel’s ethnicity.

The Metro Times published a factcheck (9/23/24) the day after Tapper’s interview, calling the characterization “spurious,” and clarified that “Tlaib never once mentioned Nessel’s religion or Judaism.” It noted that “Metro Times pointed out in the story that Nessel is Jewish, and that appears to be the spark that led to the false claims.”

But even after that piece should have put the issue to rest, USA Today published a column by Ingrid Jacques (9/24/24) that repeated the falsehood in its very headline: “Tlaib Makes Antisemitic Comments Again.”

Tapper’s initial segment warranted an on-air correction and apology. Instead, he doubled down, bringing on to discuss the matter the next day (9/23/24) the very person who initially smeared Tlaib. Only after giving Nessel a platform to repeat her baseless charge—”Clearly, she’s referencing my religion as to why she thinks I can’t be fair,” Nessel said—did Tapper tell viewers that he “misspoke” in the previous day’s segment, explaining, “I was trying to characterize [Nessel’s] views of Tlaib’s comments.”

He then asked Nessel:

What do you make of those today, noting that Congresswoman Tlaib never explicitly said that your bias was because of your religion, and so it’s unfair for you to make that allegation?

“Explicitly”? Tlaib never said it, period, which is what any responsible journalist would point out.

ACTION ALERT: Messages to CNN can be sent here. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.

You can also sign a petition calling on CNN to retract its false report.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Julie Hollar.

Dear TVNZ,

We are deeply concerned with the misleading nature of the journalism presented in your recent coverage of the escalating crisis in Gaza and the West Bank. By focusing on specific language and framing, while leaving out the necessary context of international law, the broadcast misrepresents the reality of the situation faced by Palestinians.

This has the effect of perpetuating a narrative that could be seen and experienced as biased and dehumanising.

The International Court of Justice’s ruling on January 26, 2024, mandated that Israel prevent its forces from committing acts of genocide against Palestinians and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

• READ MORE: Aotearoa: NZ news media under fire for ‘bias, propaganda’ in Gaza coverage
• Appalling NZ mainstream media reporting on Palestine continues – John Minto

This ruling highlights the severity of Israel’s actions and the international community’s obligation to hold those responsible accountable. However, TVNZ’s coverage has often failed to reflect this legal and humanitarian perspective.

Instead it echos biased narratives that obscure these realities. This includes the expansion of genocidal like acts to the West Bank and the serious concerns about the potential for mass ethnic cleansing and further escalation of grave human rights violations.

Under international law, including the Genocide Convention, media organisations have a crucial responsibility to report accurately and avoid inciting violence or supporting those committing genocidal acts.

Complicity in genocide can occur when media coverage supports or justifies the actions of perpetrators, contributing to the dehumanisation of victims and the perpetuation of violence. By failing to provide balanced reporting and instead contributing to harmful stereotypes and misinformation, TVNZ risks being complicit in these grave violations of human rights.

Tragic history of attacks
New Zealand’s own tragic history of attacks on Muslims, such as the Al Noor Mosque shootings, should serve as a powerful reminder of the consequences of dehumanising narratives. The media plays a pivotal role in shaping public perception, and it is deeply concerning to see TVNZ contributing to the marginalisation and demonisation of Muslims and Palestinians through biased reporting.

We urge you to review your coverage of the genocide to ensure that it is fair, balanced, and aligned with international law and journalistic ethics. Specific examples of biased reporting include recent stories on Gaza that failed to mention the ICJ ruling or the context of an illegal occupation.

This includes decades of systematic land confiscation, military control, restrictions on movement, and the suppression of Palestinian voices through media censorship and the shutdown of local newspapers. Accurate and responsible journalism is essential in fostering an informed and empathetic public, especially on matters as sensitive and impactful as this.

On August 29, 2024, TVNZ aired a news story that exemplifies problematic media framing when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The story begins by benignly describing Israel’s “entry into the West Bank” as part of a “counter-terrorism strike”— the largest operation in 10 years — implying that the context is solely anti-terrorism.

Automatically, the use of the word terrorism, sets the narrative of “good Israel” and “bad Palestinian” for the remainder of the news story.  However, the report fails to mention numerous critical aspects, such as the provocations by Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque and threatening to build a synagogue at Islam’s third holiest site, or Israel’s escalations and violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The Convention considers the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into the territory it occupies a war crime, and under international law, Palestinians have the right to resist such occupation, a right recognised and protected by international legal frameworks.

The story uses footage, presumably provided by the IDF, that portrays the Israeli military as a calm, moral force entering “terrorist strongholds”, which is at odds with abundant open-source footage showing the IDF destroying infrastructure, terrorising civilians, and protecting armed settlers as they displace Palestinians from their homes.

Bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes
It portrays the IDF entering the town with bulldozers, but makes no mention of how those bulldozers are used to destroy Palestinian homes and infrastructure to make way for Israeli settlements.

Furthermore, the report fails to mention that just last month, the Israeli government announced its plans to officially recognise five more illegal settlements in the West Bank and expand existing settlements, understandably exacerbating tensions.

The narrative is further reinforced by giving airtime to an Israeli spokesperson who frames the operation as a defensive counter-terrorism initiative. The journalist echoes this narrative, positioning Israel as merely responding to threats.

Although a brief soundbite from a Palestinian Red Crescent worker expresses fears of what might happen in the West Bank, the report fails to provide any counter-narrative to Israel’s self-defence claim.

The story concludes by listing the number of deaths in the West Bank since October 19, implying that the situation began with Hamas’s actions in Gaza on that date, rather than addressing the illegal Israeli occupation since 1967, as the root cause of the violence.

Why is this important?
The news story is a violation of the Accuracy and Impartiality Standard with TVNZ failing to present a balanced view of the situation in Palestine, potentially misleading the audience on critical aspects of the conflict.

Secondly, the news story violates  the Harm and Offence Standard, being an insufficient and inflammatory portrayal of the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine contributing to public misperception and harm.

Additionally, there is a concern regarding the Fairness Standard, with individuals and groups affected by the conflict not being given fair opportunity to respond or be represented in the broadcast.

These breaches are significant as they undermine the integrity of the reporting and fail to uphold the standards of responsible journalism. Holding our media outlets to high journalistic standards is essential, particularly in the context of the genocide in Gaza.

The media plays a significant part in either exposing or obscuring the realities of such atrocities. When news outlets fail to report accurately or neglect to label the situation in Gaza as genocide, they contribute to a narrative that minimises the severity of the crisis and enables and prolongs Israel’s social license to continue it’s genocidal actions.

Should there be no substantial changes to address our concerns,  we will escalate this matter to the Broadcasting Standards Authority for further review.

• Join the Our Action Station petition

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

When users search for terms on TikTok — owned by Chinese company ByteDance — that are sensitive to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, such as “Tibet” and “Taiwan,” the results show much more content that is pro-China than content that is critical of China, researchers found.

Compared to similar searches on Instagram and YouTube, the results showed a pronounced pro-Beijing bias, according to the study, titled “The CCP’s Digital Charm Offensive,” by the Network Contagion Research Institute, or NCRI, at Rutgers University.

The findings, “while not definitive proof of state orchestration, present compelling and strong circumstantial evidence of TikTok’s covert content manipulation,” wrote NCRI co-founder Joel Finkelstein in the report.

Swaying youth

The study mimicked the user journeys of American 16-year-olds based on the newly created accounts that were used to test the three platforms’ search algorithm results, the report said.

The findings point to attempts by the Chinese government to shape public opinion — particularly among youth — on human rights and political issues, experts said.

Tibetan and Uyghur activists say that such bias obfuscates China’s oppression of Tibetans and Uyghurs and its attempts to undermine or wipe out their languages and cultures.

Constant exposure to TikTok’s pro-Beijing content is “a significant threat and concern,” said Lobsang Gyatso Sither, a member of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile and director of technology at the Tibet Action Institute.

Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Campaign for Uyghurs, said that the research shows a “strong possibility” of content suppression or amplification to align with Beijing’s interests.

“The CCP is responsible for the Uyghur genocide and the oppression of the people of Hong Kong and Tibet,” she said.

Beijing is using social media “in their campaign of transnational repression, harassing human rights defenders living outside of China,” she said.

TikTok users also say that the short-form mobile video app has censored comments deemed critical of Beijing.

One young Uyghur user who wanted to remain nameless said that last November, after the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Chinese officials said on social media that a genocide was happening in Gaza but not in Xinjiang, home to some 11 million Uyghurs.

“I posted a comment in Arabic saying China was actually committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang,” he said. “My comment was soon removed by TikTok. I was quite shocked. Apparently, TikTok didn't want the Muslim world to know about the Uyghur genocide.”

Rejecting criticism

A TikTok spokesperson rejected the study, saying it was a “non-peer reviewed, flawed experiment … clearly engineered to reach a false, predetermined conclusion.”

“Previous research by NCRI has been debunked by outside analysts, and this latest paper is equally flawed,” the spokesperson, who asked that his name not be published, told RFA in an email. 

“Creating fake accounts that interact with the app in a prescribed manner does not reflect real users' experience, just as this so-called study does not reflect facts or reality.” 

“One would hope media outlets would apply journalistic standards and rigor to fact check this type of fiction before rushing to publication,” he wrote.  

Concerns about Beijing’s influence over TikTok are not new. 

Since 2020, the Indian government has imposed a ban on more than 232 Chinese apps, including TikTok. 

As of 2023, some 34 U.S. states enacted policies prohibiting government agencies and officials, including contract employees, from using TikTok. This year, the U.S. Congress passed legislation banning TikTok unless it is sold to a government-approved buyer. There are ongoing hearings about the potential for a ban of the app across the U.S.

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The NCRI research found that when using TikTok to search for terms such as “Tibet,” “Tibet,” “Uyghurs” or “1989 Tiananmen Massacre,” between 61% and 93% of the results were either pro-China or irrelevant, while anti-China content constituted only 5%.

By comparison, pro-China content made up 13.7% of content on YouTube and 27.7% on Instagram, the study showed.

In December 2023, the NCRI published its first report on TikTok which showed a strong possibility that content on the video-sharing app was being either amplified or suppressed based on the alignment with Chinese government narratives. 

Influence tool

The Chinese government uses TikTok as a strategic tool to influence other countries, particularly young people, in an effort to shift their perceptions of China, said Vinayak Bhatt, an Indian defense analyst and former army general.

“This includes promoting the idea that China’s economic growth is due not only to hard work but also to strategic government planning,” he said.

Many Gen Z users of TikTok say they are aware of the Chinese government’s biases and potential for content manipulation on the app, but choose to use it for recreational purposes.

“My page doesn’t have any political content, so when I think of TikTok, I view it as more recreational, but I also have a subconscious awareness that when I see anything pro-China or political, that it may be influenced,” said Tenzin Khando, a 20-year-old Tibetan student from New York, who has had a TikTok account since 2019.

Dolma Lhamo, a 25-year-old Tibetan resident of Orissa, India, recalled an issue with TikTok in 2019 when she posted a picture of the Dalai Lama and a note of appreciation on the platform on his birthday, but the post was blocked and did not appear.

Lhamo, who created her TikTok account about 10 years ago, expressed concern about the incident and said she stopped posting anything related to Tibet.

Most TikTok Gen Z users say they are subconsciously aware of the Chinese government’s biases and potential for content manipulation on the app, but choose to use it for recreational purposes.

But Chemi Lhamo, a Tibetan-Canadian human rights activist and campaign director at Students for a Free Tibet, said she avoids apps and digital platforms created by the Chinese government because she doesn’t trust them. 

“I also advise others against using such platforms due to concerns about bias,” she said.  

Language restrictions

Dawa Tsering, director of the Tibetan Policy Institute in Dharamsala, India, told RFA that the prohibition of Tibetan language on ByteDance’s Douyin, the Chinese version of the TikTok app available to Tibetans inside Tibet and others in China, is indicative of a broader policy to eradicate the Tibetan language. 

He said these restrictions are in line with Chinese government orders to suppress Tibetan culture and language, with social media platforms like TikTok actively supporting this policy of cultural eradication.

Douyin has become a key platform for the Chinese authorities to distribute information and propaganda. Like other social media services in China, Douyin adheres to the censorship regulations set by the CCP.

Additional reporting by Lobe Socktsang, Dickey Kundol, Yangdon Demo, Khando Yangzom, and Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan, and by RFA Uyghur. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Tibetan and RFA Uyghur.

Last week’s leaked New York Times staff directive, as to what words can and cannot be used to describe the carnage Israel is raining on Palestinians, is proof positive, since those reports are published verbatim here in New Zealand, that our understanding of the conflict is carefully managed to always reflect a pro-Israel bias.

Forget the humanity of 120,000 dead and wounded Palestinians and countless others facing famine and disease sheltering in tents or what’s left of destroyed buildings, even internationally recognised terms and phrases such as “genocide,” “occupied territory,” “ethnic cleansing” and even “refugee camps” are discouraged, along with “slaughter”, “massacre” and “carnage”.

