RFA Lao has covered the plight of dissidents and the rural poor, and the country’s embrace of hydropower and other mega-projects that have brought new infrastructure to one of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries, and with it a growing national debt.

RFA has also covered human interest stories, including migrant workers who travel to neighboring countries to make a living, and those who are vulnerable to human traffickers and scams.

Environmental destruction on the Mekong

RFA Lao has reported on the headlong rush to dam one of Asia’s greatest waterways, the Mekong River, a move decried by environmentalists and many Lao people who are negatively impacted by such mega-projects. Among the most controversial of these is a major dam near the historic city of Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. RFA has reported on the project since its inception and obtained exclusive footage of the dam construction site.

(Vincent Meadows/RFA)

Scamming in the Golden Triangle

Before the explosion of cyber scams in Southeast Asia gained wide public attention, RFA Lao was reporting on how young women were being trafficked into the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone on the banks of the Mekong in Bokeo province. When women failed to meet call center quotas, they told RFA of how they were forced to sell their bodies for sex. Some sought help in alerting authorities so they could escape. The SEZ run by U.S.-sanctioned tycoon Zhao Wei appeared beyond the control of the Lao government.

(Paul Nelson/RFA; Adobe Stock)

Birth surrogacy

Many young Lao people turn to neighboring countries to make a living. Usually that means migratory labor - typically traveling to Thailand to find work in construction or hospitality. But other opportunities may skirt the law. RFA Lao interviewed a Lao woman who had acted as a birth surrogate for a Chinese couple at the Lao-China border, providing a rare insight into an illegal industry that continues to thrive.

(Romeo Gacad/AFP)

Where is Sombath Somphone?

The 2012 disappearance of civil society activist Sombath Somphone has been the single most enduring human rights case against the communist government in Laos. RFA Lao has reported on the case since Sombath’s apparent abduction after he was stopped at a police checkpoint on a Vientiane street, and the subsequent appeals from his wife, supporters and foreign governments over the years for information about what happened to him.

Young migrant workers returning home

Job opportunities are few inside Laos, and many migrate to find work. The migration reverses when Lao workers head home from Thailand each April to celebrate Pii Mai, the Lao New Year. It’s a time for family reunions, temple visits, and festive water celebrations. RFA Lao reported on how workers mark this special return after months - or even years - away.

(Photo courtesy of Attapeu Today)

Xe Pian Xe Namnoy dam collapse

The collapse of a feeder dam for the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy hydropower project was the worst disaster suffered by Laos as it accelerated its push to become the battery of Southeast Asia. The nighttime disaster on July 24, 2018, claimed dozens of lives in southern Attapeu province, and caused the displacement of thousands more. RFA Lao has tracked the plight of the displaced in the subsequent years as they battled for proper compensation and a new place to live in the face of official corruption.

Edited by RFA staff.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Lao.

The Summit (Colo.) Daily (5/2/24) amplified the anxiety health consumers felt in the face of providers’ and insurers’ threats.

This time last year, tens of thousands of people in Colorado anxiously wondered if they’d have to find a new doctor or start using a different hospital. Contracts setting payment levels for Catholic Church–affiliated hospital chain CommonSpirit Health to be a member of preferred provider networks run by insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado were set to expire on May 1, 2024, and negotiations were a train wreck.

CommonSpirit accused Anthem of trying to pay rates so low that its hospitals couldn’t afford to take care of patients, while Anthem shot back that CommonSpirit wanted rate increases at more than twice the rate of inflation (CBS KKTV 11, 4/30/24).

Media coverage reached a fever pitch as the deadline approached. Without a new agreement, Coloradans covered by Anthem insurance plans would have to pay far more out of pocket to use CommonSpirit hospitals and the system’s affiliated doctors (Denver Post, 4/26/24). The potential consequences would be extreme in communities where CommonSpirit is a dominant provider, especially in the state’s rural and resort areas, where the company’s facilities are the only available option for miles around (KOAA, 5/1/24). “What Do We Do?” a plaintive Summit Daily headline (5/2/24) asked.

The high-stakes negotiations dragged on for more than two weeks past the contract’s expiration, with the two corporate giants contending that the other side wanted dangerously low or unaffordably high rates.

The eventual settlement was greeted with a mixture of relief and anger from patients whose care had been disrupted. La Plata County resident Christie Hunter, whose son Ollie suffers from myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder that weakens voluntary muscles, told the Durango Herald (5/17/24, 5/1/24) she was glad the two healthcare titans had settled, but angry that the dispute disrupted her family’s healthcare. The time spent looking for new providers “would have been much better spent trying to help my son, and get him feeling well enough to go to school.” Ollie’s first day at school after months of treatment and preparation was the day the Hunters received initial notice that they could lose access to his specialists.

Although the high-stakes conflict was about money, the terms of the new five-year price deal remain secret.

Performative hostage-taking

This kind of performative patient hostage-taking has become standard practice in hospital rate negotiations across the US. At least four major network contracts in Ohio/Virginia, Connecticut, Texas and Missouri expired at the beginning of April alone.

Media coverage usually captures the anxiety that patients like the Hunters experience at the disruption of critical medical relationships. Otherwise, the quality and depth of coverage varies widely. Some reporting fuels public hysteria to the benefit of the parties, while the best coverage provides critical national context and alerts audiences what to expect.

To help FAIR readers understand what’s happening when these conflicts hit their communities, we’ve assembled a few lessons from the past few years, and principles that should frame local and regional media coverage.

Think mob war

These stories are best understood as economic warfare between gangsters dividing money already looted from the public. Insurers, who offer employers and patients nothing the government can’t do better and cheaper, fight with hospital corporations who wield monopoly power to negotiate the world’s highest prices for inpatient care, leaving millions of Americans saddled with unmanageable medical debt.

Communicating with the public and political leaders through the media is a key negotiating strategy for both hospitals and insurance companies. Each side accuses the other of threatening patients’ access to doctors and hospitals. The corporations issue a deluge of press releases, statements and FAQ webpages to inform patients of pending changes to coverage, and the consequences for their financial, physical and mental health—all seasoned with a heavy dose of spin. The goal is to ratchet up public anxiety as the deadline approaches, and attach blame to the other side to win concessions.

Negotiations receive intense local and regional media coverage, following the same script. Both sides publicize the looming deadline, and warn that patients may lose access to local hospitals and valued doctors. Insurers accuse hospitals of price-gouging, while hospitals insist that insurers want to pay them less than it costs to take care of patients.

You’ll probably keep your doctor

KFF Health News (2/1/19) accurately characterized the antagonists in the rate disputes as “behemoths.”

Outlets frequently catch on to the fact that they’re witnessing “a battle of Goliath and Goliath,” as Dallas-based D Magazine (4/1/25) framed a recent clash in Texas. But reporters and editors should also alert their audiences to the fact that the conflicts usually resolve themselves after a few weeks or months of widespread terror.

Large local and regional insurers can’t run provider networks without major hospital systems, and hospital systems can’t afford to lose access to patients covered by major health insurers. As Georgetown University professor Sabrina Corlette told KFF Health News (2/1/19) during a 2019 dispute in California:

When you have a big behemoth healthcare system and a big behemoth payer with tens of thousands of enrolled lives, the incentives to work something out privately become much stronger.

This is what the market looks like 

The US healthcare financing system relies on the mechanism of having private health insurance companies build networks that use financial and bureaucratic coercion to force patients to use hospitals and doctors within the network, instead of other providers. Insurers offer hospitals privileged access to the thousands of “lives” they cover in exchange for discounted rates. This is supposed to lower costs and improve the quality of healthcare.

You can’t have networks with discounted rates without rate negotiations, which is why these high-stakes gang wars are so common and will continue. The degree to which these rate negotiations are central to the functioning of “market-based” healthcare is a critical piece of context for reporters, too often missing from coverage.

In Colorado, for example, Pueblo Chieftain reporter Tracy Harmon largely followed the companies’ scripts in two stories (5/14/24, 5/20/24) on the Anthem/CommonSpirit fight, focusing on patients’ need for access and sourced almost exclusively to the two combatants.

Summit Daily News reporter Ryan Spencer (4/14/24) offered some additional context, using public data to show that the CommonSpirit hospital in Summit charged rates at twice the statewide average, and “reported profit margins of 35% or more in 2020 and 2021,” according to a report by the state Division of Insurance. Neither Spencer nor Harmon made the critical policy point that the network rate negotiations are supposed to be the country’s primary cost control mechanism.

It doesn’t work

In Colorado, Durango Herald reporter Reuben Schafir (3/23/24) came closest to discussing the core policy problem illustrated by corporate collisions over hospital rates. A spokesperson for a consumer healthcare NGO told Schafir: “These negotiations are often a lose/lose situation for consumers. Even a timely agreement would likely result in higher healthcare costs.”

In other words, the primary US cost control mechanism doesn’t work. Leaving prices to the outcome of mob wars has given the US the highest hospital prices in the world. Since hospital care remains the largest single element of national health spending, the failure of market-based hospital rate negotiations is one of the driving forces making the US an outlier as the costliest system in existence.

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (4/3/25) that insurer/provider conflicts illustrate why “the government should step in and regulate prices.”

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram got this right. On April 1, contracts between Southwestern Health Resources (SWHR) and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) expired amidst the usual anxious media coverage (e.g., Dallas Morning News, 4/1/25; WFAA, 4/2/25; KDFW Fox 4, 4/1/25).

A long Q&A-style summary in the Star-Telegram (4/3/25; non-paywall MSN text here) featured MIT economist Jonathan Gruber saying that “really the insurers and the providers are both bad guys when it comes to costs.” According to Gruber, markets have failed, and

situations like these contract negotiations breaking down are good examples of why the government should step in and regulate prices that the private sector has failed to keep within reach of the average consumer.

Gruber’s quote could well have been national news itself. Gruber was the intellectual architect of the Affordable Care Act, and it’s remarkable for an expert of his stature and influence to say categorically that markets have failed, and that government needs to regulate prices. Regardless, Gruber’s observation that market contracts between private insurers and hospitals have failed, and are likely to continue failing, is essential to understanding what’s happening when the healthcare mob wars come to your town.

Washington gangsters agree

As usual in mob wars, politicians bought by the combatants publicly wring their hands, while collecting millions of dollars in campaign assistance from each side and doing nothing to end the carnage. When the allegedly charitable Northeast Georgia Health System and insurer UnitedHealthcare ramped up their fear campaigns in 2023, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D–Ga.) sent strongly worded letters to both parties, typically devoid of anything indicating whether and how Senator Warnock and colleagues intend to prevent this from happening again. The dispute was a rare one that ended without an agreement.

The ultimate missing context for these stories is that for all their public antagonism, the insurance and hospital industries march in lockstep on the most important policy questions in the nation’s capital. The American Hospital Association and health insurers both spend millions of the dollars they get from premiums, and the rates exchanged under the terms of these contracts, to defeat Medicare for All, and make even modest partial reforms, like Gruber’s proposed price regulation, politically impossible.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by John Canham-Clyne.

In April, the White House revealed a plan to ask Congress to claw back nearly $1.1 billion in already-approved federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the entity that provides federal support for NPR and PBS affiliates. Thursday night’s executive order instructs the CPB to cease funding the two entities by June 30.

Free Press Co-CEO Craig Aaron said:

“Trump’s attack on public media shows why our democracy is on life support. Healthy democracies have independent, well-funded and robust public-media systems. At their best, noncommercial media put the public interest before profits and hold power to account. Trump’s outrageous order to end federal support for NPR and PBS takes U.S. media in the opposite direction. It’s riddled with falsehoods and disinformation about public media, much of it seemingly cribbed from right-wing blogs and newsletters. Despite the president’s twisted claims, public broadcasting remains an incredibly popular use of taxpayer dollars, and local stations provide trustworthy news and cultural programming, as well as lifesaving coverage during emergencies.

“The order’s legality is dubious at best — Congress appropriates funds for public broadcasting, and the president doesn’t get a magic eraser for programs he doesn’t like. The government’s unhinged attempt to defund news outlets they deem biased is blatant censorship. This represents a dangerous assault on independent journalism and public accountability — and it’s not happening in isolation. The Trump administration is also pushing Congress to rescind public media’s already-approved budget and is trying to remove board members at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for no legally justifiable reason. Brendan Carr, Trump’s top censor at the Federal Communications Commission, has also launched an investigation into the underwriting practices of NPR and PBS, using it as a pretext to call for an end to funding.

“After years of attacking journalists and lying about their work, it’s no surprise that Trump and his minions are trying to silence and shutter any newsroom that dares to ask him questions or show the devastating impact of his policies on local communities. Yet in many of those communities, the local public-media station is the only source of independent reporting. Trump, of course, prefers fawning propaganda — which too many commercial TV and radio broadcasters are willing to provide in exchange for regulatory favors, or to stay off the president’s target list. Since Trump can’t shake down NPR and PBS the same way he’s doing to CBS and ABC, he’s trying to starve them of the resources they need to survive.

“Attacking journalists and the media is on page one of the authoritarian playbook. This is why everyone who cares about accountability and democracy should be deeply concerned about public media’s future. The current system is far from perfect, and for too long public broadcasting’s leaders have cowered and conceded when they should have been pushing back. But all of us who care about an independent press, an informed populace, a responsive government and a thriving democracy have a stake in the outcome of this fight. If we unite to defend public media — and I believe we can and will prevail — then we might just save our democracy, too.”

Background: In February, Craig Aaron testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the Trump administration’s campaign of censorship against media viewpoints the president doesn’t like, calling it a “free-speech emergency.” In May 2024, he testified about false claims of bias at NPR and PBS. Free Press Action is leading grassroots efforts to craft public policy that supports local noncommercial news and information.

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

“Kyrgyz authorities continue a deplorable pattern of shuttering news outlets on illegitimate grounds that their ‘negative’ reporting could spark unrest,” said CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Senior Researcher Anna Brakha. “In a democratic society, critical news coverage is not a grounds to shutter media. Kyrgyz authorities must allow Aprel TV to operate freely.”

According to the prosecutors’ filing, reviewed by CPJ, authorities seek to close down Aprel TV by revoking its broadcast license and terminating its social media operations on the basis of an investigation by Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security.

The filing alleges that the outlet’s critical reporting portrays the authorities “in an unfavorable light” and “undermines the authority of the government,” which “could subsequently be aggravated [by] other social or global triggers and provoke calls for mass unrest with the aim of a subsequent seizure of power.”

In a statement, Aprel TV rejected the accusations, saying it is the function of journalism to focus on “sensitive issues of public concern,” in the same way “state media constantly report on government successes.”

Aprel TV has around 700,000 subscribers across its social media accounts and broadcasts via Next TV, which reports say is owned by an opposition politician. In 2019, authorities seized Aprel TV’s assets and its reporters have since been harassed by law enforcement officials.

The channel, whose flagship news show is highly critical of the government and often adopts an irreverent tone, was previously owned by former Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev but the outlet said in its statement that it is no longer affiliated with any politicians or political forces.

Following current President Sadyr Japarov’s ascent to power in 2020, Kyrgyz authorities have launched an unprecedented assault on the country’s previously vibrant media, shuttering leading outlets and jailing journalists often on the grounds that their critical reporting could lead to social unrest.

CPJ’s emails to the office of the prosecutor general and the State Committee for National Security for comment but did not receive any replies.

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

Four days after Amisi, a reporter with the privately owned news website Déboutrdc.net, went missing in Bukavu, the capital of the DRC’s eastern South Kivu province, he was found naked on the edge of nearby Lake Kivu on April 19. Amisi, who spoke with CPJ from his bed at a Bukavu hospital, said that he was taken and tortured by unidentified men. Bukavu is under the control of the M23 rebel group, which in recent months has advanced in the country’s eastern provinces against the DRC military.

“DRC authorities and the M23 rebels, who now control the city of Bukavu, must conduct thorough investigations into the abduction and mistreatment of journalist Émérite Amisi Musada and ensure accountability,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa regional director, from Luanda, Angola. “The safety of journalists must be a priority for all sides in the fighting, which has intensified in the eastern DRC.”

Amisi told CPJ that when he left his house, “I was blocked by four people in civilian clothes, one of whom sprayed a gas in my nose to the point of losing consciousness.”

When he woke up in a house somewhere, Amisi was beaten with a stick, sodomized with a rubber rod, and “subjected to a long interrogation about my reports on the war in the east of the country,” he said.

Four men with revolvers interrogated him about his outlet, including the password to gain administrative access to the siteand sources for their war coverage. When Amisi did not provide them with the information, the men stripped him, put him in their vehicle, and left him at the edge of the lake, where he was found by a civilian and taken to the hospital, he said.

Amisi has published several articles on the clashes between M23 and the military.

On April 10, Amisi had received threatening WhatsApp messages, which CPJ reviewed, from a sender who identified themselves as a DRC army general named Guy Kapinga.

One message, addressed to “Rwandan traitors” and written in the local Lingala language, said: “You are eating up the money of the West in order to sabotage the efforts of the head of state. I know your church well and we are keeping an eye on you. You will not flee Bukavu, continue to publish articles against the head of state and the army. We will have you in a short time.”

CPJ repeatedly called the number that sent the messages, but the line did not connect. CPJ’s calls to DRC military spokesperson Sylvain Ekenge went unanswered, and CPJ’s messages to M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka also went unanswered.

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

Four days after Amisi, a reporter with the privately owned news website Déboutrdc.net, went missing in Bukavu, the capital of the DRC’s eastern South Kivu province, he was found naked on the edge of nearby Lake Kivu on April 19. Amisi, who spoke with CPJ from his bed at a Bukavu hospital, said that he was taken and tortured by unidentified men. Bukavu is under the control of the M23 rebel group, which in recent months has advanced in the country’s eastern provinces against the DRC military.

“DRC authorities and the M23 rebels, who now control the city of Bukavu, must conduct thorough investigations into the abduction and mistreatment of journalist Émérite Amisi Musada and ensure accountability,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa regional director, from Luanda, Angola. “The safety of journalists must be a priority for all sides in the fighting, which has intensified in the eastern DRC.”

Amisi told CPJ that when he left his house, “I was blocked by four people in civilian clothes, one of whom sprayed a gas in my nose to the point of losing consciousness.”

When he woke up in a house somewhere, Amisi was beaten with a stick, sodomized with a rubber rod, and “subjected to a long interrogation about my reports on the war in the east of the country,” he said.

Four men with revolvers interrogated him about his outlet, including the password to gain administrative access to the siteand sources for their war coverage. When Amisi did not provide them with the information, the men stripped him, put him in their vehicle, and left him at the edge of the lake, where he was found by a civilian and taken to the hospital, he said.

Amisi has published several articles on the clashes between M23 and the military.

On April 10, Amisi had received threatening WhatsApp messages, which CPJ reviewed, from a sender who identified themselves as a DRC army general named Guy Kapinga.

One message, addressed to “Rwandan traitors” and written in the local Lingala language, said: “You are eating up the money of the West in order to sabotage the efforts of the head of state. I know your church well and we are keeping an eye on you. You will not flee Bukavu, continue to publish articles against the head of state and the army. We will have you in a short time.”

CPJ repeatedly called the number that sent the messages, but the line did not connect. CPJ’s calls to DRC military spokesperson Sylvain Ekenge went unanswered, and CPJ’s messages to M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka also went unanswered.

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

The Environmental Protection Agency has thrust a dagger into the heart of American homeownership, and the home insurance industry and the mortgage industry by throwing out accountability of greenhouse gases. The relationship between greenhouse gases and global heat/climate change is accepted by nearly 100% of climate scientists, including Exxon’s own in-house scientists, to wit: “The researchers report that Exxon scientists correctly dismissed the possibility of a coming ice age, accurately predicted that human-caused global warming would first be detectable in the year 2000, plus or minus five years, and reasonably estimated how much CO₂ would lead to dangerous warming.” (“Research Shows That Company Modeled and Predicted Global Warming with ‘Shocking Skills and Accuracy’ Starting in the 1970s,” Harvard Gazette, Jan. 12, 2023.