Though such language restrictions are claimed to be in the interests of “fairness”, an earlier investigation showed that between October 7 and November 14, The Times used the word “massacre” 53 times when it referred to Israelis being killed by Palestinians and only once in reference to Palestinians being killed by Israel.

• READ MORE: Donors urged to re­sume UN­R­WA fund­ing as re­view finds no Is­raeli ev­i­dence
• Media bias over Palestine
• Other War on Gaza reports

By that date, thousands of Palestinians had perished, the vast majority of whom were women and children, and most of them were killed inside their own homes, in hospitals, schools or United Nations shelters.

This carefully managed use of words is deliberate and insidious and, as Jack Tame’s interview with Israel’s ambassador on last Sunday’s Q&A programme showed, even our most experienced media people are not immune to its effects.

Here is our interview with Israel Ambassador, Ran Yaakoby. From this morning’s @NZQandA https://t.co/pSHdxpccre

— Jack Tame (@jacktame) April 20, 2024

From his introduction, “establishing” that the genocide taking place in Gaza had its genesis in the October 7 attack by Hamas, and not in the Nakba of 1948, Jack Tame and TVNZ facilitated an almost hour-long presentation of pro-Israel propaganda, justifying its atrocities.

For its appalling lack of balance, including Tame’s obsequious allowance and nodding agreement with the Israeli ambassador’s thoroughly discredited claims of Hamas atrocities; “beheadings” “necrophilia” and for describing Israelis’ as being “butchered” (five times he used the word) while Palestinians were merely “killed”, this was a new low in our media’s record of bias when it comes to the presentation of the facts about the Palestine/Israel conflict.

In the very week that we prepare to remember the horrific sacrifices made in previous wars and even as Israel‘s genocidal slaughter of Palestinians brings us closer to World War Three than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis, that TVNZ should have, pre-recorded and so had time to edit, such a disgraceful presentation is simply appalling — and heads should roll.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

“The American people deserve a trial and a verdict on these serious charges before they go to the polls in November,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, president of Common Cause. “The presumptive Republican presidential nominee stands criminally charged with conspiracy and obstruction stemming from his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It is critically important that the Supreme Court rule quickly, as it has in past presidential cases, so that justice can be rendered before Americans cast their ballots.”

The brief emphasizes that Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from prosecution for the criminal acts alleged in his pending indictment is “untenable and poses a direct threat to the rule of law.” In urging the High Court to rule quickly in the case, the Common Cause brief cites previous cases – including United States v. Nixon and Bush v. Gore – where the Justices acted quickly when the presidency was at stake and the public interest demanded speed.

The brief asks the Supreme Court to act with the same expediency it did earlier this year in deciding Trump v. Anderson in the former president’s favor when it ruled that states cannot disqualify any candidate for federal office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. In light of that ruling, the brief warns that a failure to act quickly could open the Court to the perception that it is attempting to influence the 2024 election in favor of Trump.

“Any impression that the Supreme Court is slow-walking a decision about presidential immunity when they have acted with speed in Anderson, Bush and Nixon could dangerously undermine public faith in the court,” said Kathay Feng, vice president of programs for Common Cause. “The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved above the main entrance to the Supreme Court, and Americans expect no less. There is no caveat.”

A grand jury indicted Trump in In August 2023, on four charges related to his actions to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the trial should move forward.

Oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States will be held on April 25.

To read Common Cause’s amicus brief, click here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Photograph Source: Leif Jørgensen – CC BY-SA 4.0

A United Nations (UN) report recently emerged making damning claims of sexual violence allegedly committed by Hamas. But not all is as it seems. The report has some glaring epistemological problems, all of which seem to serve the Israeli narrative that its genocide in Gaza is somehow justified. Moreover, the report fits within a wider modus operandi on the part of the world’s preeminent international institution. A more comprehensive examination of the history of the UN’s role in the conflict in Palestine reveals its supposed pro-Palestinian bias is not as clearcut as it’s commonly presented. Indeed, there is evidence that the UN has, if anything, been more a tool of Israel than the other way round.

Shocking accusations swiftly weaponized by Israel

The UN released the report on March 4^th, almost six months after the surprise October 7^th attack when members of Hamas’ paramilitary wing breached the Gaza border. Co-authored by its special envoy on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, the document claims there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Hamas engaged in rape and other forms of sexual violence during the attack. Patten gave a statement in which she said that this took place in “at least three locations” including “the Nova music festival site and its surroundings, Road 232, and Kibbutz Re’im.”

The following day, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, publicly condemned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for supposedly failing to respond in an adequate manner. Specifically, he criticized Guterres for failing to immediately call for a UN Security Council meeting about the report’s findings. However, as multiple media outlets have pointed out, Guterres does not have the authority to convene a General Assembly meeting. A UN spokesperson responded that “in no way, shape, or form did the secretary-general do anything to keep the report ‘quiet.’” She added that Katz’s announcement was made a matter of hours before a press conference about the report’s contents was scheduled to be held.

Recalling UN ambassador and launching ‘hasbara’ propaganda campaign

Israel has also withdrawn its ambassador to the UN, claiming that the organization’s leadership is attempting to “silence” the allegations. Katz said in a statement: “”I [have] ordered our ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, to return to Israel for immediate consultations regarding the attempt to keep quiet the serious UN report on the mass rapes committed by Hamas and its helpers on Oct. 7.”

Nonetheless, there are already signs that the Israeli government is seizing on the report as part of its ongoing propaganda campaign to deflect criticism from its committal of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. On March 7^th, The Jerusalem Postreported that Katz, “has directed all embassies within the State of Israel to begin a large-scale hasbara (public diplomacy) campaign immediately… in light of the findings of the UN report on sexual violence in the Hamas massacre on October 7.”

An inversion of the Israeli narrative about the UN

The development represents an inversion of what Israel and Western media commonly characterize as the usual dynamic between the UN and the various parties to the conflict in Palestine. According to this narrative, the UN has a viciously anti-Israel agenda and consistently singles out Israel for criticism. Indeed, hardline Zionists have long complained that the UN is “biased” or even prejudiced against Israel, which often goes alongside the usual conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

One US-based Israel supporter even set up an NGO called “UN Watch,” which according to its executive director “holds the UN to account” for its supposed anti-Israel bias. Indeed, we will presumably soon hear an Israeli narrative that presents the fact that the UN has produced such a report in spite of such a bias as the most definitive proof possible that its findings are correct. But a deeper investigation shows that the report is, in fact, deeply flawed in both its methods and conclusions.

A compendium of unverified anecdotes and repetition of Israeli lies

It has already emerged, for instance, that the team of UN personnel who produced the report did not conduct their own research. Tellingly, press reports have also revealed that they did not even meet with any survivors of sexual violence that allegedly took place on October 7^th. Rather, they relied to a large extent on anecdotal and unverified reports from institutions in Israel. According to CNN, the UN team met with a total of 33 Israeli institutions. One of these was a “search and rescue” organization that has previously been accused of spreading misinformation about the October 7^th Hamas attack. This same organization, for example, had earlier claimed that it found a pregnant woman who had been stabbed in the stomach in an apparent attack on her fetus, which turned out to be unverified.

Foreign Policy magazine pointed out that the report furthermore “did not attribute the sexual violence to any specific armed group.” In other words, even if the allegations are true, they could have been committed by Palestinians (or, indeed, non-Palestinians) who were not affiliated with Hamas or any other Palestinian paramilitary organization. Foreign Policy added that “the U.N. team behind the report had not been tasked with an investigative mission” and that “[s]uch attribution would require a fully-fledged investigative process.”

A similar story plays out at The New York Times

The report was released in the same week that it emerged that significant sections of a New York Times article published in December of last year, which contained similar claims, were in fact false. The story, titled “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.,” claimed that members of the Be’eri kibbutz in southern Israel near the Gaza border had been raped by Hamas assailants during the course of the October 7^th attack.

But The Intercept reported on March 7^th that at least two of the three women “were not in fact victims of sexual assault,” according to a spokesperson of the kibbutz. The Intercept article adds that some of the initial reports about sexual violence came from an anonymous paramedic who had been connected to the international media by a representative of the Israeli government (which, of course, makes this person’s testimony highly suspect). It also states that the kibbutz spokesperson herself “disputed the graphic and highly detailed claims of the Israeli special forces paramedic who served as the source for the allegation, which was published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and other media outlets.”

Not an isolated incident, but the latest chapter in a long history

Neither the UN report nor the erroneous New York Times article would be the first cases of Western institutions or its corporate-owned media spreading misinformation on Israel’s behalf. Indeed, there is a long history of The New York Times specifically taking orders from the Israeli government and its NGO proxies in the Israel lobby. In 2014, for example, the Times deliberately failed to report on the arrest of a Palestinian journalist by Israeli authorities because Israel had ordered it to do so. In 2022, the Timesfired a Palestinian photographer on its staff at the behest of the pro-Israel NGO Honest Reporting.

Even when there is no direct evidence of Israeli intervention, leadership of mainstream corporate media across the West seem to have an almost automatic tendency to sideline, silence and/or fire any of its staff who fail to toe the pro-Israel line. In 2018, CNN fired Marc Lamont Hill for making a pro-Palestinian remark at a UN meeting held on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The Washington-based publication The Hill sacked Katie Halper in 2022 after she described Israel as an apartheid state (a charge that has become mainstream even within Israel). And the UK’s Guardian newspaper fired Nathan J. Robinson in 2021 after he posted a satirical comment about the US’s military funding to Israel on social media.

Countless resolutions but never any concrete sanction

As for the UN, though there have been many resolutions condemning Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians, the organization has seldom imposed any concrete punitive measures against the country in response. Indeed, as political scientist Norman Finkelstein has pointed out, the reason why the UN keeps issuing so many resolutions condemning Israel is because Israel (with the encouragement of its backers in Washington) simply ignores them and continues to violate Palestinian human rights and international law.

In any case, it is the UN General Assembly, rather than the UN’s leadership or staff, that usually issues these condemnations. The UN General Assembly is made up of representatives of governments around the world and so is more representative of global public opinion than the UN’s internal bureaucracy. In any case, General Assembly resolutions can be vetoed by permanent members of the UN Security Council. Since one of those permanent members is the United States (whose number one ally is Israel), it always vetoes any resolution that condemns Israel anyway.

UN staff slammed by leadership when critical of Israel

Even when UN officials themselves criticize Israel, they sometimes do so only to get silenced or sidelined by the UN’s hierarchy. For instance, international relations scholar at Princeton University Richard Falk served for decades as a UN expert on the conflict in Palestine. Yet his work has often been thwarted by figures within the UN leadership and administration.

In 2017, for example, Falk published a report on Israel’s human rights violations through the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA). The head of UNESCWA, Rima Khalaf, said that the report represented the first time that any UN report has “clearly and frankly conclude[d] that Israel is a racist state that has established an apartheid system that persecutes the Palestinian people.”

The fact that Israel is practicing apartheid in the occupied territories is so obvious that former US president Jimmy Carter, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even Israel’s own human rights organization, B’Tselem, have said so. Even some figures from Israel’s own political, military, intelligence, and legal elite have said so too.  Yet in spite of this, Secretary General António Guterres demanded that Khalaf withdraw Falk’s report.

Legitimizing the two-state charade while deplatforming the one-state alternative

Another way that the UN subtly serves the Israeli narrative is its elevation of a two-state solution as the best, and indeed only, means of resolving the conflict. Every resolution passed by the UN General Assembly calling for a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is predicated on one Israeli state and one Palestinian state divided by the borders that existed prior to the June 1967 war. This would deliver to Israel 78% of the land that made up historic Palestine while leaving the Palestinians with the remaining 22%. In addition to giving the two sides a completely unfair share of the land (especially considering the rough parity in population numbers), this division would also reward the Zionist landgrab and subsequent ethnic cleansing that took place in the latter half of the 1940s.

The traditional solution that was proffered by all Palestinian nationalist parties before the 1993 Oslo accord, meanwhile, (that is, a single, secular, non-sectarian democratic state with equal rights for all encompassing the whole of historic Palestine) has been systematically suppressed and deplatformed by the UN’s leadership. Former official Craig Mokhiber was essentially forced to resign for reasons of conscience before publicly voicing his support for the rival one-state solution – again highlighting how the UN hierarchy sidelines those who it considers too pro-Palestinian.

In a public letter published just as he resigned, Mokhiber stated that the two-state solution has become an “open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people.” During a media interview shortly after he added: “When people [who work at the UN] are not talking from official talking points, you hear increasingly about a one-state solution.”

The two-state smokescreen

This deliberate deplatforming of the one-state solution and narrow focus on its two-state rival serves an important purpose for Israel. Though Israel opposes even the resolutions in favor of two states (presumably because they insist that such a settlement should be based on internationally recognized borders), it nonetheless benefits from the elevation of the two-state solution. This is because it creates a convenient smokescreen for Israel to deliberately stall on making peace while continuing to displace Palestinians in the West Bank, establish settlements in their place, and build infrastructure for the exclusive use of Israeli settlers – all of which is illegal under international law.

Israel does this as part of a duplicitous sleight of hand in which it publicly proclaims support for a two-state solution while simultaneously itself creating a situation on the ground that makes that solution impossible. It does this for the simple reason that the goal of Zionism from the outset has been the establishment of a Jewish-majority state encompassing all of historic Palestine with the Palestinians ethnically cleansed out of it. As political scientist Rosalind Petchesky puts it in A Land With A People, “the settler colonial project to ‘de-Arabise Palestine’ and bring all of historic Palestine under Zionist sovereignty long pre-dated both the Nakba and worldwide knowledge of the Nazi holocaust.”

Time to rethink the role of the UN

Given the UN’s role in providing cover for the continuation of this process all while posturing as the primary locomotive toward peace, it is high time that Palestinians and their supporters stop looking up to it as a source of truth and meaningful condemnation of Israel’s human rights violations. Clearly, there is growing evidence that the supposed anti-Israel bias of the UN is a myth concocted to benefit Israel. Evidently, if there’s any bias at the world’s preeminent international institution, it is against the Palestinians rather than the other way round.

The post New Report on Sexual Violence During October 7th Attack Raises Serious Questions About the UN’s Supposed Anti-Israel Bias appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter Bolton.

Shocking accusations swiftly weaponized by Israel

The UN released the report on March 4, almost six months after the surprise October 7 attack when members of Hamas’ paramilitary wing breached the Gaza border. Co-authored by its special envoy on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, the document claims there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Hamas engaged in rape and other forms of sexual violence during the attack. Patten gave a statement in which she said that this took place in “at least three locations” including “the Nova music festival site and its surroundings, Road 232, and Kibbutz Re’im.”

The following day, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, publicly condemned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for supposedly failing to respond in an adequate manner. Specifically, he criticized Guterres for failing to immediately call for a UN Security Council meeting about the report’s findings. However, as multiple media outlets have pointed out, Guterres does not have the authority to convene a General Assembly meeting. A UN spokesperson responded that “in no way, shape, or form did the secretary-general do anything to keep the report ‘quiet.’” She added that Katz’s announcement was made a matter of hours before a press conference about the report’s contents was scheduled to be held.

Recalling UN ambassador and launching ‘hasbara’ propaganda campaign

Israel has also withdrawn its ambassador to the UN, claiming that the organization’s leadership is attempting to “silence” the allegations. Katz said in a statement: “”I [have] ordered our ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, to return to Israel for immediate consultations regarding the attempt to keep quiet the serious UN report on the mass rapes committed by Hamas and its helpers on Oct. 7.”

Nonetheless, there are already signs that the Israeli government is seizing on the report as part of its ongoing propaganda campaign to deflect criticism from its committal of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. On March 7, the Jerusalem Post reported that Katz, “has directed all embassies within the State of Israel to begin a large-scale hasbara (public diplomacy) campaign immediately… in light of the findings of the UN report on sexual violence in the Hamas massacre on October 7.”

An inversion of the Israeli narrative about the UN

The development represents an inversion of what Israel and Western media commonly characterize as the usual dynamic between the UN and the various parties to the conflict in Palestine. According to this narrative, the UN has a viciously anti-Israel agenda and consistently singles out Israel for criticism. Indeed, hardline Zionists have long complained that the UN is “biased” or even prejudiced against Israel, which often goes alongside the usual conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

One US-based Israel supporter even set up an NGO called “UN Watch,” which according to its executive director “holds the UN to account” for its supposed anti-Israel bias. Indeed, we will presumably soon hear an Israeli narrative that presents the fact that the UN has produced such a report in spite of such a bias as the most definitive proof possible that its findings are correct. But a deeper investigation shows that the report is, in fact, deeply flawed in both its methods and conclusions.

A compendium of unverified anecdotes and repetition of Israeli lies

It has already emerged, for instance, that the team of UN personnel who produced the report did not conduct their own research. Tellingly, press reports have also revealed that they did not even meet with any survivors of sexual violence that allegedly took place on October 7. Rather, they relied to a large extent on anecdotal and unverified reports from institutions in Israel. According to CNN, the UN team met with a total of 33 Israeli institutions. One of these was a “search and rescue” organization that has previously been accused of spreading misinformation about the October 7 Hamas attack. This same organization, for example, had earlier claimed that it found a pregnant woman who had been stabbed in the stomach in an apparent attack on her fetus, which turned out to be unverified.

Foreign Policy magazine pointed out that the report furthermore “did not attribute the sexual violence to any specific armed group.” In other words, even if the allegations are true, they could have been committed by Palestinians (or, indeed, non-Palestinians) who were not affiliated with Hamas or any other Palestinian paramilitary organization. Foreign Policy added that “the U.N. team behind the report had not been tasked with an investigative mission” and that “[s]uch attribution would require a fully-fledged investigative process.”

A similar story plays out at the New York Times

The report was released in the same week that it emerged that significant sections of a New York Times article published in December of last year, which contained similar claims, were in fact false. The story, titled “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.,” claimed that members of the Be’eri kibbutz in southern Israel near the Gaza border had been raped by Hamas assailants during the course of the October 7 attack.

But The Intercept reported on March 7 that at least two of the three women “were not in fact victims of sexual assault,” according to a spokesperson of the kibbutz. The Intercept article adds that some of the initial reports about sexual violence came from an anonymous paramedic who had been connected to the international media by a representative of the Israeli government (which, of course, makes this person’s testimony highly suspect). It also states that the kibbutz spokesperson herself “disputed the graphic and highly detailed claims of the Israeli special forces paramedic who served as the source for the allegation, which was published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and other media outlets.”

Not an isolated incident, but the latest chapter in a long history

Neither the UN report nor the erroneous New York Times article would be the first cases of Western institutions or its corporate-owned media spreading misinformation on Israel’s behalf. Indeed, there is a long history of The New York Times specifically taking orders from the Israeli government and its NGO proxies in the Israel lobby. In 2014, for example, the Times deliberately failed to report on the arrest of a Palestinian journalist by Israeli authorities because Israel had ordered it to do so. In 2022, the Times fired a Palestinian photographer on its staff at the behest of the pro-Israel NGO Honest Reporting.

Even when there is no direct evidence of Israeli intervention, leadership of mainstream corporate media across the West seem to have an almost automatic tendency to sideline, silence and/or fire any of its staff who fail to toe the pro-Israel line. In 2018, CNN fired Marc Lamont Hill for making a pro-Palestinian remark at a UN meeting held on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The Washington-based publication The Hill sacked Katie Halper in 2022 after she described Israel as an apartheid state (a charge that has become mainstream even within Israel). And the UK’s Guardian newspaper fired Nathan J. Robinson in 2021 after he posted a satirical comment about the US’s military funding to Israel on social media.

Countless resolutions but never any concrete sanction

As for the UN, though there have been many resolutions condemning Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians, the organization has seldom imposed any concrete punitive measures against the country in response. Indeed, as political scientist Norman Finkelstein has pointed out, the reason why the UN keeps issuing so many resolutions condemning Israel is because Israel (with the encouragement of its backers in Washington) simply ignores them and continues to violate Palestinian human rights and international law.

In any case, it is the UN General Assembly, rather than the UN’s leadership or staff, that usually issues these condemnations. The UN General Assembly is made up of representatives of governments around the world and so is more representative of global public opinion than the UN’s internal bureaucracy. In any case, General Assembly resolutions can be vetoed by permanent members of the UN Security Council. Since one of those permanent members is the United States (whose number one ally is Israel), it always vetoes any resolution that condemns Israel anyway.

UN staff slammed by leadership when critical of Israel

Even when UN officials themselves criticize Israel, they sometimes do so only to get silenced or sidelined by the UN’s hierarchy. For instance, international relations scholar at Princeton University Richard Falk served for decades as a UN expert on the conflict in Palestine. Yet his work has often been thwarted by figures within the UN leadership and administration.

In 2017, for example, Falk published a report on Israel’s human rights violations through the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA). The head of UNESCWA, Rima Khalaf, said that the report represented the first time that any UN report has “clearly and frankly conclude[d] that Israel is a racist state that has established an apartheid system that persecutes the Palestinian people.”

The fact that Israel is practicing apartheid in the occupied territories is so obvious that former US president Jimmy Carter, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even Israel’s own human rights organization, B’Tselem, have said so. Even some figures from Israel’s own political, military, intelligence, and legal elite have said so too.  Yet in spite of this, Secretary General António Guterres demanded that Khalaf withdraw Falk’s report.

Legitimizing the two-state charade while deplatforming the one-state alternative

Another way that the UN subtly serves the Israeli narrative is its elevation of a two-state solution as the best, and indeed only, means of resolving the conflict. Every resolution passed by the UN General Assembly calling for a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is predicated on one Israeli state and one Palestinian state divided by the borders that existed prior to the June 1967 war. This would deliver to Israel 78% of the land that made up historic Palestine while leaving the Palestinians with the remaining 22%. In addition to giving the two sides a completely unfair share of the land (especially considering the rough parity in population numbers), this division would also reward the Zionist landgrab and subsequent ethnic cleansing that took place in the latter half of the 1940s.

The traditional solution that was proffered by all Palestinian nationalist parties before the 1993 Oslo accord, meanwhile, (that is, a single, secular, non-sectarian democratic state with equal rights for all encompassing the whole of historic Palestine) has been systematically suppressed and deplatformed by the UN’s leadership. Former official Craig Mokhiber was essentially forced to resign for reasons of conscience before publicly voicing his support for the rival one-state solution – again highlighting how the UN hierarchy sidelines those who it considers too pro-Palestinian.

In a public letter published just as he resigned, Mokhiber stated that the two-state solution has become an “open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people.” During a media interview shortly after he added: “When people [who work at the UN] are not talking from official talking points, you hear increasingly about a one-state solution.”

The two-state smokescreen

This deliberate deplatforming of the one-state solution and narrow focus on its two-state rival serves an important purpose for Israel. Though Israel opposes even the resolutions in favor of two states (presumably because they insist that such a settlement should be based on internationally recognized borders), it nonetheless benefits from the elevation of the two-state solution. This is because it creates a convenient smokescreen for Israel to deliberately stall on making peace while continuing to displace Palestinians in the West Bank, establish settlements in their place, and build infrastructure for the exclusive use of Israeli settlers – all of which is illegal under international law.

Israel does this as part of a duplicitous sleight of hand in which it publicly proclaims support for a two-state solution while simultaneously itself creating a situation on the ground that makes that solution impossible. It does this for the simple reason that the goal of Zionism from the outset has been the establishment of a Jewish-majority state encompassing all of historic Palestine with the Palestinians ethnically cleansed out of it. As political scientist Rosalind Petchesky puts it in A Land With A People, “the settler colonial project to ‘de-Arabise Palestine’ and bring all of historic Palestine under Zionist sovereignty long pre-dated both the Nakba and worldwide knowledge of the Nazi holocaust.”

Time to rethink the role of the UN

Given the UN’s role in providing cover for the continuation of this process all while posturing as the primary locomotive toward peace, it is high time that Palestinians and their supporters stop looking up to it as a source of truth and meaningful condemnation of Israel’s human rights violations. Clearly, there is growing evidence that the supposed anti-Israel bias of the UN is a myth concocted to benefit Israel. Evidently, if there’s any bias at the world’s preeminent international institution, it is against the Palestinians rather than the other way round.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Peter Bolton.

New Zealand news media came under fire at today’s Palestine solidarity rally in Auckland calling for an immediate ceasefire in the war in Gaza with speakers condemning what they said was pro-Israeli “bias” and “propaganda”.

About 500 protesters waved Palestinian flags and many placards declaring “If you’re not heartbroken and furious, you’re not paying attention – stop the genocide”, “Killing kids is not self-defence” and “Western ‘civility, democracy, humanity, morality’ – bitch, where?”.

They gave Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s government a grilling for the “weak” response to Israel atrocities.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: UN, medics say many wounded in the Gaza food aid ‘massacre’ were shot
• Standoff during haka at Christchurch Gaza protest
• When the imperial media report on an Israeli massacre – Caitlin Johnstone

Many speakers were angry over the massacre of starving Palestinians when Israeli military forces opened fire on a crowd seeking aid in the central Gaza City area on Thursday with latest Gaza Health Ministry reports indicating that at least 115 Gazans had been killed with 760 wounded.

The overall death toll is now 30,228 Palestinians killed and 71,377 wounded in Gaza since the war began on October 7.

The UN Human Rights office called for a swift and independent probe into the food aid shootings, saying “at least 14 “similar attacks had occurred since mid-January.

The Biden administration has announced a plan with Jordan to airdrop aid into Gaza but former USAID director Dave Harden has criticised the move as “ineffectual” for the huge humanitarian need of Gaza.

Airdrops ‘symbol of failure’
“Airdrops are a symbol of massive failure,” he told Al Jazeera.

The bodies of three more Palestinians killed in the food aid slaughter were recovered.

The New Zealand media were condemned for relying on “flawed” media coverage and journalists embedded with the Israeli military.