The single most important thing governments can do in today’s changing climate environment is to identify and monitor sources of greenhouse gases that cause radical climate change. The whole world is doing this to know how to mitigate the problem. But the EPA of the USA is tossing this out the window. (“Nobody’s Insurance Rates are Safe from Climate Change,” Yale Climate Connections, Jan. 14, 2025. “Home Insurance Problem is Set to Intensify,” Business Insider, Oct. 22, 2024. “More Americans, Risking Ruin, Drop Their Home Insurance, New York Times, Jan. 16, 2025.)

The world insurance industry understands the problem: “Climate change is a source of financial risk, impacting the resilience of individual insurers as well as global financial stability. While insurers are exposed to both transition and physical risks through their underwriting and investment activities, they can also be key agents in identifying, mitigating and managing climate risk, thereby contributing to a sustainable transition to net-zero.” (International Association of Insurance Supervisors)

Significantly, the EPA has effectively deleted the second sentence to that statement by the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. Namely: You cannot “identify, mitigate and manage climate risk” without knowing where it’s coming from. The EPA is removing that critical component, leaving insurance companies swinging from the branches, directionless.

The Trump EPA is eye-gouging the home insurance industry and real estate market by changing national standards for collecting and reporting greenhouse gas emissions. This data is crucial to determination of national climate mitigation policies on a worldwide basis. Meanwhile, climate change has been identified by the home insurance industry as its most serious issue, as climate change transforms the American home insurance industry into a basket case that risks undermining the American real estate market down the tubes. Home mortgage companies stand to lose billions. As it stands, real estate is America’s biggest asset class, and it has now been hit hard by EPA rulings.

No other country in the world has chosen to completely ignore climate change. To do so is a risk to every homeowner in America because climate change has turned into a monster that randomly destroys real property, forcing home insurance rates to the moon.

And the outlook for climate change, according to state-of-the-art climate research, has turned grim, as follows.

Is Earth Losing Resilience?

Knowing/identifying the data behind climate change, which EPA is eliminating, has never more important to safeguard the planetary system. A major study by Johan Rockstrom of Potsdam Institute questions Earth’s resilience, as follows:

“We have received enough concerning signals from the Earth system, forcing us to seriously ask the question, are we seeing the first signs of Earth losing resilience?”

“The most recent estimates already point to implications of a weaker planet showing first signs of accelerated warming. The 1.5°C limit will be breached earlier, probably already before 2030. And the BIG question out there is what does all this mean for the risk of crossing tipping points in the Earth system? We already have evidence that multiple tipping elements are likely to cross their thresholds when 1.5°C is breached permanently. This places us in a very delicate situation, given that these tipping elements (Tropical Coral Reef systems, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, abrupt thawing of permafrost, and collapse of the Barent sea ice) would not only affect billions of people, but comprise feedback systems, i.e., they can trigger permanent changes in the functioning of Earth, which would accelerate warming even further.”(Rockstrom)

And the EPA wants to ignore greenhouse gases. This is the closest we’ll ever get to mimicking Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Robert Hunziker.

Image by Getty and Unsplash+.

The Trump administration’s EPA has put the home insurance industry, home mortgage industry, real estate industry, and individual homeownership on notice that the rules are changing against their best interests. Already, before these negative changes to EPA policy, radical climate change has forced insurance companies to eliminate home coverage in regions of America.

Trump’s EPA Plans to Stop Collecting Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data From Most Polluters, ProPublica, April 10, 2025)

The Environmental Protection Agency has thrust a danger into the heart of American homeownership, and the home insurance industry and the mortgage industry by throwing out accountability of greenhouse gases. The relationship between greenhouse gases and global heat/climate change is accepted by nearly 100% of climate scientists, including Exxon’s own in-house scientists, to wit: “The researchers report that Exxon scientists correctly dismissed the possibility of a coming ice age, accurately predicted that human-caused global warming would first be detectable in the year 2000, plus or minus five years, and reasonably estimated how much CO₂ would lead to dangerous warming.” (Research Shows That Company Modeled and Predicted Global Warming with ‘Shocking Skills and Accuracy’ Starting in the 1970s, The Harvard Gazette, Jan. 12, 2023.

The single most important thing governments can do in today’s changing climate environment is to identify and monitor sources of greenhouse gases that cause radical climate change. The whole world is doing this to know how to mitigate the problem. But the EPA of the USA is tossing this out the window.

Nobody’s Insurance Rates are Safe from Climate Change, Yale Climate Connections, Jan. 14, 2025.

Home Insurance Problem is Set to Intensify, Business Insider, Oct. 22, 2024.

More Americans, Risking Ruin, Drop Their Home Insurance, The New York Times, Jan. 16, 2025

The world insurance industry understands the problem: “Climate change is a source of financial risk, impacting the resilience of individual insurers as well as global financial stability. While insurers are exposed to both transition and physical risks through their underwriting and investment activities, they can also be key agents in identifying, mitigating and managing climate risk, thereby contributing to a sustainable transition to net-zero.” (International Association of Insurance Supervisors)

Significantly, the EPA has effectively deleted the second sentence to that statement by the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. Namely: You cannot “identify, mitigate and manage climate risk” without knowing where it’s coming from. The EPA is removing that critical component, leaving insurance companies swinging from the branches, directionless.

The Trump EPA is eye-gouging the home insurance industry and real estate market by changing national standards for collecting and reporting greenhouse gas emissions. This data is crucial to determination of national climate mitigation policies on a worldwide basis. Meanwhile, climate change has been identified by the home insurance industry as its most serious issue, as climate change transforms the American home insurance industry into a basket case that risks undermining the American real estate market down the tubes. Home mortgage companies stand to lose billions. As it stands, real estate is America’s biggest asset class, and it has now been hit hard by EPA rulings.

No other country in the world has chosen to completely ignore climate change. To do so is a risk to every homeowner in America because climate change has turned into a monster that randomly destroys real property, forcing home insurance rates to the moon.

And the outlook for climate change, according to state-of-the-art climate research, has turned grim, as follows.

Is Earth Losing Resilience?

Knowing/identifying the data behind climate change, which EPA is eliminating, has never more important to safeguard the planetary system. A major study by Johan Rockstrom of Potsdam Institute questions Earth’s resilience, as follows:

“We have received enough concerning signals from the Earth system, forcing us to seriously ask the question, are we seeing the first signs of Earth losing resilience?”

“The most recent estimates already point to implications of a weaker planet showing first signs of accelerated warming. The 1.5°C limit will be breached earlier, probably already before 2030. And the BIG question out there is what does all this mean for the risk of crossing tipping points in the Earth system? We already have evidence that multiple tipping elements are likely to cross their thresholds when 1.5°C is breached permanently. This places us in a very delicate situation, given that these tipping elements (Tropical Coral Reef systems, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, abrupt thawing of permafrost, and collapse of the Barent sea ice) would not only affect billions of people, but comprise feedback systems, i.e., they can trigger permanent changes in the functioning of Earth, which would accelerate warming even further.”(Rockstrom)

And the EPA wants to ignore greenhouse gases. This is the closest we’ll ever get to mimicking Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

The post EPA Torches Home Insurance Coverage appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Hunziker.

The Real News Network (TRNN) is honored to be one of the 2025 recipients of the Izzy Award, recognizing “outstanding achievement[s] in independent journalism/independent media,” for our on-the-ground documentary report, “Trainwreck in ‘Trump Country’: Partisan politics hasn’t helped East Palestine, OH,” directed by Mike Balonek. On behalf of TRNN and our entire team of grassroots journalists and movement media makers, I am beyond grateful and humbled to accept this prestigious award. I am equally honored to share this award with journalist Steve Mellon of Pittsburgh Union Progress, who co-hosted the report with me, and who has done more in-depth, consistent, and humane coverage of the East Palestine train derailment and chemical disaster than anyone else in the country—all while he and his colleagues have been on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since October 2022. TRNN continues to stand in full solidarity with our striking colleagues, we condemn the illegal strike-breaking and union-busting actions of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s owners, and we call on our fellow media organizations to do the same. 

I am admittedly apprehensive about accepting an award for our coverage on this catastrophic and preventable tragedy when people living in and around East Palestine have had their lives upended and are still going through hell. Chris Albright, the resident who spoke to me and Steve Mellon in this documentary report while we sat in his dining room, was just hospitalized again and spent the past weekend in critical care due to heart-related issues caused by the derailment. Some people we spoke to while filming in East Palestine last year have since had to move and leave everything behind to save their and their family’s health, becoming refugees from their own hometowns. 

“Nothing has changed,” Ashley McCollom, a displaced East Palestine resident, told me in February. “It feels like the town is basically the same, the reactions, the uncomfortable feeling, the stress… you can clearly smell something’s not right.” I would like to take the opportunity of this award announcement to reiterate the same plea I’ve been making for two years: Please don’t forget about East Palestine. Don’t look away, don’t give up on these people, as so many politicians, pundits, and unaffected members of the public have. They are working people just like you and me, they are our neighbors, and they desperately need help. Please, I beg you, help them. 

None of these residents did anything to deserve this nightmare, they did not cause it, yet they are the ones paying the unimaginable price for the corporate greed and government negligence that did. And it’s not just the chemically poisoned residents living in and around East Palestine. As we have shown in our extensive, ongoing coverage of and interviews with working-class residents living, working, and fighting for justice in America’s “sacrifice zones”—from communities throughout South Baltimore that have been poisoned for generations by rail giant CSX Transportation and dozens of other toxic polluters concentrated in their part of the city, to residents in Western North Carolina, whose lives and towns were devastated by Hurricane Helene, to residents living near Conyers, GA, who have been affected by the nightmare-inducing chemical fire at the BioLab facility in September, to so many other communities—this life-destroying scourge is coming for all of us. And it’s going to need to be us, the ones in the path of all this reckless and preventable destruction—working people, fighting as one—who are going to stop them.