“The New Zealand media ‘scalps’ information to create public perceptions rather than informing the public of the facts so that we can come to the conclusion that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide,” Neil Scott, secretary of the Palestine Solidarity Network  (PSNA), told the crowd.

PSNA’s Neil Scott addressing the Palestine solidarity crowd today. Video: APR

“What Israel is doing in Palestine is apartheid, what Israel is doing in Palestine is occupation – each of those three, plus way more, are crimes against humanity.

“And what is the New Zealand media doing and saying about this?”

“Nothing,” shouted many in the crowd.

“Nada,” continued Scott.

‘Puppies are cute’
“Puppies? Puppies are cute. We’ll get those on TV.

“Genocide. Apartheid. Occupation. Crimes against humanity. Don’t give us news.”

Scott led a deputation of protesters to the headquarters of Television New Zealand yesterday, citing many examples of misinformation of lack of fair and “truthful” coverage.

But management declined to speak to the protesters and the 1News team failed to cover the protest over TVNZ’s coverage of the war on Gaza.

Criticisms have been mounting worldwide against Western news media coverage, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, the staunchest supporters of Israel and the source of most of NZ’s global news services, including the Middle East.

CNN ‘climate of hostility’
Yesterday, the investigative website Intercept reported how CNN media staff, including the celebrated international news anchor Christiane Amanpour, had confronted network executives over what they claimed as stories about the war on Gaza being changed and a “climate of hostility” towards Arab journalists.

According to a leaked internal recording, Amanpour told management that the CNN policy was causing “real distress” over “changing copy” and ”double standards”.

Meanwhile, one of some 50 protests across New Zealand today – in Christchurch – was disrupted by a group of counter-demonstrators supporting Israel who performed a haka at the Bridge of Remembrance.

The group from the Freedoms and Rights Coalition – linked to the Destiny Church – waved Israeli flags and chanted “go back to Israel”.  The pro-Palestinian supporters yelled “shame on them” and carried on with their regular weekly march to Cathedral Square.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Levy argues that the US should abandon this zombie peace diplomacy and adopt a more modest approach that limits its role to advocating the protection of Palestinian human rights for all those living beneath the current Israeli existential one-state version of ‘the river to the sea.’ Levy is persuasive in taking account of Israel’s “categorical rejection of Palestinian statehood” referencing Netanyahu pre-October 7^th defiant assertion that ‘the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel.’” This aggressive approach to the endgame of the conflict falls outside the comfort zone of many liberal Zionists and is obviously distasteful to Levy.

The Levy piece was a reasonable expression of opinion largely at odds with the Biden approach but as juxtaposed to adjoining pieces by Bret Stephens and Thomas Friedman it contributed to an impression of extreme bias. The Stephens piece was so extreme, in my view, as should have made it unpublishable in any responsible media platform, and yet the NY Times gave it prominent billing on its Opinion Page. I suspect, even though ardently pro-Israeli, it would have been summarily rejected if submitted by someone unconnected with the newspaper rather than by one of its regular opinion writers. Its title accurately foretells its tone and essential message: “The Genocide Charge Against Israel is a Moral Obscenity.” Stephen’s vitriolic prose is directed at the South African initiative at the International Court of Justice, which was based on a scrupulous legal argument setting forth in a 95 page carefully crafted document supporting its application for Provisional Measures to stop the ongoing ‘genocide’ until the tribunal decides the substantive allegation on its merits. Stephens’ piece even had the audacity to normalize the dehumanizing language used by the Israeli leadership in describing the ferocity of their violence in Gaza. Stephens seems willing to endorse the position that the alleged and presumed barbarism of the Hamas attack of October 7 allowed Israel to engage in whatever violence would serve their security without being subject to legal scrutiny or UN authority. At this point Israel has killed at least 23,000 Palestinians, without counting the 7,000 missing persons thought to be buried in the rubble. This total of 30,ood fatalities of mostly innocent, long-abused civilians, is the equivalent of over 5,oo,ooo if a similar proportion of deaths were to occur in a country with a population of a size similar to that of the US, and the worst may yet to come for the Palestinians. Beyond the death toll are other severe crimes of humanity that are also features of the overall genocide: forced evacuation; induced starvation and disease; destruction of homes, hospitals, holy places, schools, and UN buildings.

In Stephens’ view this decimation of the people of Gaza is not indicative of genocide but should be viewed as the normal side-effects of a war that is a legal instance of self-defense. Given the weaponry used against sheltering civilians in sites protected under international law, what I find obscene is the heartlessness of Stephens’ gushing carte blanche vindication of Israel’s behavior coupled with the contempt he bestows on those who stand up for the protection of Palestinian rights and the repudiation of what has all the appearance of genocide as specified in the Convention.

Indeed, Stephens argues that China’s abuse of the Uyghurs or the ‘killing fields’ of Cambodia or Soviet Gulag conditions is the real stuff of genocide, and yet went unpunished, while Israel is being maliciously singled out for these delegitimating charges of genocide solely because in his warped judgment the perpetrators are Jewish. It is a shameful line of argument put forward in a slick tone of tribal superiority and legal indifference. There is much room for debate surrounding these events in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7, but to characterize South African recourse to the preeminent judicial body in the world, known for its respectful attitude toward state sovereignty as a ‘a moral obscenity’ is a further illustration of Stephen’s inciteful extremism that feeds the repressive impulses of such Israeli powerhouse lobbies as AIPAC.  It ventures beyond the pale of responsible editorial filters, sure to be present if a Palestinian author wrote, with greater justification, that Israel’s defense of its behavior before this very court amounted to ‘a moral obscenity.’ Not only would such a hypothetical article be rejected, but any future submission by such an intemperate author would probably be rejected without being read.

The third opinion piece was written by the newspaper’s chief pontificator, Thomas Friedman. It recounts part of an interview Friedman. conducted with Antony Blinken a day earlier at a public session of  the Davos World Economic Forum. Friedman was far more civil than Stephens (not a high bar), but more subtly as provocatively aligned with the Israeli narrative, and as always, self-important and pretending to write from above the fray. Friedman started his piece by contextualizing Israeli behavior sympathetically as reflective of the extreme trauma experienced by Israelis as a result of the Hamas attack, without a word of sympathetic empathy for the Palestinian outburst of resistance after 50 years of abusive occupation and 15 years of a punitive total blockade. Against this background, Blinken was portrayed as a tireless representative of the US Government doing his diplomatic best to limit the magnitude of devastation in Gaza and support the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid. In the interview Blinken declared that he was heartbroken by the tragic ordeal being experienced by the Palestinians, and yet Friedman not bring himself to question this high US official and unconditional supporter of Israel even gently as to why given these grim realities he continues to endorse the support for Israel’s military operation at the UN and through military assistance knowingly contributing to a continuation of this onslaught.

Friedman offers no reference to Blinken’s earlier extravagant official assurances of direct US combat participation if Israel so requests. Friedman failed to pose even a softball question about Blinken’s attitude toward Israel’s dehumanizing statements, tactics, or evident ethnic cleansing goals. Blinken had seemed for most of the 100+ days of Israeli violence entirely comfortable to be carrying out his role as enabler-in-chief of the Israeli ongoing genocide. Such a role entails legal accountability for serious, ongoing complicity crimes, and not the celebration of a man doing a professional duty that brought him personal grief. It is illuminating to appreciate that to slow the velocity of genocide, even if such a mitigating intention is conceded, is still genocide.

What makes this show of media bias particularly disturbing is the refusal to consider that most non-Westerners have little doubt about the true nature of Israel’s guilt in relation to the commission of this ‘crime of crimes.’ This perception has nothing to do with the fact that Israel is a Jewish state, and everything to do with the stark clarity of Israel’s formal intentions and the manifest nature of its militarist extremism that is entering its fourth month. A further damning fact is that this is the most transparent genocide in all of human history as nightly TV brings its daily occurrence before the eyes of virtually the whole world.  The horror of previous genocides, including the Holocaust, has been largely disclosed after the fact, and even then these human tragedies  were largely interpreted by way of abstraction and statistics, as well as through the grim tales told by survivors or in the form of reconstructions done long after the bloody realities by documentary films, investigative journalism, and scholarly inquiry.

My emphasis on this single day’s selection of opinion pieces is not merely to allege NY Times bias, but to raise the tricky questions of self-censorship and media independence of deference to government policy especially in the context of war/peace issues. As shocking as I found the Stephens’ rant, more shocking was the failure of the NY Times and most national media to report on the extraordinary protest activity around the country in recent weeks, including a demonstration in Washington on Martin Luther King Day of 400,000 pro-ceasefire protesters. Surely, this such an outpouring of citizen didn’t deserve to be dismissed as not newsworthy. Especially in this era where social media reinforces the post-truth ethos of right-wing politics, the future of democracy under threat, would benefit from more responsible managerial standards on the part of the most trustworthy media, and especially with regard to controversial foreign policy, more debate, and less deference to Pentagon, State Department, and White House viewpoints.

I have no intention to make the NY Times a scapegoat. Its response to the Gaza genocide is indicative of a systemic problem with media reportage. For instance, watchers of CNN deserve more independent critical voices, and less official rationalization from government spokespersons, or retired military officers and intelligence bureaucrats. It is dangerous enough to endure deep state manipulations from within the bureaucracies but to have such views infuse media integrity is to resign the country to an autocratic future.

The post Western Media Bias, Israeli Apologetics, and Ongoing Genocide appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard Falk.

On October 31, Kerala police initiated a criminal investigation against Sydeek for “giving provocation with the intent to cause a riot” under Section 153 of the Penal Code and took his mobile phone, the outlet’s deputy editor Shaheen Abdulla and Sydeek told CPJ by phone.

The investigation was in relation to Sydeek’s October 30 news report for Maktoob Media, in which Muslim men who were detained following an explosion at a Jehovah’s Witnesses convention last month accused the police of anti-Muslim bias, according to Abdulla and news reports. A former member of the congregation claimed responsibility for the blast in which six people died, those sources said.

“Launching a police investigation into Maktoob Media journalists over a report accusing the police of anti-Muslim bias sets a perilous precedent,” said Kunal Majumder, CPJ’s India representative. “Kerala police must drop their investigation into reporter Rejaz M Sheeba Sydeek, return his phone, and allow the press to publish news that is in the public interest.”

On November 16 and 17, the police interrogated Sydeek and Maktoob Media’s founder and editor Aslah Kayyalakkath and took a statement from Abdulla, those news sources and Sydeek said. Sydeek and Abdulla told CPJ that the police took Sydeek’s mobile phone and refused to provide a “hash value,” a unique identifier to ensure the device was not tampered with.

Additionally, Sydeek accused the police of threatening him with additional legal actions including invoking non-bailable sections of the law.

Abdulla said that Maktoob Media had been singled out for reporting on an important story that sought to hold the police accountable and described the police investigation as “arbitrary.”

Sydeek told CPJ that he followed due process while filing his report, including by reaching out to police for comment and quoting them in his story.

CPJ emailed the Kerala director general of police Shaik Darvesh Saheb but did not receive any response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The post Challenging Narratives: Unmasking Zionism, Media Bias, and the ‘EARN IT’ Act appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

While being booked for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump made history as the first former president to have his mugshot taken and released to the public. Shortly after the image of Trump scowling at a police camera started to circulate, the embattled real estate mogul and politician began using it to raise money for his 2024 presidential campaign. “Mugshots have these various ways of being deployed … to craft a narrative, or to reinforce a narrative,” says Emory University professor Carol Anderson, who contrasts the novelty of Trump’s mugshot with the usage of mugshots by the media and the state to convey an image of Black criminality. As L.A. Times reporter Keri Blakinger explains, “the widespread distribution of mugshots undermines the presumption of innocence” and exacerbates racial bias. Blakinger is also the author of the memoir Corrections in Ink, which details her experience serving time in prison in upstate New York. “If he were treated like any other defendant, [Trump] would have been given a bail amount he couldn’t afford and left to die in a filthy cell,” she notes, cautioning that “the more that we celebrate some of these broken features of the system, the more ingrained they become.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

A new media monitoring watchdog, Muslim Media Watch, published its first edition today featuring a cover story alleging that a Malaysian cult leader who was reportedly now in New Zealand could “create social unrest”.

Named as Suhaini bin Mohammad, he was allegedly posing as a Muslim religious leader and was said to be wanted by the authorities in Malaysia for “false teachings” that contradict Islam.

His cult ideology was identified by MMW as SiHulk, which was banned by the Johor State Religious Department (JAINJ) in 2021.

• READ MORE: Media, the courts, and terrorism: Lessons from the Christchurch mosque attacks – Gavin Ellis, Pacific Journalism Review
• Islam in the media: By the numbers

In an editorial, the 16-page publlcation said a need for “such a news outlet” as MMW had been shown after the mass shootings at two Christchurch mosques on 15 March 2019 and the Royal Commission inquiry that followed.

Fifty one people killed in the twin attacks were all Muslims attending the Islamic Friday prayer — “they were targeted solely because they were Muslims”.

The editorial noted “the shooter was motivated largely by online material. His last words before carrying out the shootings were: ‘Remember lads, subscribe to PewDiePie.'”

“It is therefore disappointing that, while acknowledging the role of the media in the shootings, none of the 44 recommendations in the government’s response to the [Royal Commission] relate to holding media to account for irresponsible reporting, or even mention media; the word does not appear in any recommendation,” writes editor Adam Brown.

Often not neutral
“Indeed, the word Muslim appears only once, in ‘Muslim Community Reference Group’.
It has long been acknowledged that media reporting of Muslims and Islam is often not neutral.”

The editorial cited an Australian example, a survey by OnePath Network Australia which tallied the number, percentage and tone of articles about Islam in Australian media in 2017, in particular newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp: The Daily Telegraph, The Australian, The Herald Sun, The Courier Mail and The Advertiser.

“Over the year, the report found that 2891 negative articles ran in those five newspapers, where Islam and Muslims were mentioned alongside words like violence, extremism, terrorism and radical. This equates to over eight articles per day for the whole year; 152 of those articles ran on the front page,” said the MMW editorial.

“The percentage of their opinion pieces that were Islamophobic ranged from 19 percent
to 64 percent.

“The average was 31 percent, nearly a third, with one writer reaching almost two thirds. Also, as OnePath comment, ‘Even though they are stated to be “opinion” pieces, they are often written as fact.'”

Editor Brown said the situation in New Zealand had not improved since the shootings.

“Biased and unfair reporting on Muslim matters continues, and retractions are not always forthcoming,” he wrote.

Examples highlighted
The editorial said that the purpose of MMW was to highlight examples of media reporting — in New Zealand and overseas — that contained information about Islam that was not
accurate, or that was not neutrally reported.

It would also model ethical journalism and responsible reporting following Islamic practices and tradition.

MMW offered to conduct training sessions and to act as a resource for other media outlets.

On other pages, MMW reported about misrepresentation of Islam “being nothing new”, a challenge over a Listener article misrepresentation about girls’ education in Afghanistan, an emerging global culture of mass Iftar events, an offensive reference in a Ministry of Education textbook, and the ministry “acknowledges bias in teacher recruiting”, an article headlined “when are religious extremists not religious extremists”, and other issues.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

The study, published last week in Nature Sustainability, found that an overemphasis on recycling has distracted us from better options for preventing waste. In open-ended surveys, Americans overwhelmingly named recycling as the most effective thing they could do to reduce trash in landfills, overlooking more successful strategies — such as generating less waste in the first place.

“Because we have a really hard time imagining what a different, non-disposal-focused system could look like, recycling seems like the best option, right?” said Michaela Barnett, an author of the study and a former civil engineering researcher at the University of Virginia. “And it is better than landfilling, than incinerating, than littering. But people really are defaulting to that over better options, because I think they really don’t see a way out of this system that creates so much trash.”

The study revealed widespread confusion about the relative usefulness of recycling. When asked to rank the Three Rs — “reduce, reuse, recycle” — in order of effectiveness, nearly half of people got the answer wrong. (The phrase is already in the correct order.) They fared better when asked to choose between just two options, waste prevention and recycling, with 80 percent understanding that prevention was more beneficial.

Though Barnett has been “obsessed with trash” her whole life — growing up, she visited recycling centers and made impromptu stops to inspect roadside trash with her mom — she was also once afflicted with “recycling bias,” she says. She attributes the phenomenon to a long-running messaging campaign aimed at getting Americans to take responsibility for their trash. For decades, Keep America Beautiful, a nonprofit backed by corporations including Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, has been running anti-litter and pro-recycling advertisements. The campaign had the effect of shifting the blame for trash pollution to individuals, rather than the companies that designed products to be disposable.

“This has been something that’s really been hammered into us by these corporations for 50 years,” Barnett said. “It’s a very convenient out for them to continue producing and for us to continue consuming without a lot of guilt.”

While Barnett’s study showed that people thought recycling was important, they didn’t necessarily know how to do it correctly. Many people placed plastic bags, disposable coffee cups, and light bulbs into virtual recycling bins — all items that can’t be recycled. It’s not really their fault: Recycling rules are confusing and vary based on where you live. Yogurt containers, for example, aren’t accepted by most municipal recycling programs — and even centers that do take them rarely actually recycle them.

Starting in 1989, oil and gas companies lobbied for state laws mandating that the “chasing arrows” symbol appear on all plastic products, despite serious doubts that the widespread recycling of these products would ever be economically viable. Many items adorned with the chasing arrows can’t be recycled at all. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency recommended that the Federal Trade Commission ditch the logo because it was deceiving consumers.

People might slowly be catching on: Barnett’s study found that Americans weren’t confident the system was working. Less than 10 percent of all plastic produced globally gets recycled; survey respondents thought that the number was closer to 25 percent, correctly reasoning that most of what goes into the blue bin eventually ends up in the landfill.

So how should we think about recycling? For Barnett, it’s a useful tool, but its usefulness has been blown out of proportion. “Recycling is not a scam, but also not a ‘get out of jail free’ card,” she said. “We really need to be a lot more intentional with the goods we consume and the actions we take, while also putting that onus back on the producers for whom it really belongs.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Do you have ‘recycling bias’? on Aug 3, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Kate Yoder.

The post Urban Bias in Weather Forecasting Results in Disaster for Rural Kentucky appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

Seven years ago, the South African ambassador to Venezuela Pandit Thaninga Shope-Linney stated plainly that “Irwin Cotler was not Nelson Mandela’s lawyer.” Three years later Max Blumenthal pointed out that “in Nelson Mandela’s memoir, The Long March to Freedom, there is no mention of Irwin Cotler.” Recently Davide Mastracci demolished the claim that the establishment’s human rights darling was a lawyer for the long imprisoned African National Congress (ANC) leader.

On its surface Mastracci’s deep dive into a decades-old biographical anecdote of an 82-year-old former justice minister may appear almost petty. But it actually offers an important window into Canadian media.

According to Mastracci’s search of the Canadian Newsstream database, there were more than 320 results mentioning that Cotler was Mandela’s lawyer. As time has passed, the mentions have grown with 164 stories noting the biographical detail in the 2010s. “Cotler has gotten far more press coverage crediting him with representing Mandela than he ever did while he was supposedly doing the work,” notes Mastracci.

But there’s little evidence for the Mandela lawyer claim outside Cotler’s own somewhat vague statements. In effect, the media is regurgitating a biographical detail that enhances the credibility of someone who challenges the human rights violations of enemy states.

Not only was Cotler not Mandela’s lawyer, thousands of Canadians probably contributed more than him to the struggle against South African apartheid, which played out over three decades of Cotler’s adulthood. I asked Joanne Naiman, author of the 1984 Relations between Canada and South Africa and a leading anti-apartheid campaigner in Toronto about Cotler. Neither her nor her partner remembers interacting with Cotler. “Neil and I discussed this, and we certainly have no memory of Cotler being his lawyer, or, indeed, in any way involved in the anti-apartheid movement,” she emailed. Naiman, who was part of group aligned with the ‘terrorist’ ANC in the 1970s, reached out to Lynda Lemberg, another prominent activist in that struggle. She immediately labeled Cotler’s claim “total bullshit”.

Even according to Cotler’s own telling he was late to the South Africa struggle. In June 1964, NDP leader Tommy Douglas told the House of Commons: “Nelson Mandela and seven of his associates have been found guilty of contravening the apartheid laws … [I] ask the Prime Minister if he will make vigorous representation to the government of South Africa urging that they exercise clemency in this case”? (Lester Pearson rejected the request) Yet, when discussing his involvement Cotler cites events that took place in the early and mid 1980s.

Still, Cotler uses his purported role in the South Africa struggle to defend apartheid today. When members of the Quebec Movement for Peace interrupted his 2019 speech on “Canada as a Human Rights leader” Cotler responded by saying that as someone having “fought against a real apartheid regime, South Africa, it is demeaning to make a comparison [with Israel].”

The Mandela anecdote enables Cotler’s vicious anti-Palestinianism. It also enhances the credibility of an individual who aggressively criticizes “enemy” states while largely ignoring rights violations committed by Canada and the US. Cotler’s activism feeds a propaganda system in which the media considers victims ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ depending on the prerogatives of US and Canadian foreign policy. Because he concentrates on the victims of enemy states while largely ignoring those victimized by friendly governments the dominant media regurgitate sympathetic biographical details. Sometimes they even embellish the former minister’s embellishment as John Ivison did when he claimed Cotler “was instrumental” in Mandela’s release.

The media’s reaction to “Irwin Cotler and the Mandela Effect” has been telling. More than a month after Mastracci published his investigation, I couldn’t find any mention of it by other media.

On Twitter Ivison, who recently published “A tireless pursuer of justice, ex-minister Cotler takes on Putin” on the front of the National Post, complained, “You’re targeting Irwin Cotler in an ‘expose’? Give me a break. If there was an Olympics for good human beings, Irwin would pip the Pope for gold.” Apparently, Ivison doesn’t believe journalists should investigate the claims of powerful figures and instead stick to fawning puff pieces.

At the more liberal end of the dominant media, ‘misinformation’ expert Justin Ling tweeted that Mastracci failed to mention archival articles, which were either in fact mentioned or irrelevant. For his part, the head of media watchdog group CANADALAND, Jesse Brown, called the investigation “pretty thin”. But the 3,500 word story, which includes an interview with Cotler, is anything but “thin”. Brown’s reaction reflects his refusal to seriously address the anti-Palestinian bias in Canadian media or its most flagrant deference to the US Empire. Instead of simply dismissing his work as “thin”, Brown should build on Mastracci’s research by interviewing the many grassroots activists who led the South Africa campaign in Canada to ask if they remember working with Cotler.

Irrespective of his Mandela lawyer tale, it’s long been clear that Cotler is a “fraud”, as I told him during the opening screening of First to Stand: The Cases and Causes of Irwin Cotler in December. Cotler has supported NATO’s destruction of Libya, bloodstained dictator Paul Kagame, and the ouster of Venezuela’s government. A staunch Jewish supremacist, Cotler justifies Israeli colonialism and violence.

Cotler’s a darling of the political and media establishment. At the end of last year NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson met with Cotler twice over a two-week period tweeting, “this afternoon, Professor Irwin Cotler and I spoke about how we can work together to protect human rights in Canada and around the world. I am grateful to him for sharing his wisdom with me.” Previous NDP foreign critics Hélène Laverdière and Guy Caron, as well as Green Party leader Elizabeth May, participated in press conferences organized by Cotler and a number of them joined the Cotler-led Raoul Wallenberg All-Party Parliamentary Caucus for Human Rights. After we interrupted Cotler for about 10 minutes at Concordia University in 2019 Conservative MP David Sweet asked the House of Commons to condemn the disruption and celebrate Cotler (pro-Israel media claimed it was unanimous).

It will be interesting to follow coverage of Cotler’s biographical anecdote in the coming months. With significant recent media interest in politicians and public figures making up biographical details, will an intrepid reporter build on Mastracci’s research? Or will journalists continue to refer to Cotler as Mandela’s lawyer?

My bet is the latter. The ‘Cotler Mandela’s lawyer’ claim is likely to continue appearing since it serves a media sphere steeped in imperialism and Zionism.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yves Engler.

Jančkárová, who hosts the weekly debate show Sobotné Dialógy (Saturday Dialogues) for the national public broadcaster RTVS from the capital, Bratislava, was first threatened by an unknown individual after she interviewed President Zuzana Čaputová on February 18, according to her employer.

Zuzana Vicelová, a communications officer for RTVS, told CPJ that more threats followed after the station declined to let a political opposition party substitute a guest they had confirmed to appear on Jančkárová’s show the following week, leaving them unrepresented and sparking censorship allegations. 

Media reports said police have provided Jančkárová with protection and are investigating graphic messages sent by email and phone threatening her and her family with physical and sexual assault and death. 

“It is welcome to see Slovak law enforcement responding quickly to the threats against RTVS presenter Marta Jančkárová. Now they must follow through and hold the perpetrators to account,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Threatening a journalist because of her work is completely unacceptable, and Slovak authorities must ensure the safety of Jančkárová and her family.”

Štefan Hamran, national police president, was quoted saying that the National Crime Agency was investigating “because we know what happened in this country, and I would hate for something like that to happen again,” an apparent reference to the murders of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, who were shot in their home on February 21, 2018.

Jančkárová and her team interviewed President Čaputová on February 18, but refused to let Ľuboš Blaha, member of parliament for the Direction-Social Democracy party,appear on-air when he arrived without notice to debate interim Minister of Defense Jaroslav Naď on February 24, according to that RTVS report. Blaha’s colleague Marián Kérym, who chairs a parliamentary foreign affairs committee, had previously been confirmed as the guest.

“A place in the debate does not belong to a political party, but to a specific guest…decided by RTVS,” the broadcaster said in a statement emailed to CPJ, noting that Jančkárová informed her listeners of the change and presented the missing party’s arguments herself to ensure balance.