We at TRNN accept this award proudly as recognition of our dedication to the people of East Palestine, to our neighbors and fellow workers at the center of these all-too-frequent national tragedies, and to the work of lifting up their voices and reporting on their stories truthfully, transparently, and fearlessly. But these stories are not over, and the work is not done until people get justice, until the corporate monsters, corporate politicians, and Wall Street vampires poisoning our communities are stopped and held accountable for their crimes. And you have a role to play in shaping that outcome—we all do. What happens next depends on what you and others do about it, how you turn the information and perspectives we provide through our journalism, and the connections we facilitate on our platforms, into action. 

That is our team’s stubbornly held belief and the shared mission we embody in all the work we do, from our on-the-ground documentary reporting around the world to the investigative, grassroots journalism and human-centered storytelling we produce regularly on Police Accountability Report, The Marc Steiner Show, Rattling the Bars, Inequality Watch, Working People, Edge of Sports TV, Solidarity Without Exception, Stories of Resistance, and more. We don’t give up on people when the news cycle has moved on, we don’t abandon critical stories just to chase clicks; we keep coming back, we keep listening, we keep reporting, we keep connecting people we meet through that reporting, and we keep doing everything we can to make media that empowers others to be and make the change they’re waiting for. Moreover, rather than see one another as competitors, we commit to collaborating with similarly mission-driven outlets—from Pittsburgh Union Progress to our partners in the Movement Media Alliance, of which TRNN is a founding member—to carry out our mission in the most impactful ways and to better serve and empower the public.  

At TRNN, we don’t just tell you about what’s happening in the world and expect you to simply react to it; we take you to the heart of the action where people are making change happen, and we encourage you to do something with it. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. TRNN is journalism and human-centered storytelling for people who are doing something and for people who want to do something but don’t know where to start. It starts here, now, with you, with us. We are working to change the world, and that work is gruelling, expensive, and time-consuming, and we cannot do it without you.

 If you appreciate our award-winning journalism, then please become a supporter today. 

Thank you to the Park Center for Independent Media and to the award committee for honoring us with this Izzy Award. Thank you to all of our supporters who make our work possible, and thank you to everyone fighting wherever you are to make change and justice inevitable. Lastly, thank you to the people of East Palestine for opening your hearts and homes to us, and for trusting us to share your stories with the world—we won’t stop, and we won’t forget about you. 

For more information about how you can help the residents of East Palestine, OH, email us at contact@therealnews.com.

Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever, 
Maximillian Alvarez
Editor-in-Chief & Co-Executive Director, TRNN

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Maximillian Alvarez.

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.

With international media’s attention on the Israeli and Palestinian captives exchange,  Israel’s military and settlers have been forcibly displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, says Al Jazeera’s Listening Post media programme.

The European Union has condemned Israel’s military operation in West Bank, attacking and killing refugees, and destroying refugee camps while the Western media has been barely reporting this.

It has also criticised the violence by settlers in illegal West Bank villages.

• READ MORE: Israel touts US plan to extend truce for half of remaining captives in Gaza
• Other AJ Listening Post reports

Israel’s military operation in the occupied territory has been ongoing for more than 40 days and has resulted in dozens of casualties, the displacement of about 40,000 Palestinians from their homes, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

The EU has expressed its “grave concern” about Israel’s continuing military operation in the occupied West Bank in a statement.

“The EU calls on Israel, in addressing its security concerns in the occupied West Bank, to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law by ensuring the protection of all civilians in military operations and allow the safe return of displaced persons to their homes,” the statement read.

“At the same time, extremist settler violence continues throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Israel ‘has duty to protect’
“The EU recalls that Israel, as the occupying power, has the duty to protect civilians and to hold perpetrators accountable.”

The bloc also condemned Israel’s policy of expanding settlements in the West Bank, and urged that demolitions “including of EU and EU member states-funded structures, must stop”.

“As we enter the holy month of Ramadan, we call on all parties to exercise restraint to allow for peaceful celebrations,” the EU said.

Meanwhile, Israeli journalists are parroting military talking points of security operations.

Israel invades the West Bank.  Video: AJ: The Listening Post

Contributors:
Abdaljawad Omar – Assistant professor, Birzeit University
Jehad Abusalim – Co-editor, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire
Ori Goldberg – Academic and political commentator
Samira Mohyeddin – Founder, On the Line Media

On the Listening Post radar:
This week, the return of the Bibas family bodies dominated Israeli media coverage.

Tariq Nafi reports on how their deaths have been used for “hasbara” — propaganda — after the family accused Netanyahu’s government of exploiting their grief for political purposes.

The Kenyan ‘manosphere’
Populated by loudmouths, shock artists and unapologetic chauvinists, the Kenyan “manosphere” is promoting an influential — and at times dangerous — take on modern masculinity.

Featuring:
Audrey Mugeni – Co-founder, Femicide Count Kenya
Awino Okech – Professor of feminist and security studies, SOAS
Onyango Otieno – Mental health coach and writer

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

Three Israeli men held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip were freed on Saturday, February 8,  in exchange for 183 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. It was the latest round of captive releases stipulated by the January ceasefire deal that ostensibly paused Israel’s genocide in Gaza, launched in October 2023, the official Palestinian death toll of which has now reached nearly 62,000—although the true number of fatalities is likely quite a bit higher (FAIR.org, 2/5/25).

In all, 25 Israeli captives and the bodies of eight others were slated to be released over a six-week period, in exchange for more than 1,900 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel—the disproportionate ratio a reflection both of the vastly greater number of captives held by Israel and the superior value consistently assigned to Israeli life.

Hamas halted releases on Monday on account of Israel’s violations of the ceasefire agreement, with Reuters (2/10/25) oh-so-diplomatically noting that the “ceasefire…has largely held since it began on January 19, although there have been some incidents in which Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces.”

But Saturday’s exchange offered a revealing view of the outsized role US corporate media play in the general dehumanization of the Palestinian people—an approach that conveniently coincides with the Middle East policy of the United States, which is predicated on the obsessive funneling of hundreds of billions of dollars in assistance and weaponry to Israel’s genocidal army. And now that President Donald Trump has decided that the US can take over Gaza by simply expelling its inhabitants, well, dehumanizing them may serve an even handier purpose.

Granted, it’s a lot easier for a news report to tell the individual stories of three people than to tell the stories of 183. But the relentless empathetic media attention to the three Israeli men—who, mind you, are not the ones currently facing a genocide—deliberately leaves little to no room for Palestinian victims of an Israeli carceral system that has for decades been characterized by illegal arbitrary detention, torture and in-custody death.

So it is that we learn the names and ages of the three Israelis, the names of their family members, and empathy-inducing details of their captivity and physical appearance, while the 183 Palestinians remain at best a side note, and at worst a largely faceless mass of newly freed terrorists.

‘Like Holocaust survivors’

Deep into this story, the New York Times (2/8/25) admits that many released Palestinian prisoners were also “in visibly poor condition”—but it doesn’t explain that both the Israeli and Palestinian prisoners were emaciated for the same reason: because Israel had deliberately deprived them of food.

Take, for example, the Saturday New York Times intervention (2/8/25) headlined “Hamas Makes Gaunt Israeli Hostages Thank Captors Before Release,” which recounts the plight of the “three frail, painfully thin hostages” who elicited the following comparison from Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar: “The Israeli hostages look like Holocaust survivors.”

When we finally get around to the Palestinian prisoners, we are immediately informed that “at least some were convicted of involvement in deadly attacks against Israelis, who view them as terrorists.” Needless to say, such media outlets can rarely be bothered to profile Palestinian prisoners with less sensational biographies—like all the folks arbitrarily swept up in raids and never charged with a crime.

The article does acknowledge, more than 20 paragraphs later, that “many of the released Palestinian prisoners were in visibly poor condition,” too—albeit not meriting a comparison to Holocaust survivors—and that “Palestinian prisoners have recounted serious allegations of abuse in Israeli jails.” It also mentions that “Israeli forces raided the West Bank family homes of at least four of [the] men before their release, warning their relatives not to celebrate their freedom”—evidence, according to the Times, that Israel has simply been “particularly assertive in suppressing celebrations for detainees.”

And yet all of this “assertiveness” is implicitly justified when we are supplied with the biographical details of a handful of released detainees, who unlike the three Israelis are categorically ineligible for pure and unadulterated victimhood, consisting instead of the likes of 50-year-old Iyad Abu Shkhaydem, who “had been serving 18 life sentences, in part for planning the 2004 bombings of two buses in Beersheba, in central Israel, that killed 16 people.”

Of course, the corporate media are more interested in obscuring rather than supplying context, which is why we never find the New York Times and its ilk dwelling too critically on the possibility that Palestinian violence might be driven by, you know, Israel’s usurpation of Palestinian land, coupled with systematic ethnic cleansing and regular bouts of mass slaughter.

In the media’s view, the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks that killed some 1,200 Israelis and saw more than 250 taken captive was just about the most savage, brutal thing to have ever happened. Never mind Israel’s behavior for the past 77 years, which includes killing nearly 8,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from September 2000 through September 2023, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

But that’s what happens when one side is appointed as human and the other is not—and when the US media takes its cues from a genocidal state whose officials refer to Palestinians as “human animals.”

‘Shocked Israelis’

This New York Times story (2/9/25) is not matched by one in which Palestinian captives “Give Glimpses of Ordeal”—but then, the Times doesn’t have a correspondent who’s married to a Palestinian PR agent, or who has a son who’s a fighter for Hamas.

On Sunday, the New York Times ran another article (2/9/25) on the “torment” the Israeli hostages had endured. Times Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner managed to find space in it to discuss the “bright magenta track suit” worn by a female Israeli hostage released last month, but not much space to talk about Palestinians, aside from specifying that “some” of the prisoners slated for release were “convicted of killing Israelis.” (Kershner, it bears recalling, was called out by FAIR back in 2012 for utilizing her Times post to provide a platform for her husband’s Zionist propaganda outfit. In 2014, it was revealed that her son was in the Israeli military.)