In a press conference on February 25, Direction-Social Democracy representatives said they would initiate an extraordinary meeting of a parliamentary media committee to discuss the refusal to let Blaha appear, which they characterized as censorship.

CPJ emailed the National Crime Agency and Direction-Social Democracy for comment but did not receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Madeline Earp.

Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on August 6, “Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day” is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavor.

For the uninformed reader, the article succeeds in finding a balanced language between two equal sides. This misleading moral equivalence is one of the biggest intellectual blind spots for western journalists. If they do not outwardly champion Israel’s discourse on ‘security’ and ‘right to defend itself’, they create false parallels between Palestinians and Israelis, as if a military occupier and an occupied nation have comparable rights and responsibilities.

Obviously, this logic does not apply to the Russia-Ukraine war. For NYT and all mainstream western media, there is no question regarding who the good guys and the bad guys are in that bloody fight.

‘Palestinian militants’ and ‘terrorists’ have always been the West’s bad guys.  Per the logic of their media coverage, Israel does not launch unprovoked wars on Palestinians, and is not an unrepentant military occupier, or a racist apartheid regime. This language can only be used by marginal ‘radical’ and ‘leftist’ media, never the mainstream.

The brief introduction of the NYT article  spoke about the rising death toll, but did not initially mention that the 20 killed Palestinians include children, emphasizing, instead, that Israeli attacks have killed a ‘militant leader’.

When the six children killed by Israel are revealed in the second paragraph, the article immediately, and without starting a new sentence, clarifies that “Israel said some civilian deaths were the result of militants stashing weapons in residential areas”, and that others were killed by “misfired’ Palestinian rockets.

On August 16, the Israeli military finally admitted that it was behind the strikes that killed the 5 young Palestinian boys of Jabaliya. Whether the NYT reported on that or not matters little. The damage has been done, and that was Israel’s plan from the start.

The title of the BBC story of August 16, ‘Gaza’s children are used to the death and bombing’, does not immediately name those responsible for the ‘death and bombing’. Even Israeli military spokesmen, as we will discover later, would agree to such a statement, though they will always lay the blame squarely on the ‘Palestinian terrorists’.

When the story finally reveals that a little girl, Layan, was killed in an Israeli strike, the language was carefully crafted to lessen the blame on her Israeli murderers. The girl, we are told, was on her way to the beach with her family, when their tuk-tuk “passed by a military camp run by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad”, which, “at the exact moment, (…) was targeted by Israeli fire”. The author says nothing of how she reached the conclusion that the family was not the target.

One can easily glean from the story that Israel’s intention was not to kill Layan – and logically, none of the 17 other children murdered during the three-day war on Gaza. Besides, Israel has, according to the BBC, tried to save the little girl; alas, “a week of treatment in an Israeli hospital couldn’t save her life”.

Though Israeli politicians have spoken blatantly about killing Palestinians children – and, in the case of former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, “the Palestinian mothers who give birth to ‘little snakes’” – the BBC report, and other reports on the latest war, have failed to mention this. Instead, it quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who reportedly said that “the death of innocent civilians, especially children, is heartbreaking.” Incidentally, Lapid ordered the latest war on Gaza, which killed a total of 49 Palestinians.

Even a human-interest story about a murdered Palestinian child somehow avoided the language that could fault Israel for the gruesome killing of a little girl. Furthermore, the BBC also labored to present Israel in a positive light, resorting to quote the occupation army’s statement that it was “devastated by (Layan’s) death and that of any civilians.”

The NYT and BBC have been selected here not because they are the worst examples of western media bias, but because they are often cited as ‘liberal’, if not ‘progressive’, media. Their reporting, however, represents an ongoing crisis in western journalism, especially relating to Palestine.

Books have been written about this subject, civil society organizations were formed to hold western media accountable and numerous editorial board meetings were organized to put some pressure on western editors, to no avail.

Desperate by the unchanging pro-Israel narratives in western media, some pro-Palestine human rights advocates often argue that there are greater margins within Israel’s own mainstream media than in the US, for example. This, too, is inaccurate.

The misnomer of the supposedly more balanced Israeli media is a direct outcome of the failure to influence western media coverage on Palestine and Israel. The erroneous notion is often buoyed by the fact that an Israeli newspaper, like Haaretz, gives marginal spaces to critical voices, like those of Israeli journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.

Israeli propaganda, one of the most powerful and sophisticated in the world, however, can hardly be balanced by occasional columns written by a few dissenting journalists.

Additionally, Haaretz is often cited as an example of relatively fair journalism, simply because the alternatives – Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other right-wing Israeli media – are exemplary in their callousness, biased language and misconstruing of facts.

The pro-Israel prejudices in western media often spill over to Palestine sympathetic media throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world, especially those reporting on the news in English and French.

Since many newspapers and online platforms utilize western news agencies, they, often inadvertently, adopt the same language used in western news sources, thus depicting Palestinian resisters or fighters, as ‘militants’, the Israeli occupation army as “Israeli Defense Forces” and Israeli war on Gaza as ‘flare ups’ of violence.

In its totality, this language misinterprets the Palestinian struggle for freedom as random acts of violence within a protracted ‘conflict’ where innocent civilians, like Layan, are ‘caught in the crossfire.’

The deadly Israeli wars on Gaza are made possible, not only by western weapons and political support, but through an endless stream of media misinformation and misrepresentation. Though Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in recent years, western media remains as committed to defending Israel as if nothing has changed.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case.

Though Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in recent years, western media remains as committed to defending Israel as if nothing has changed.

Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on August 6, "Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day" is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavor.

For the uninformed reader, the article succeeds in finding a balanced language between two equal sides. This misleading moral equivalence is one of the biggest intellectual blind spots for western journalists. If they do not outwardly champion Israel's discourse on 'security' and 'right to defend itself', they create false parallels between Palestinians and Israelis, as if a military occupier and an occupied nation have comparable rights and responsibilities.

Obviously, this logic does not apply to the Russia-Ukraine war. For NYT and all mainstream western media, there is no question regarding who the good guys and the bad guys are in that bloody fight.

'Palestinian militants' and 'terrorists' have always been the West's bad guys.  Per the logic of their media coverage, Israel does not launch unprovoked wars on Palestinians, and is not an unrepentant military occupier, or a racist apartheid regime. This language can only be used by marginal 'radical' and 'leftist' media, never the mainstream.

The brief introduction of the NYT article spoke about the rising death toll, but did not initially mention that the 20 killed Palestinians include children, emphasizing, instead, that Israeli attacks have killed a 'militant leader'.

When the six children killed by Israel are revealed in the second paragraph, the article immediately, and without starting a new sentence, clarifies that "Israel said some civilian deaths were the result of militants stashing weapons in residential areas", and that others were killed by "misfired' Palestinian rockets.

On August 16, the Israeli military finally admitted that it was behind the strikes that killed the 5 young Palestinian boys of Jabaliya. Whether the NYT reported on that or not matters little. The damage has been done, and that was Israel's plan from the start.

The title of the BBC story of August 16, 'Gaza's children are used to the death and bombing', does not immediately name those responsible for the 'death and bombing'. Even Israeli military spokesmen, as we will discover later, would agree to such a statement, though they will always lay the blame squarely on the 'Palestinian terrorists'.

When the story finally reveals that a little girl, Layan, was killed in an Israeli strike, the language was carefully crafted to lessen the blame on her Israeli murderers. The girl, we are told, was on her way to the beach with her family, when their tuk-tuk "passed by a military camp run by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad", which, "at the exact moment, (…) was targeted by Israeli fire". The author says nothing of how she reached the conclusion that the family was not the target.

One can easily glean from the story that Israel's intention was not to kill Layan - and logically, none of the 17 other children murdered during the three-day war on Gaza. Besides, Israel has, according to the BBC, tried to save the little girl; alas, "a week of treatment in an Israeli hospital couldn't save her life".

Though Israeli politicians have spoken blatantly about killing Palestinians children - and, in the case of former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, "the Palestinian mothers who give birth to 'little snakes'" - the BBC report, and other reports on the latest war, have failed to mention this. Instead, it quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who reportedly said that "the death of innocent civilians, especially childr is heartbreaking." Incidentally, Lapid ordered the latest war on Gaza, which killed a total of 49 Palestinians.

Even a human-interest story about a murdered Palestinian child somehow avoided the language that could fault Israel for the gruesome killing of a little girl. Furthermore, the BBC also labored to present Israel in a positive light, resorting to quote the occupation army's statement that it was "devastated by (Layan's) death and that of any civilians."

The NYT and BBC have been selected here not because they are the worst examples of western media bias, but because they are often cited as 'liberal', if not 'progressive', media. Their reporting, however, represents an ongoing crisis in western journalism, especially relating to Palestine.

Books have been written about this subject, civil society organizations were formed to hold western media accountable and numerous editorial board meetings were organized to put some pressure on western editors, to no avail.

Desperate by the unchanging pro-Israel narratives in western media, some pro-Palestine human rights advocates often argue that there are greater margins within Israel's own mainstream media than in the US, for example. This, too, is inaccurate.

The misnomer of the supposedly more balanced Israeli media is a direct outcome of the failure to influence western media coverage on Palestine and Israel. The erroneous notion is often buoyed by the fact that an Israeli newspaper, like Haaretz, gives marginal spaces to critical voices, like those of Israeli journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.

Israeli propaganda, one of the most powerful and sophisticated in the world, however, can hardly be balanced by occasional columns written by a few dissenting journalists.  

Additionally, Haaretz is often cited as an example of relatively fair journalism, simply because the alternatives - Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other rightwing Israeli media - are exemplary in their callousness, biased language and misconstruing of facts.

The pro-Israel prejudices in western media often spill over to Palestine sympathetic media throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world, especially those reporting on the news in English and French.

Since many newspapers and online platforms utilize western news agencies, they, often inadvertently, adopt the same language used in western news sources, thus depicting Palestinian resisters or fighters, as 'militants', the Israeli occupation army as "Israeli Defense Forces" and Israeli war on Gaza as 'flare ups' of violence.

In its totality, this language misinterprets the Palestinian struggle for freedom as random acts of violence within a protracted 'conflict' where innocent civilians, like Layan, are 'caught in the crossfire.'

The deadly Israeli wars on Gaza are made possible, not only by western weapons and political support, but through an endless stream of media misinformation and misrepresentation. Though Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in recent years, western media remains as committed to defending Israel as if nothing has changed.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case.

Though Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in recent years, western media remains as committed to defending Israel as if nothing has changed.

Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on August 6, "Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day" is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavor.

For the uninformed reader, the article succeeds in finding a balanced language between two equal sides. This misleading moral equivalence is one of the biggest intellectual blind spots for western journalists. If they do not outwardly champion Israel's discourse on 'security' and 'right to defend itself', they create false parallels between Palestinians and Israelis, as if a military occupier and an occupied nation have comparable rights and responsibilities.

Obviously, this logic does not apply to the Russia-Ukraine war. For NYT and all mainstream western media, there is no question regarding who the good guys and the bad guys are in that bloody fight.

'Palestinian militants' and 'terrorists' have always been the West's bad guys.  Per the logic of their media coverage, Israel does not launch unprovoked wars on Palestinians, and is not an unrepentant military occupier, or a racist apartheid regime. This language can only be used by marginal 'radical' and 'leftist' media, never the mainstream.

The brief introduction of the NYT article spoke about the rising death toll, but did not initially mention that the 20 killed Palestinians include children, emphasizing, instead, that Israeli attacks have killed a 'militant leader'.

When the six children killed by Israel are revealed in the second paragraph, the article immediately, and without starting a new sentence, clarifies that "Israel said some civilian deaths were the result of militants stashing weapons in residential areas", and that others were killed by "misfired' Palestinian rockets.

On August 16, the Israeli military finally admitted that it was behind the strikes that killed the 5 young Palestinian boys of Jabaliya. Whether the NYT reported on that or not matters little. The damage has been done, and that was Israel's plan from the start.

The title of the BBC story of August 16, 'Gaza's children are used to the death and bombing', does not immediately name those responsible for the 'death and bombing'. Even Israeli military spokesmen, as we will discover later, would agree to such a statement, though they will always lay the blame squarely on the 'Palestinian terrorists'.

When the story finally reveals that a little girl, Layan, was killed in an Israeli strike, the language was carefully crafted to lessen the blame on her Israeli murderers. The girl, we are told, was on her way to the beach with her family, when their tuk-tuk "passed by a military camp run by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad", which, "at the exact moment, (…) was targeted by Israeli fire". The author says nothing of how she reached the conclusion that the family was not the target.

One can easily glean from the story that Israel's intention was not to kill Layan - and logically, none of the 17 other children murdered during the three-day war on Gaza. Besides, Israel has, according to the BBC, tried to save the little girl; alas, "a week of treatment in an Israeli hospital couldn't save her life".

Though Israeli politicians have spoken blatantly about killing Palestinians children - and, in the case of former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, "the Palestinian mothers who give birth to 'little snakes'" - the BBC report, and other reports on the latest war, have failed to mention this. Instead, it quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who reportedly said that "the death of innocent civilians, especially childr is heartbreaking." Incidentally, Lapid ordered the latest war on Gaza, which killed a total of 49 Palestinians.

Even a human-interest story about a murdered Palestinian child somehow avoided the language that could fault Israel for the gruesome killing of a little girl. Furthermore, the BBC also labored to present Israel in a positive light, resorting to quote the occupation army's statement that it was "devastated by (Layan's) death and that of any civilians."

The NYT and BBC have been selected here not because they are the worst examples of western media bias, but because they are often cited as 'liberal', if not 'progressive', media. Their reporting, however, represents an ongoing crisis in western journalism, especially relating to Palestine.

Books have been written about this subject, civil society organizations were formed to hold western media accountable and numerous editorial board meetings were organized to put some pressure on western editors, to no avail.

Desperate by the unchanging pro-Israel narratives in western media, some pro-Palestine human rights advocates often argue that there are greater margins within Israel's own mainstream media than in the US, for example. This, too, is inaccurate.

The misnomer of the supposedly more balanced Israeli media is a direct outcome of the failure to influence western media coverage on Palestine and Israel. The erroneous notion is often buoyed by the fact that an Israeli newspaper, like Haaretz, gives marginal spaces to critical voices, like those of Israeli journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.

Israeli propaganda, one of the most powerful and sophisticated in the world, however, can hardly be balanced by occasional columns written by a few dissenting journalists.  

Additionally, Haaretz is often cited as an example of relatively fair journalism, simply because the alternatives - Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other rightwing Israeli media - are exemplary in their callousness, biased language and misconstruing of facts.

The pro-Israel prejudices in western media often spill over to Palestine sympathetic media throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world, especially those reporting on the news in English and French.

Since many newspapers and online platforms utilize western news agencies, they, often inadvertently, adopt the same language used in western news sources, thus depicting Palestinian resisters or fighters, as 'militants', the Israeli occupation army as "Israeli Defense Forces" and Israeli war on Gaza as 'flare ups' of violence.

In its totality, this language misinterprets the Palestinian struggle for freedom as random acts of violence within a protracted 'conflict' where innocent civilians, like Layan, are 'caught in the crossfire.'

The deadly Israeli wars on Gaza are made possible, not only by western weapons and political support, but through an endless stream of media misinformation and misrepresentation. Though Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in recent years, western media remains as committed to defending Israel as if nothing has changed.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu.

“He said he was gonna make sure that we did, and then he gave us 44 years to serve,” Ms. Vance recalled. What made it even worse was knowing that they hadn’t committed the crime they’d been convicted of.

A biased trial and invalid bite mark evidence

In 2001, Ms. Vance and Ms. Stubbs were convicted of assaulting their friend, Kimberly Williams, in Mississippi. The conviction was largely based on bite mark evidence — a debunked forensic method — and a biased trial in which witnesses and “experts” gave testimony replete with anti-LGBTQ statements. In fact, when Ms. Vance’s attorney asked the jury before the trial began if they would be able to vote Ms. Vance not guilty based on their own “personal morality” knowing that there would be testimony about “lesbian behavior,” two jurors admitted they would vote Ms. Vance and Ms. Stubbs guilty, knowing nothing else about the case.

“This case was a confluence of faulty forensic evidence — bogus bite mark evidence — homophobia, stereotypes about drug use, and bias against substance use disorders, which all converged together to lead to these wrongful convictions,” said Valena Beety, who represented Ms. Stubbs in her post-conviction litigation. Ms. Beety is the author of Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights, in which she details the injustices Ms. Vance and Ms. Stubbs overcame.

“This case really highlights how sexual orientation and queer identity can be weaponized,” Ms. Beety, who is also the founding director of the West Virginia Innocence Project, said.

Tami Vance (second from left) and Leigh Stubbs (third from left). (Image: Mississippi Innocence Project)

In 2000, Ms. Vance and Ms. Stubbs called 911 after noticing Ms. Williams was having trouble breathing in an apparent drug overdose. Ms. Vance and Ms. Stubbs took turns performing CPR on Ms. Williams, whom they met while at a rehabilitation facility where all three were receiving treatment, until the paramedics arrived. After unsuccessfully attempting to revive Ms. Williams with CPR, the paramedics administered Narcan, and Ms. Williams began breathing again but remained unconscious as she was taken to the hospital.

Ms. Williams was diagnosed as having overdosed, but a doctor who noticed some bruising speculated that she had been sexually assaulted days before “from the coloring” of her injuries. That same day, Ms. Williams was transported to another hospital and suffered seizures during the hour-long drive.

The detective on the case, Nolan Jones, called in his friend Michael West, a dentist and a forensic odontologist, whose testimony on bite mark identifications contributed to the wrongful convictions of several now exonerated Innocence Project clients. To date, more than 30 people wrongly convicted based on bite mark evidence have been exonerated. Dr. West testified in at least half a dozen of those cases.

Although no medical staff reported seeing any alleged bite marks on Ms. Williams, Dr. West took close-up photos and video footage of Ms. Williams’ breasts and genitals, and claimed to have found bite marks and cigarette burns on her body. He then claimed he had “matched” the bite marks to Ms. Stubbs after having created additional bruises on Ms. Williams’ body by pressing a mold of Ms. Stubbs’ teeth into Ms. Williams’ hip.

LGBTQ discrimination on the stand and beyond

At trial, Dr. West testified that “it wouldn’t be unusual” to find bite marks in a “homosexual rape case” and said it would “almost” be expected in such a case when asked by the prosecutor. He also claimed that part of Ms. Williams’ genitals had been bitten off, which he called a “usually a combative or a sexual orientation phenomenon.”

Dr. West was far from the only person to make such unfounded, homophobic statements at trial.  One doctor, a pathologist and expert for the defense, testified that bite marks were “consistent” with what he’d expect to find in a homosexual rape case, saying, “In homosexual crimes, all, they are very sadistic. Most violent times I’ve seen in my experience are homosexual to homosexual. They do what we call overkill. They do tremendous damage, tremendous damage.”

Ms. Vance said she often felt her sexuality was more accepted in prison than outside of it.

Both Ms. Stubbs and Ms. Vance were the subjects of discrimination during their trial. Ms. Vance, who is less femme-presenting, was the target of particularly hateful character assassination and derogatory language. In fact, “police were more reluctant to prosecute Leigh than Tami — even though under their own ‘evidence,’ Leigh’s teeth allegedly matched the bite mark,” Ms. Beety writes in her book.

The different treatment that Ms. Stubbs and Ms. Vance received based on their appearance and perceptions of them reflects the many ways members of the LGBTQ community experience discrimination at the hands of law enforcement and the criminal legal system. A recent survey found that LGB people are incarcerated at a rate more than three times higher than the overall adult incarceration rate, and that about one-third of incarcerated women identify as lesbian or bisexual. In fact, Ms. Vance said she often felt her sexuality was more accepted in prison than outside of it.

Trans people, in particular, tend to be arrested and harassed by police more often for lower-level or false charges than other members of the LGBTQ community, Ms. Beety said. She added that, in her work, she has also witnessed prosecutors attempt to assassinate the characters of trans people in order to exploit potential biases jurors might hold, consciously or unconsciously.

In Ms. Vance and Ms. Stubbs’ case, the prosecution painted the LGBTQ community as inherently violent and vicious, a sentiment the judge reiterated when giving the women the maximum sentence. The women spent nearly 11 years wrongly incarcerated before being freed and exonerated in 2012. They were represented by Ms. Beety and the Mississippi Innocence Project.

‘I’m fixing to watch my whole life rebuild’

Despite these grave injustices, Ms. Vance said she considers herself “so blessed.” She feels lucky to have had a supportive family since coming out at the age of 18, but she emphasized how her wrongful conviction weighed heavily on them.

“Families go to prison with their children — the day their child goes to prison, they go too, they do time on the outside while you’re doing time on the inside, my mother did 11 years just like I did,” she said.

“I’ve watched my whole life crumble, but I’m fixing to watch my whole life rebuild”“I’ve watched my whole life crumble, but I’m fixing to watch my whole life rebuild”Since being freed, Ms. Vance has spent much of her time with her family and helping those around her. Now, she plans to take some time to focus on herself, after being diagnosed with PTSD.

“I’ve watched my whole life crumble, but I’m fixing to watch my whole life rebuild,” she said. “I’m taking out the trash on the inside — all the negativity and feelings, and letting them go.”

Tami Vance (right) enjoying the beach with a friend. (Image: Courtesy of Tami Vance)

She has big plans to finish restoring and decorating her trailer, which she dubbed “Hippie Nation.” So far, she has decked the trailer with wood beams on the ceiling, posters of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Melissa Etheridge, and dream catchers. She said she has only used colors that remind her of the beach — her favorite place — in the trailer.

While Ms. Vancesaid she is pleased to see progress made in advancing LGBTQ rights and acceptance, there is still a long way to go.

“I think people should be way more understanding. We’re all the same — everybody bleeds red,” she said. Ms. Vance said she’s not sure if she would experience less discrimination at trial if her wrongful conviction case were tried today.

Ms. Beety additionally stressed that queer visibility matters in helping to combat discrimination and prevent its role in wrongful convictions.

“We have to show ourselves and be seen in our full identities,” she said. “Because otherwise, that leads to decision makers being able to single out an individual for their gender expression for their presentation, and again, falsely attribute criminality to marginalized identities.”

Ms. Vance said she ultimately hopes people will recognize the power that prosecutors hold and more importantly, the power that each individual has to hold those very prosecutors accountable in states where such officials are elected.

Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights by Valena Beety tells the story of Ms. Vance and Ms. Stubbs’ wrongful convictions, the stories of other wrongly convicted women and queer people, and explains what we can do to free them. 

The post ‘Bite Marks,’ Homophobia, and Bias: How Two Women Were Wrongly Convicted Because They Loved Each Other appeared first on Innocence Project.

This content originally appeared on Innocence Project and was authored by Dani Selby.

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In a settlement announced by the Department of Justice on Tuesday, Meta Platforms — formerly known as Facebook — has agreed to eliminate features in its advertising business that allow landlords, employers and credit agencies to discriminate against groups of people protected by federal civil rights laws.

The deal comes nearly six years after ProPublica first revealed that Facebook let housing marketers exclude African Americans and others from seeing some of their advertisements. Federal law prohibits housing, employment and credit discrimination based on race, religion, gender, family status and disability.

For years, ProPublica and other researchers showed that problems persisted in the delivery of advertisements related to housing, employment and credit, even as Facebook pledged to fix the loopholes that we identified.

This week’s settlement was the result of a lawsuit brought three years ago by the Trump administration alleging that Meta’s ad targeting system violated the Fair Housing Act. The DOJ also argued that Facebook used a machine learning algorithm to restrict and create ad audiences, which had the effect of skewing delivery toward or against legally protected groups. This was the first time the federal government challenged algorithmic bias under the Fair Housing Act.

As part of the settlement, Meta has agreed to deploy new advertising methods that will be vetted by a third-party reviewer and overseen by the court.

The company said in a statement that it will implement a “novel use of machine learning technology that will work to ensure the age, gender and estimated race or ethnicity of a housing ad’s overall audience matches the age, gender, and estimated race or ethnicity mix of the population eligible to see that ad.”

The statement, by Roy L. Austin Jr., Meta’s vice president of civil rights and deputy general counsel, noted that although the settlement only requires Facebook to use its new tool for advertisements related to housing, it will also apply to posts about employment and credit. (Facebook declined a request for additional comment.)

Civil rights attorney Peter Romer-Friedman, who has brought several cases against the company, said that previous negotiations had tried and failed to hold Facebook accountable for algorithmic bias. “Ultimately what this shows is that it’s never been a question of feasibility to eliminate algorithmic bias,” he told ProPublica. “It’s a question of will.”

After we reported on the potential for advertising discrimination in 2016, Facebook quickly promised to set up a system to catch and review ads that discriminate illegally. A year later, ProPublica found that it was still possible to exclude groups such as African Americans, mothers of high school kids, people interested in wheelchair ramps and Muslims from seeing advertisements. It was also possible to target ads to people with an interest in anti-Semitism, including options such as “How to burn Jews” and “Hitler did nothing wrong.”

We later found that companies were posting employment ads that women and older workers could not see. In March 2019, Facebook settled a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups by creating a “special ads portal” specifically for employment, housing and credit ads. The company said the portal would curb advertisers’ targeting options and also limit its algorithm from considering gender and race when deciding who should see ads.

But when ProPublica worked with researchers at Northeastern University and Upturn to test Facebook’s new system, we found more examples of biased ad delivery. Though Facebook’s modified algorithm prevented advertisers from explicit discrimination, delivery could still rely on “special ad” or “lookalike” proxy characteristics that correlated with race or gender.

The research also found that Facebook skewed the audience depending on the content of the ad itself. How many women might see a job listing for an open janitorial position, for instance, depended not just on what the advertiser told Facebook, but also on how Facebook interpreted the advertisement’s image and text.