While Kershner described the three Israelis released on Saturday as being in “emaciated condition,” many other media outlets opted for “gaunt.” Reuters (2/8/25) announced that the “gaunt appearance” of the three hostages had “shocked Israelis”—and reminded its audience that “some” of the 183 released Palestinians were “convicted of involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people.”

NBC News (2/9/25) also went with “gaunt,” as did CNN (2/9/25). But aside from common vocabulary, a recurring theme throughout media coverage of the prisoner exchanges is the sheer humanity infused into the Israeli characters: their suffering, their weepy reunions with their families, their heart-rending discoveries that certain loved ones have not survived. This same humanity is blatantly denied to Palestinians; after all, emotionally conditioning audiences to empathize with Israel’s enemies would run counter to US machinations abroad and the Orientalist media traditions that help sustain them.

Again, many of the media reports do acknowledge that quite a few released Palestinians were looking worse for the wear, had difficulty walking, or had to be transferred to hospital. But such information is not presented as “shocking” to anyone—perhaps because maltreatment and abuse of Palestinian prisoners is business as usual in Israel.

Conspicuously, the continuous invocation of the factoid that “some” released Palestinians had been convicted of killing Israelis is never accompanied by the corresponding note that “some” of the released Israelis happen to be active-duty soldiers in an army whose fundamental purpose is to kill and displace Palestinians. When individual hostages’ army service is mentioned, it is done so in a positive light—as in Kershner’s recounting of the uplifting aftermath of the January 25 release of 20-year-old soldier Daniella Gilboa: “Days later, she was singing at a party marking the discharge of the army lookouts from Beilinson Hospital near Tel Aviv.”

Weaponization of empathy

CNN‘s article (2/9/25) acknowledged that Israel “intentionally reduc[ed] food servings to Palestinian prisoners in what’s been described as the minimum required for survival”—but there’s no headline about “gaunt” Palestinian captives.

Meanwhile, speaking of “humanity,” a Telegraph article (2/8/25) published on the Yahoo! News website quoted Israeli President Isaac Herzog as detecting a “crime against humanity” in the appearance of the three men released on Saturday, who had returned from captivity “starved, emaciated and pained.” This from a leader of a country that has just bombed an entire territory and a whole lot of its people to bits, while also utilizing starvation as a weapon of war. Starvation is furthermore par for the course in Israeli prisons; as even CNN (2/9/25) observed in one its articles on Saturday’s “pale, gaunt Israeli hostages”:

The Israeli prison system has come under fire for intentionally reducing food servings to Palestinian prisoners in what’s been described as the minimum required for survival, on the orders of then National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir last year.

It brings back memories of that time in 2006 that Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli government, offered the following rationale for restricting food imports into Gaza: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

In November 2023, the Associated Press reported that a 78-year-old female hostage released by Hamas had “said in an interview that she was initially fed well in captivity until conditions worsened and people became hungry.” In this case, the AP semi-connected the dots: “Israel has maintained a tight siege on Gaza since the war erupted, leading to shortages of food, fuel and other basic items.”

In other words, there’s no one but the Israeli government to thank for those shockingly “gaunt” faces—the Israeli ones in headlines and the Palestinians relegated to the bottom of stories. And with Israel gearing up to renew its genocidal onslaught with fanatical US encouragement, there are no doubt plenty of crimes against humanity yet to come.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Belén Fernández.

The murder of UnitedHealth Group executive Brian Thompson, and the subsequent arrest of Luigi Mangione, focused media and policymakers’ attention on the savage practices of private US health insurance. In the immediate aftermath, major media outlets scolded social media posters for mocking Thompson with sarcastic posts, such as “I’m sorry, prior authorization is required for thoughts and prayers.”

As public fury failed to subside, it began to dawn on at least some media organizations that the response to Thompson’s murder might possibly reflect deep, widespread anger at a healthcare system that collects twice as much money as those in other wealthy countries, makes it difficult for half the adult population to afford healthcare even when they’re supposedly “insured,” and maims, murders and bankrupts millions of people by denying payment when they actually try to use their alleged benefits. As Rep. Ro Khanna (D.–Calif.) said to ABC News  (12/8/24), “There is no justification for violence, but the outpouring afterwards has not surprised me.”

Any reporter, editor or pundit who writes regularly about healthcare and professes to be mystified or outraged by the public reaction to Thompson’s murder should take a deep look at their own assumptions, sources and professional behavior.

FAIR reviewed coverage of healthcare in the presidential election by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, as well as KFF Health News (KHN), the leading outlet specializing in the healthcare issue, whose reporting is often picked up by corporate media. The coverage by these outlets amounts to little more than sophisticated public relations for this corporate healthcare killing machine and, especially, the Republican and Democratic politicians who created and nurture it.

The coverage was marred by many of the media failings FAIR has exposed since its inception. These outlets:

• took false major-party “facts” at face value and published candidates’ platitudes without challenging their substance;
• anointed former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris as the only legitimate horses in the race, blacking out the content of third-party candidate proposals like “Medicare for All”; and
• added insult to injury by legitimizing their own failed coverage with analysis asking why there were no major healthcare reform proposals to cover.

Tsunami of fake good news

In March 2024, I reported (Healing and Stealing, 3/23/24) that Democrats were preparing to unleash a “tsunami of fake good news” about healthcare and the Affordable Care Act to try to influence media coverage of the campaign.

Major media fell for it hook, line and sinker. No campaign tactic and media failure did more to lengthen the distance between a public brutalized by a failing healthcare system and an out-of-touch corporate media.

President Joe Biden (until he dropped out) and Harris spun a narrative of “progress” under the Affordable Care Act to attract voters. The progress narrative relied on two new healthcare policy “records”: a record-low uninsurance rate and record-high Obamacare enrollment.

In a story on why “big, prominent plans for health reform are nowhere to be seen,” the New York Times’ Margot Sanger-Katz (9/13/24) explained that the “overall state of the health system” is different than in 2019 for several reasons, including that the “uninsured rate is near a record low.”

The New York Times (1/10/24) reported that signups for the ACA set a “record”—but not that this was less than the number of people who had been kicked off Medicaid.

KHN’s Phil Galewitz (9/10/24) similarly reported:

Before Congress passed the ACA in 2010, the uninsured rate had been in double digits for decades. The rate fell steadily under Barack Obama but reversed under President Donald Trump, only to come down again under President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, insurance plans sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges reached a record enrollment of 21 million in early 2024, or, as the Times’ Noah Weiland (1/10/24) put it, “blowing by the previous record and elevating the health and political costs of a repeal.”

The two “facts” are both distorted and largely irrelevant to people’s actual experience of the healthcare system. As Galewitz acknowledged, because of survey lags, the uninsurance data don’t reflect the 2023–24 disenrollment of some 25 million from Medicaid, the joint federal/state insurance program for low-income Americans, which had been temporarily expanded under Covid.

But the Medicaid disenrollment is reflected in the record signups to Obamacare, where some of those who lost Medicaid coverage fled in 2024. Yet according to KHN, 6 million of the 25 million people who lost Medicaid coverage became uninsured. Most of them haven’t yet been captured in uninsured data, allowing the Democrats to have their cake and eat it too.

The fact that the uninsured data likely understate uninsurance by as much as 6 million people escaped most political coverage—the Washington Post’s Dan Diamond (9/11/24), for example, added no caveats when reporting that the Biden administration

had released data showing that nearly 50 million Americans have obtained health coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges since they were established more than a decade ago, helping lower the national uninsured rate to record lows in recent years.

The Times‘ Sanger-Katz (9/13/24) likewise failed to mention it.

Private insurance ≠ healthcare 

The lesson Kamala Harris learned, according to the Washington Post (9/11/24), is that “incremental change, not a sweeping overhaul, is the best path to improving US healthcare.”

Far more importantly, the rate of uninsurance no longer measures whether or not people have adequate healthcare, or are protected from financial ruin if they get sick or injured. Data show that people who supposedly have insurance can’t get healthcare, rendering the raw uninsurance rate a relatively meaningless measure of the burden of the crisis-stricken US healthcare system.

National surveys by the Commonwealth Fund every two years include one of the few comprehensive attempts to measure underinsurance, and the impact of medical costs on people nominally “covered.” In 2022, Commonwealth found that 46% of adults aged 19–64 skipped needed medical treatment due to out-of-pocket costs. That number included 44% of adults buying insurance through ACA exchanges or the individual insurance market—even with the much-hyped expanded premium subsidies in place.

Commonwealth didn’t release its 2024 surveys until November 21, well after Election Day. During the last two years of the Biden/Harris administration, the percentage of working age adults skipping medical care due to costs increased from 46% to 48%, no matter the source of coverage (Healing and Stealing, 11/21/24).

When people with private insurance do attempt to get healthcare, their insurers often refuse to pay for care. The slain Brian Thompson was CEO of UnitedHealth Group’s insurance subsidiary. According to an analysis of federal data by ValuePenguin (5/15/24), a consumer website run by online lender LendingTree, UnitedHealthcare denied 32% of claims submitted to its ACA and individual market plans in 2022, the highest rate in the industry.

Corporate media political reporters usually delivered the misleading progress narrative “facts” without reference to this critical context. The Washington Post’s Dan Diamond (9/11/24), explaining that Harris learned “the importance of incremental progress” as vice president after retreating from support for Medicare for All, noted the administration’s achievement of “record levels of health coverage through the Affordable Care Act,” with no reference to the Medicaid purge or underinsurance.

Substance-free coverage of a substance-free campaign 

New York Times (9/13/24): “After years of crises and emergencies, no part of the system is currently ablaze.”

The New York Times’ Margot Sanger-Katz wrote in “The Campaign Issue That Isn’t: Healthcare Reform” (9/13/24):

As you may have noticed, with less than two months until Election Day, big, prominent plans for health reform are nowhere to be seen. Even in an election that has been fairly light on policy proposals, healthcare’s absence is notable.

It’s true that neither Harris nor Trump offered any concrete proposals for improving US healthcare. Harris campaigned on “strengthening” the ACA, but her only specific “improvement” was a promise to support keeping the expanded subsidies that help people pay their ACA health insurance premiums—passed in the first year of Biden’s term—from expiring as scheduled next year. In other words, “strengthen” the ACA by maintaining its dismal status quo.

As for Trump, the Times’ Weiland (8/12/24) reported that the authors of Project 2025, the consensus right-wing NGO blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation, “were not calling for a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.” At the debate, Trump said he wouldn’t repeal unless he had a better plan, and drew mockery for saying he had “concepts of a plan.”

Ultimately, mass deportation was his primary healthcare policy (Healing and Stealing, 10/16/24, 9/10/24); the RNC Platform maintained that undocumented immigrants were the cause of high healthcare costs. (It’s nonsense. Undocumented taxpayers actually paid more in taxes that were earmarked specifically for healthcare in 2022 than the estimated total cost of healthcare for all undocumented immigrants in the US.)

What you see depends on where you look 

One reason Sanger-Katz and colleagues had a hard time finding “big” plans for healthcare is that she and her colleagues chose to look for them only in the two major parties’ platforms.

Whether Eugene Debs campaigning for Social Security from prison in 1920, Henry Wallace fighting for desegregation after walking out of the 1948 Democratic convention, or Cynthia McKinney proposing an end to the Afghan War in 2008, third-party candidates have a long track record of promoting policies dismissed as unrealistic ideological fantasies that later become consensus policy. Yet corporate media outlets repeat the same failure to pay attention every four years (FAIR.org, 10/23/08).

Green Party candidate Jill Stein, the only medical doctor in the race, supported Medicare for All as a

precursor to establishing a British-style National Healthcare Service which will replace private hospitals, private medical practice and private medical insurance with a publicly owned, democratically controlled healthcare service that will guarantee healthcare as a human right to everyone in the United States.

Stein placed special emphasis on taking “the pharmaceutical industry into public ownership and democratic control.”

Justice for All Party candidate Cornel West’s Health Justice agenda also envisioned a system “Beyond Medicare for All,” including “nationalization of healthcare industries.”

Prior to suspending his campaign and endorsing Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Jacobin (6/9/23) he would keep private insurance for those who want it, but also have a public program “available to everybody.” Although he used the phrase “single-payer,” Kennedy described a program most similar to a voluntary “public option,” an untested idea whose ultimate impact on the breadth, depth and cost of coverage remains speculative.

Outside the world inhabited by elite media, Medicare for All is a fiscally modest proposal that receives consistent support among large segments of the US population, reaching majorities depending on the wording of poll questions (KFF, 10/26/20). In 2022, the Congressional Budget Office (2/22) estimated that a single-payer system with no out-of-pocket costs for doctor visits or hospital care, minimal copays for prescription drugs, and doctor and hospital prices at the current average would cover everyone for all medical conditions—including services that are almost never fully covered, like vision, dental and hearing—and still lower expected total national health expenditures by about a half a percent.

Even with candidates in the race proposing even broader expansion of the public role in healthcare, through nationalizing hospitals and drug manufacturing, Medicare for All remains beyond the boundary of acceptable corporate media debate. This has been true for 30 years, when FAIR (Extra!, 1–2/94) reported on media coverage of the failed Clinton administration healthcare reform effort.

Just one election cycle back, during the Democratic primaries, multiple candidates—led by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but also including Kamala Harris—supported Medicare for All, and media were forced to cover it, generally with considerable hostility (FAIR.org, 3/20/19, 4/29/19, 10/2/19). But with Harris backing away from it entirely, media found themselves returning to a place of comfortably ignoring the popular proposal.

Missing Medicare for All

Leading papers covered third parties as potential spoilers, but not as potential sources of new ideas (Washington Post, 3/14/24).

FAIR searched the Nexis, ProQuest and Dow Jones databases, and the websites of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and KFF Health News, for election or healthcare policy stories and podcasts mentioning different iterations of “Medicare for All,” “single-payer” and “universal healthcare,” between January 1 and Election Day 2024. We found 89 news and 107 opinion pieces.

Ninety percent of the news articles came after Biden dropped out of the race. The coverage overwhelmingly focused on Harris’s reversal of her brief support for Medicare for All in 2019, with 96% of these stories mentioning her shift.

The ubiquitous Republican claim that Harris sought to give undocumented people free Medicare was based on the obviously false premise that Harris had not abandoned support for Medicare for All. Asked in 2019 whether her support for universal health insurance would include eligibility for undocumented immigrants, she said yes (New York Times, 10/30/24). Since that time, Harris has repudiated Medicare for All, and no Democrat has advocated enrolling the 11 million undocumented immigrants in Medicare, let alone for “free.”

KHN (8/1/24) and the New York Times (10/30/24) corrected this GOP distortion, but all four outlets left readers hard-pressed to learn any other details of Medicare for All, or other meaningful alternatives to the status quo, especially not any proposed by other candidates.

All four outlets wrote frequently about whether third-party candidates might siphon votes from Trump or Harris (e.g., Wall Street Journal, 11/10/23; Washington Post, 3/14/24; New York Times, 10/14/24). However, they blacked out the content of those parties’ healthcare policy positions, leaving readers with no information to help them decide if voting for a candidate other than Trump or Harris might benefit them.

Voters in the dark

In 2,000 words on “Where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Stands on the Issues,” the New York Times (6/14/24) avoided any discussion of where he stands on major healthcare reform issues.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and KHN frequently mentioned one or more of the third-party candidates in other political coverage as a threat to the major-party candidates. But out of the 89 news articles bringing up Medicare for All, single-payer or universal healthcare, only three included third-party candidates at all, each one in passing as possible spoilers. Exactly zero offered any information at all about the candidates’ healthcare proposals.

For example, the New York Times published 34 news articles and podcasts mentioning a version of Medicare for All or single-payer, without a single word on the healthcare proposals of the third-party candidates who remained after Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump. One article (10/24/24) included a passing Stein spoiler reference. Another (8/22/24), on Harris’s commitment to “the art of the possible,” quoted West’s vice presidential running mate, Melina Abdullah, criticizing Harris for shifting many of her policy positions, but again without reference to West and Abdullah’s proposals for healthcare.

Times readers were more likely to get news about the healthcare reform positions of foreign political leaders than non–major-party candidates running for president of the United States. The paper ran six stories about Indonesia (2/12/24, 2/15/24, 10/19/24), Thailand (2/18/24) and South Africa (6/3/24, 6/7/24) that mentioned a politician’s position on “universal healthcare,” while blacking out discussion of third-party candidates’ healthcare proposals, except to some degree for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Before leaving the race, Kennedy’s half-baked notions about vaccines, activism on environmental health and food safety, and criticism of Covid lockdowns received frequent mention, but as with the other third-party candidates, his views on major healthcare reform issues went missing, including from a 2,000-word Times analysis of “Where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Stands on the Issues” (6/14/24).

The third-party healthcare blackout was even tighter in the Washington Post. The 38 Post news articles mentioning Medicare for All or single-payer had only one reference to Stein or West—a quote from West unrelated to healthcare (8/21/24). The Post never reported either candidate’s healthcare proposals. A webpage on which reporters tracked third-party ballot access offered a short “Pitch to Voters” for each party that included no healthcare policy.

Medicare for All spin and bad facts

Like Democrats, the New York Times‘ Noah Weiland (8/22/24) largely avoided talking about what Medicare for All would do.

The four outlets’ descriptions of Medicare for All, single payer and universal healthcare were nearly as sparse as coverage of third-party candidates’ healthcare positions, and as distorted as reporting on the ACA. Only 23 of the 89 news stories included any description at all of these policies, the overwhelming majority of them a brief phrase in the reporter’s own words.

Only three New York Times stories included any Medicare for All substance, and these were barely intelligible. The most extensive was an article debunking Trump’s claims that Harris continued to support the policy, in which Noah Weiland (8/22/24) wrote nearly 1,300 words without explaining what the Medicare for All is or would do. Readers wouldn’t know that the current Medicare for All bills before Congress would cover everyone in the country with no out-of-pocket costs, and free choice of doctors and hospitals. They would, however, have learned that Harris “proposed a less sweeping plan” in 2019, which would include “a role for private plans.”

Weiland treated readers to what may be the most emphatic recitation of the ACA progress narrative. Biden’s pursuit of a “more traditional set of healthcare priorities” has yielded “explosive growth” in the ACA exchanges, he wrote. According to unnamed experts, that growth, and changes to Medicare and Medicaid, have “complicated” pursuit of Medicare for All.

Times readers would also have learned that expanding Medicaid is an incremental step toward Medicare for All, what bill supporter Rep. Ed Markey says is part of the policy’s “DNA.” In reality, Medicaid’s eligibility standards are literally the opposite of Medicare for All—means-tested coverage that requires you to prove you’re appropriately impoverished every year, and which disappears if you get a big enough raise at your job.

The vast majority of Times coverage of Medicare for All included no content whatsoever, simply mentioning it as a policy that Harris once supported, with the occasional political characterization (7/24/24) that it was one of her since-abandoned “left-leaning positions that can now leave her vulnerable to attack from Republicans.”

‘A proposal that worried many Americans’

Washington Post factchecker Glenn Kessler (9/9/24) said it was mostly true that Medicare for All would “raise taxes [and] increase national debt,” citing studies of Bernie Sanders’ plan that “estimated that national health expenditures would rise over 10 years.” He didn’t note that CBO found that under most single-payer plans, national health expenditures would rise—but much less than they would under the status quo.