ProPublica also continued to find employment advertisements that favored men or excluded older possible applicants, potentially violating civil rights law. Some advertisers we interviewed were surprised to learn that they were unable to reach a diverse audience, even if they tried.

In a press release, the DOJ said Tuesday’s settlement requires Meta to stop using the “Special Ad Audience” tool by the end of the year. It also requires Meta to change its algorithm “to address disparities for race, ethnicity and sex between advertisers’ targeted audiences and the group of Facebook users to whom Facebook’s personalization algorithms actually deliver the ads.” The company must share details with the DOJ and an independent reviewer before implementing changes.

As part of the settlement, Meta also agreed to pay a $115,054 fee, the maximum allowed by the law.

“Because of this ground-breaking lawsuit, Meta will — for the first time — change its ad delivery system to address algorithmic discrimination,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York said in a statement. “But if Meta fails to demonstrate that it has sufficiently changed its delivery system to guard against algorithmic bias, this office will proceed with the litigation.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Ariana Tobin and Ava Kofman.

Central to the selection of the prime minister in Papua New Guinea following a general election is Section 63 of PNG’s Organic Law on Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates (OLIPPAC), which was passed in 2001 (and then amended in 2003).

Section 63 requires that the Governor-General invites the party with the highest number of MPs following a general election to form the government.

The main aim of the section is to ensure that the appointment of a prime minister after a general election is done in an “orderly way with direct relationship to the way voters expressed their wishes”.

• READ MORE: Other PNG elections reports

Analysis shows that the passage of OLIPPAC has influenced government formation. First, it has increased the probability that, as is now a legislative requirement, the PM comes from the largest party.

This has happened in all elections since OLIPPAC was legislated (2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017), but only happened in two out of the five pre-OLIPPAC elections (1977 and 1982).

For example, as Table 1 shows, in 1997 the People’s National Congress Party (PNC) had the sixth highest number of MPs but still was able to put forward the successful candidate for PM.

Second, Section 63 also seems to have increased the odds of an incumbent PM being returned. Since the first post-independence election in 1977, five incumbent prime ministers have been re-appointed as PM following one of the country’s nine national elections (see Table 2).

Two developments closely related
The other four times a new prime minister was appointed post-elections. The five times the incumbent was returned are 1977 (Somare), 1987 (Wingti), 2007 (Somare), 2012 (O’Neill) and 2017 (O’Neill). Only two of the five incumbent returns are before the first enactment of OLIPPAC in 2001, and the other three are all post-OLIPPAC.

These two developments are closely related. Over the life of the Parliament, MPs tend to join the party of the PM, meaning that that party goes into the election with by far the largest number of MPs. For instance, PNC won 27 seats in 2012, led by the incumbent PM Peter O’Neill, and formed the government.

More MPs joined PNC, and by the time the 2017 elections came around, PNC had 55 MPs. Even though PNC lost 34 sitting MPs, with only 21 getting re-elected, it added seven new MPs in the 2017 elections.

This took PNC’s numbers to 28 MPs, and, after the 2017 elections, it wound up forming the government.

About half the incumbent MPs don’t get re-elected every election, but in general voters do not vote along party lines. Even if they do, and even if there is a swing against the PM’s party, because it has such an advantage going in, it is likely to emerge as the largest party as well.

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled the restrictions imposed by OLIPPAC on the movement of MPs between parties unconstitutional. This means that MPs can move parties in the period between when they are declared winners following the national election and the appointment of the PM.

What happened in 1987, 1992 and 1997 — when parties with fewer MPs formed the government — could be repeated, Section 63 notwithstanding. All MPs would need to do is submit their letter of resignation to the party that endorsed them for the election, together with a letter of acceptance from the new party they intend to join, to the Registry of Political Parties and Candidates before the election of the PM, and their movement to the new party would become official.

Little incentive to leave
However, we have not seen that happening. This is because there is little incentive for MPs in the largest party to leave if it is likely to become the party of government. Rather, other MPs will join, by joining either the largest party or the governing coalition.

The only incumbent PM not to benefit from the passage of OLIPPAC was, ironically, its architect, Sir Mekere Morauta. He did not go into the election with the largest party, and he certainly did not emerge from it with the largest either.

This should remind us that there is no guarantee that the incumbent PM will be returned post-election. But it does seem that Section 63 has had the unintended consequence of increasing the probability of this happening.

Most view stability as a good thing, but the problem is that the more likely the incumbent is to be returned at the general election, the more pressure there will be to remove him (or perhaps one day her) by a vote of no confidence – since that becomes the only way to do it.

It may be no coincidence that both PMs who have so far benefited from Section 63 (Somare in 2002 and 2007 and O’Neill in 2012 and 2017) lost power mid-term on the floor of Parliament.

Note that the provisions of Section 63 of OLIPPAC do not apply to a vote of no confidence. In a vote of no confidence, any political party (or MP) is eligible to nominate a candidate to contest for the prime minister’s seat. Even an MP without a political party is eligible to be nominated for the PM’s post.

Section 63 was passed with good intentions, but has led to a situation in which increasing stability either side of elections may be reducing it between elections.

Michael Kabuni is a lecturer in political science at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Papua New Guinea. Dr Stephen Howes is the Director of the Development Policy Centre and a Professor of Economics at the Crawford School. This research was undertaken with the support of the ANU-UPNG Partnership, an initiative of the PNG-Australia Partnership, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The views are those of the authors only.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

As Russian forces were closing in on a bunker on April 21 in the heavily bombed and surrounded Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, preparing on an assault on the “fortress-like” underground bunker where an estimated 2000 remaining Ukrainian troops are said to be holed up, Russian President Vladimir Putin reversed his order and told Russian troops to surround the hard-pressed Ukrainians until, out of ammunition, food, and water, they came out voluntarily.

Reporting on this decision, the New York Times, in an update to a story on the city’s final battle, claimed Putin had made the decision to avoid his troops having to fight their way through tunnels taking inevitably heavy casualties. What the Times didn’t mention was Putin’s saying that he also did not want to have fought in the bunker (or clearly, to hit it with a bunker-busting bomb, which could have been done long ago) because of hundreds of civilians said by Ukrainian sources to be “hiding” there. Russia views them as captives being used by the mostly Azov Battalion forces as hostages (itself, if true, a war crime).

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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dave Lindorff.

In August 2021, the long-awaited U.S Intelligence Assessment on Covid-19 Origins had announced that both hypotheses remained “plausible” and that the intelligence community “remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19.”

Previously, in a June 2021article, investigative journalist Sheryl Attkisson had reported, “Numerous scientific insiders are signing onto the ‘lab origin’ theory for Covid-19 and a link to controversial research funded by your tax dollars.” According to Attkisson, these insiders include former head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Robert Redfield, and “a sizable segment of the research community,” including French virologist Luc Montagnier, a Nobel Prize recipient, who says that COVID-19’s genetics reveal hallmarks of human “manipulation.”

Attkisson’s report described experiments intended to make a bat coronavirus more infectious in hopes of developing a vaccine. “It’s called ‘gain of function’ research,” Attkisson wrote. Though the US had halted similar research in 2014, on the grounds that it was too risky, the work at the Wuhan lab was “reviewed and approved” by the National Institutes of Health and funded by six grants, including one from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was led at the time by Anthony Fauci, Attkisson reported.

In line with Wade’s critique of biased science writing, and by contrast with Attkisson’s reporting, in March 2022 the New Republic declared, “The lab leak theory is dead.” Earlier that month, NPR reported “striking new evidence” that the virus originated in a Wuhan seafood market. NPR’s report cited scientists who called the new evidence “very convincing” and “a ‘blow’ to the lab-leak theory.” According to Wade, the author of the City Journal article, the new data “don’t detract in any way from the substantial evidence favoring a lab leak… Not a single animal tested in the market bore the virus.”

Wade noted other factors that also blocked open investigation. When a research group investigating COVID origins, led by Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute, concluded that the virus did not have a natural origin, NIH director, Francis Collins, immediately “decreed this view to be a conspiracy theory,” Wade reported, noting that both Collins and Fauci are longtime advocates of gain of function research. In February 2020, 27 scientists from around the world who worked in virology and related medical fields submitted an open letter to The Lancet, attesting that the lab-leak hypothesis for the COVID-19 virus was a conspiracy theory. In September 2021, the Telegraph, reported that 26 of the 27 scientists who signed the letter dismissing potential lab origins of the virus had affiliations with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Daily Mail noted that this revelation “calls into question” the scientists’ impartiality.

Nicholas Wade concluded: “Science writers need to decide whether their duty lies to their readers or to their sources. One choice makes them real journalists, the other just unaccredited PR agents for the scientific community.”

Sources:

Nicholas Wade, “Journalists, or PR Agents? Why Science Reporters Don’t Report Fairly on the Origins of COVID-19,” City Journal, March 20, 2022.

Sharyl Attkisson, “Exclusive Investigation: Separating Rumor from Fact on COVID-19’s Origin”, Sharyl Attkisson, June 26, 2021.

Student Researcher: Alexis Navat (San Francisco State University)

Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)

The post Establishment News Bias in Reporting Debate on COVID-19 Origins appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

The EMTV News editorial decision to run the two stories [about the court cases involving Australian hotel businessman Jamie Pang] was based on two important points in our line of work:

Impartiality and Objectivity.

Impartiality cannot be achieved by the measure of words in a story, it is achieved by:

• Avoiding bias towards one point of view
• Avoiding omission of relevant facts
• Avoiding misleading emphasis

All of which are stated in the EMTV News and Current Affairs Manual 2019 in section 17.5 under standard operations of the television code.

• READ MORE: Background and other EMTV reports

By running the stories, the team was accused of bias.

We fail to see the areas of bias in our stories, especially because we presented more than one point of view in both stories.

The information presented was based on facts and in avoiding any misleading emphasis; we delivered objective television news packages that were fully impartial in the code and conduct of journalism.

Objective stories
Overall, both stories were objective stories where two or more opinions were looked at closely in each story.

To be clear, in television news objectivity is achieved by taking a rational but sceptical approach to ALL points of view.

In this case, Jamie Pang’s arrest, conviction and charges were looked at, as well as his community and social activities:

• Pang was arrested – Fact
• Pang was convicted, charged and fined for having firearms and munitions in his possession – Fact
• Pang was acquitted by a sound and proper court of justice in the PNG judicial system, from charges relating to methamphetamine – Fact
• Being acquitted by a sound and proper court of justice in the PNG judicial system, makes Pang a free man from drug charges – Fact
• Pang is heavily involved in social and community works – Fact
• Pang was rearrested and detained – Fact

All these factual points were documented in one story.

It is important to understand, that in objective writing, the opinion of the interviewees are their own. However, [how] it is perceived by the our viewers is up to them to weigh [up] and decide.

Objective [news] stories are often mistaken as opinion pieces.

They are not the same.

An opinion piece is a commentary on one point of view.

Journalism independence
As journalists we cannot be servants of sectional interests. It is our duty to speak to both “saints” and “sinners”. It is our democratic right to report on the good, bad and the ugly aspects of any story.

There are no instances of perceived impartiality in our reporting which display a lack of objectivity.

And a lack of objectivity leaves room for personal bias which is not acceptable in the journalism code of ethics.

The failure of the interim EMTV CEO, Lesieli Vete, to understand how a newsroom operates and a newsroom’s code of conduct led to the suspension of head of news Sincha Dimara.

Vete’s failure to try to understand the newsroom’s points of objectivity and impartiality in the stories led to her issuing of the statement portraying the newsroom as biased and in support of meth by sympathising with Pang’s employees and friends.

Vete’s statement served the purpose of explaining the leaked memo and portraying a bad picture of her newsroom.

Her statement lacked objectivity and impartiality because a written standpoint of the newsroom’s reasons for airing stories in the coverage of the Pang story were not included in her statement.

Suppression of media freedom
Vete’s questioning of our stance on running the story, and not showing any interest in learning nor understanding the way it was put together, led to further suppression of freedom of speech; direct and daily intimidation of senior and junior staff; micromanagement of staff whereabouts and activities; and direct and indirect threats of termination on staff.

The immense pressure to put a [news] bulletin together while being highly and closely monitored took a direct and serious toll on newsroom staff morale.

This created conditions that were suffocating to work under. A walk off was imminent.

We are making a stand now in solidarity against bullying and ill treatment of newsroom staff in the absence of news managers.

This is the third time we are experiencing a suppression of our right to freedom of speech, and we want it to stop once and for all.

After the suspension of Sincha Dimara, EMTV’s deputy news editor Jack Lapauve Jr is now the most senior news manager and he was with the walk out. He posted this commentary on his Facebook page and it is republished here with his permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The post Algorithmic Bias in Online Test-Monitoring Programs appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

The post #22. Dataminr Introduces Racial Bias, Stereotypes in Policing of Social Media appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Project Censored.

The post Dataminr Introduces Racial Bias, Stereotypes in Policing of Social Media appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

The post Episode 83 – Shelter-in-Place Protests; Implicit Bias and Medical Schools During COVID-19 with Robin Andersen and Colleen Sweeney appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Project Censored.