The Post‘s Glenn Kessler (9/9/24) “factchecked” Republican claims that Medicare for All would “raise taxes, increase national debt and functionally eliminate private health insurance.” Calling it “mostly true,” Kessler cited the figure of $32.6 trillion over 10 years, and claimed that “four of the five key studies on the effect of the Sanders plan estimated that national health expenditures would rise over 10 years.”

Kessler skipped a big fact. When the CBO insisted that raising the minimum wage would cause 1.4 million lost jobs, his editors (4/18/21) indignantly defended the agency as “admirably apolitical.” But Kessler neglected to mention that the “nonpartisan scorekeepers” at the CBO (12/10/20) found that four of the five versions of single-payer healthcare that they analyzed would raise national health expenditures, but by significantly less  than preserving the status quo.

Healthcare reporter Dan Diamond (9/11/24) wrote the Post’s most detailed take on Harris’s about-face on a plan “to eliminate private insurance, a proposal that worried many Americans who feared losing access to their doctors.” Diamond managed not to let readers know that, in contrast to private insurance plans that penalize patients for seeing “out-of-network” doctors, Medicare for All would free patients to see any doctor they want without financial penalty.

Diamond added that Harris pulled back from Medicare for All because “polls across 2019 found that many Americans were worried that shifting to a national government-run health system could delay access to care,” without mentioning that half of all American working adults already skip treatments altogether every year (Commonwealth, 11/24).

Voters’ 2019 “worries” were likely stimulated in part by a multi-million-dollar lobbying and advertising blitz by the hospital, insurance and pharmaceutical industries, reported on by the Post‘s Jeff Stein (4/12/19), and based on the same distortions and inaccuracies Diamond and Kessler repeated five years later (Public Citizen, 6/28/19).

In a story (Washington Post, 4/3/20) on Sen. Bernie Sanders supporting the Biden/Harris administration’s drug cost control policies, Diamond reported that during the 2020 primaries, Sanders “argued that Medicare for All would help rein in high drug costs by forcing pharmaceutical companies to negotiate with the government.” It was the only positive framing of Medicare for All we could find in the Post’s coverage. Biden and Harris have done exactly what Sanders proposed, although to date they’ve only negotiated lower prices for 10 drugs, the prices won’t take effect for another year, and they only apply to our current “Medicare for Some.”

Expert content suppression 

KFF’s website limited its discussion of candidates’ healthcare proposals to the “viable contenders”—a choice that excluded virtually all ideas for improving the US healthcare system.

No outlet ignored the third-party candidates’ healthcare proposals more firmly, or took the tiny increments proposed by the major parties more seriously, than the one best equipped to inform the public about the state of US healthcare: KFF Health News.

KHN is a subsidiary of what used to be known as the Kaiser Family Foundations, but now goes by the acronym KFF. Founded with money from the family of steel magnate Henry Kaiser, tax-exempt KFF occupies a unique role as both news outlet and major source for healthcare information, calling itself “a one-of-a-kind information organization.”

KFF’s research and polling arms publish a large volume of detailed data and analysis of healthcare policy, covered widely in the media. This work lends additional credibility to KHN’s respected and widely republished news reporting.

With a staff of 71 reporters, editors, producers and administrators, as of November 1, KHN is devoted entirely to healthcare. Unlike taxpaying competitors like Modern Healthcare and Healthcare Dive—which regularly cover KFF’s research output—KHN publishes without a paywall, and permits reprints without charge. KHN forms partnerships with outlets of all sizes and focus, from an in-depth investigative series on medical debt with NPR and CBS News, to providing regular policy and political reporting to the physician-targeted website Medscape.

Excluding opinion articles, letters to the editor and brief daily newsletter blurbs linking to other outlets’ content, FAIR’s searches yielded just five KHN news stories from January 1 to Election Day that referred to Medicare for All, single-payer or universal healthcare. Two were state-focused—a one-paragraph mention of a proposed California single-payer bill in a broader legislative round-up (4/24/24), and a profile (7/15/24) of Anthony Wright, newly appointed executive director of the DC nonprofit Families USA.

The remaining three (7/21/24, 8/1/24, 9/11/24) were passing mentions without substance. KHN went the entire year without once mentioning Jill Stein or Cornel West.

KHN’s news coverage appeared to follow the lead of its affiliated research entity. KFF published a web page to “Compare the Candidates on Healthcare Policy,” last updated October 8, that declared

the general election campaign is underway, spotlighting former President Trump, the Republican nominee, and Vice President Harris, the Democratic nominee, as the viable contenders for the presidency.

The comparisons highlighted the differences rather than the similarities, and included without context the standard claim that the Biden/Harris “administration achieved record-high enrollment in ACA Marketplace plans.”

KFF had long since decided that discussion of Medicare for All is over. President Drew Altman told the New York Times (8/22/24) that KFF stopped polling on Medicare for All after the 2020 primaries because “there hasn’t been debate about it.” Yet pollsters regularly ask voters about healthcare issues that have no immediate chance of passage. The AP has asked people for a quarter century if they think it’s the federal government’s responsibility to “make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage,” and the Pew Research Center and other organizations have polled on abortion for decades, even when federal legislation was extremely unlikely.

The lack of “debate” about Medicare for All or single-payer is a flimsy excuse for blinkered coverage. In fact, KHN and the other outlets all ignored major healthcare reform stories with looming deadlines for action by the incoming president—federal approval for state-level reform (Healthcare Dive, 4/24/24). California and Oregon passed laws in 2023 instructing their governors to seek federal permission to dramatically restructure their state healthcare systems, including formation of a single-payer system in Oregon. Negotiations were supposed to begin in the first half of this year. None of these four agenda-setting outlets asked 2024 presidential candidates whether they planned to flex White House power to help major state-level reforms.

Complicit in mass death

All four of these outlets have done detailed reporting on some aspects of the extraordinarily expensive mass-killing machine that passes for the US “healthcare system.” Claims denials, aggressive collections, medical debt and massively inflated prices have all graced their pages.

But when it comes to political coverage, reporters and editors refuse to use their knowledge to challenge candidates effectively. The public’s experiences disappear, as journalists regurgitate bad facts and focus on self-evidently meaningless “proposals” framed by corporate power within their insular Beltway cultural bubble.

UnitedHealth Group executive Brian Thompson’s murder exposed the degree to which that behavior makes them complicit in mass death.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by John Canham-Clyne.

North Korean state television began airing matches from two major European football leagues last month, but notably absent are games involving South Korean players, a study by a Washington-based think tank revealed.

Broadcasts of the English Premier League and the UEFA Champions League -- the yearly tournament for Europe’s best teams -- is delayed by several months, but is still quite popular with North Korean viewers, said the report by the Stimson Center’s 38 North project.

State TV is rife with propaganda, but sports is “one of the few moments each day when state TV is not trying to send an overt or underlying message to its viewers,” 38 North said.

“There wasn’t really any intention to the research except that we thought it was interesting,” Martyn Williams, who co-authored the report, told RFA Korean. “We just saw a lot of football on KCTV. It’s the main international sport they broadcast.”

Football and circuses to distract the masses

Sports became more important during the pandemic, during which Korean Central Television, or KCTV, had to double its output as people were spending more time at home, the report said.

That meant that an extra hour was slotted for sports, especially soccer, and the trend has continued.

The football matches are shown an average of four months after they were played -- the English Premier League, or EPL, season began in August, and the Champions League began in September.

(Justin Tallis/AFP)

The apparent ban on airing matches with South Korean players means that North Korean fans won’t see matches featuring South Korean national team captain Son Heung-min, who also captains the Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur.

The report revealed that coverage of last year’s EPL left out Hwang Hee-chan and the Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Kim Ji-soo, who plays for Brentford.

In the Champions League, it remains to be seen if the French side Paris Saint-Germain and Lee Kang-in will be broadcast because of the delay, but KCTV coverage of last year’s Champions League featured the team only in its losing effort against Germany’s Borussia Dortmund in the semifinal.

Premier League preference

The report said that in 2022, matches from the EPL, Germany’s Bundesliga, Spain’s La Liga, France’s Ligue 1, and Italy’s Serie A were aired, but the following year, KCTV settled on the Premier League, the FIFA World Cup, and the UEFA Champions League.

Matches are shortened from 90 minutes to 60 minutes and are aired right before the 5 p.m. news bulletin, it said.

RELATED STORIES

North Korea draws navigable group in round 3 of FIFA World Cup Asian qualifiers

Experts: North Korea’s Chinese-made soccer uniforms might violate sanctions

North Korea beats Japan, US to win third U-20 Women’s World Cup

The report noted that only 21 of the Premier League’s 380 matches last season were aired, and six teams were not shown at all.

“It is perhaps not a coincidence that three of those teams—Brentford, Spurs and Wolves—were not broadcast, as they have South Korean players in their teams," it said.

World Cup whiteout

38 North said political messages still do make their way into football coverage, however.

For example, in KCTV’s matches of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, South Korea was not shown until it was eliminated in a 4-1 drubbing to Brazil.

(Korean Central Television via 38 North)

In a quarterfinal match between North and South Korea’s women’s sides at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, which were postponed to 2023 because of COVID, KCTV graphics labeled the South Korean team as “puppets,” a derogatory term that implies that South Korea is a puppet state controlled by the United States.

In North Korea, there exist certain taboos about openly supporting athletes from the South, according to Lee Hyunseung of the U.S.-based Global Peace Foundation, who escaped from North Korea in 2014.

Lee said that when he was young he watched Italian and Spanish soccer matches on KCTV.

“At the time, I had no idea about Korean players like Park Ji-sung , Ahn Jung-hwan , and Seol Ki-hyeon who were playing in European leagues,” he told RFA Korean, referring to players who became household names in the South as part of the national team that unexpectedly advanced to the semifinals in the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

“It was only after I went to study abroad in China that I was able to watch their matches,” he said.

He said that North Koreans tend to cheer for South Korean players on European teams despite the taboos.

“That is why the North Korean regime is very concerned about this,” said Lee. “They must never show that South Korea is better than North Korea . They are afraid of that because it weakens the North Korean regime.”

Translated by Eugene Whong. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jamin Anderson for RFA Korean.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

During his campaign, Donald Trump vowed to remake the federal government, promising to cut jobs, slash spending, end diversity and inclusion programs, and dismantle the Department of Education. Now, he’s chosen a slate of nominees for cabinet posts and other key positions who have a history of pushing back against the work of the departments and agencies they’ve been tapped to lead.

When Doug Burgum was governor of North Dakota, the state sued the Department of the Interior at least five times, ProPublica reported in partnership with the North Dakota Monitor. Trump selected Burgum to lead that same department. Meanwhile, Scott Turner, Trump’s nominee for secretary of Housing and Urban Development, has a history of voting against protections for poor tenants. And Trump’s choice to lead the Internal Revenue Service once supported legislation to abolish it entirely.

As confirmation hearings continue in the Senate, read through ProPublica’s reporting on how some of Trump’s selections could reshape federal agencies.

Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota, has been confirmed as the secretary of the interior, which manages federal lands and natural resources.

North Dakota sued the same department at least five times, ProPublica and the North Dakota Monitor reported this month.

One of the lawsuits took aim at the agency’s rule that limited the amount of methane oil companies could release. Another targeted the department’s Public Lands Rule, which places conservation of public lands on equal footing with natural resource exploitation. Burgum did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment, but he has previously said that many of the environmental policies of the administration of President Joe Biden posed “an existential threat to the energy and ag sectors, our economy and our way of life.”

Read more.

Trump chose Billy Long, who represented Missouri in the U.S. House of Representatives for over a decade, to lead the Internal Revenue Service. Long previously supported legislation that would have abolished the agency altogether. Trump has said he wants to end “IRS overstepping” and issued an executive order that places a hiring freeze on the agency until the new Treasury secretary “determines that it is in the national interest to lift the freeze.”

Tax experts told ProPublica’s Jeremy Kohler and Alex Mierjeski last month that they believe Long doesn’t have the right credentials to oversee the agency. Long, who didn’t respond to ProPublica’s request for comment, labeled himself as a certified tax and business advisor, or CTBA, on the social network X. That designation — which tax experts told ProPublica they hadn’t heard about — is offered only by a small, Florida-based firm after the completion of a three-day seminar.

Read more.

Trump nominated Scott Turner to lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees federal efforts to provide housing assistance to low-income residents. But, as ProPublica’s Jesse Coburn and Andy Kroll reported in December, Turner has previously opposed legislation that would provide aid and protections for poor tenants.

During his time in the Texas House of Representatives, Turner opposed legislation to expand affordable rental housing in the state and endorsed a bill to allow landlords to turn down applicants because they received federal housing assistance. Turner has also previously described welfare as “one of the most destructive things for a family.”

A spokesperson for Turner told ProPublica in December: “Of course ProPublica would try and paint a negative picture of Mr. Turner before he is even given the opportunity to testify. We would expect nothing less from a publication that solely serves as a liberal mouthpiece.”

Read more.

Paul Atkins is Trump’s choice to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. Atkins, who worked as an SEC commissioner under George W. Bush before serving as the co-chair of a crypto advocacy group, will be responsible for regulating Trump’s own publicly traded company.

Current and former SEC officials told ProPublica’s Justin Elliott, Robert Faturechi and Mierjeski in December that they worried the agency wouldn’t aggressively regulate Trump Media, which has previously tangled with the commission. Trump’s crypto investments — which include a Trump-affiliated token by a company called World Liberty Financial and a memecoin known as $Trump launched days before his second inauguration — could also come into conflict with the agency.

Under Biden, SEC chair Gary Gensler led a crackdown on crypto. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to deregulate the industry.

Read more.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, has said he wants to dedicate half of the National Institutes of Health’s budget toward “preventive, alternative and holistic approaches to health.” Kennedy has also said he wants to replace 600 employees at the NIH.

Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, if confirmed as the head of the NIH, would get to appoint the next director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which plays a key role in researching infectious diseases and developing treatments. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bhattacharya became a vocal critic of how then-NIAID Director Anthony Fauci handled the federal response. He also helped author the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against restrictions for those “at minimal risk of death” until herd immunity is reached.

Experts and advocates told ProPublica’s Anna Maria Barry-Jester this month that overhauling the NIH’s and NIAID’s work could deter research and hamstring the development of future treatments. Bhattacharya declined an interview request.

Read more.

Trump tapped lawyer David Fotouhi for the second highest role at the Environmental Protection Agency. If confirmed by the Senate, he’ll be the deputy administrator under Lee Zeldin, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives chosen to lead the agency.

This month, ProPublica’s Sharon Lerner reported that Fotouhi played a critical role in pushing to roll back climate regulations while working as a lawyer in the department during Trump’s first term. He has since worked on a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s water quality standards for PCBs, toxic chemicals linked to some cancers. In October, Fotouhi, who declined to comment to ProPublica, challenged the EPA’s ban on the cancer-causing substance asbestos.

Read more.

Do You Work for the Federal Government? ProPublica Wants to Hear From You.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by ProPublica.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The U.S. Department of Labor found widespread noncompliance and violations of federal law in how health plans and insurers cover mental health care, findings that mirror a recent ProPublica investigation.

Health plans, and the companies that administer them, have excluded key behavioral treatments, such as therapies for substance use and autism, and offered inadequate networks of mental health providers, according to a 142-page report released Jan. 17 in conjunction with the Treasury and Health and Human Services departments.

The report, which the agencies are required to file regularly to Congress, also detailed the results of secret shopper surveys of more than 4,300 mental health providers listed in insurance directories and found an “alarming proportion” were “unresponsive or unreachable.” Such error-ridden plans, commonly known as ghost networks, make it harder for patients to get the treatment they need, ProPublica has previously found.

Since 2021, the Labor Department has addressed violations in health plans that serve more than 7 million people, according to the report. The agency has worked to remedy the problems by seeking changes to plan provisions, policies and procedures, as well as working to ensure wrongly denied claims were paid.

But the report acknowledged that while plans and insurers have made some progress, they continue to fall short. For instance, federal officials wrote that insurers were working faster to fix problems in their plans once they had been identified, but officials had not seen sufficient improvement overall.

The report examined the enforcement and implementation of the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires health insurance plans to provide the same access to mental health care as they do to medical care. Last week, on the same day the report was released, department staff told ProPublica that the agency was investigating issues related to our reporting.

ProPublica has spent the last year investigating how insurers interfere with mental health treatment, including employing aggressive tactics that push therapists out of network; deploying an algorithmic system to limit coverage; creating ghost networks; cutting access to treatment for children with autism; relying on doctors whose judgments have been criticized by courts; and using patients’ progress to justify denials.

The Labor Department regulates insurance plans for about 136 million Americans who receive health coverage through their employers and is responsible for enforcing federal protections around their mental health claims. Federal regulators have struggled to hold insurance companies accountable for improperly denying mental health coverage, in part because of staffing and budgetary constraints.

The agency has asked Congress for additional funding on multiple occasions and, in its most recent congressional report, wrote that the agency is left with one investigator for every 13,900 plans it regulates, a higher workload than in previous years. Some temporary funding runs out in September, and its “full depletion will likely have catastrophic effects” on its enforcement capabilities, according to the report.

Timothy Hauser, a deputy assistant secretary of labor, said in an interview on the day of the report’s release that the agency is investigating the oversight and management of doctors hired by insurance companies who repeatedly deny mental health coverage for patients — and may open additional investigations.

Hauser, who has worked at the agency for more than three decades and is staying on in the new administration, said the agency is probing how insurers use and supervise doctors they rely on to conduct reviews of coverage and whether those doctors review cases in a “fair and dispassionate” way. ProPublica’s reporting raised serious concerns around those issues.

Last month, ProPublica examined how insurance companies, including UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield, rely on doctors to make crucial decisions on whether to approve mental health coverage even after courts have criticized their judgment. Judges have ruled that in denying such coverage, insurers violated federal law and acted in ways that were “puzzling,” “disingenuous” and even “dishonest.”

Some insurers and doctors, according to court records, engaged in “selective readings” of the medical evidence, “shut their eyes” to medical opinions that opposed their conclusions, and made critical errors in their reviews that were sometimes contradicted by medical records they had said they read.

Hauser said he could not comment on specific investigations but said that agency officials have discussed the ProPublica story, which he said “will have an impact on the questions we ask” and the “approaches we take.”

At least one investigation in the past has resulted in the removal of a doctor and the outside review organization they worked for, a spokesperson for the Labor Department said previously.

Insurance companies across the country rely on doctors working on their behalf to determine whether the treatment sought by the patients’ own doctors is medically necessary. If they determine it is not, they recommend denying coverage, which can leave patients in crisis and without the treatment they need. In some cases, those decisions have led to fatal consequences.

“It’s supposed to be done with impartiality and without having been structured in such a way as to incentivize the physicians to favor denying claims as opposed to granting claims,” Hauser said. “Similarly, the physicians and the providers should not be selected because of their propensity to to deny claims.”

United, Cigna and Blue Cross and Blue Shield did not immediately respond to requests for comment but in the past have said they employ licensed physicians to conduct reviews and work to ensure the doctors issue appropriate coverage decisions. The companies have said they conduct regular audits of doctors’ decisions, provide mentorship and coaching opportunities and are committed to providing access to safe, effective and quality care to patients.

Hauser said he was struck by the story of Emily Dwyer, who was featured in a ProPublica article that examined the role of company psychiatrists. She was 15 and suffered from severe anorexia — she arrived at a residential treatment center wearing her 8-year-old sister’s jeans — when United Healthcare denied her coverage.

United argued that three separate doctors had reviewed her case. The Dwyers sued and lost, but appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed that decision and ruled unanimously in favor of the family. In a harshly critical opinion, the judges wrote that the denial letters issued by the three doctors were “not supported by the underlying medical evidence.” In fact, the court found, they were “contradicted by the record.”

Dwyer, who was pleased to learn of the agency’s investigation, said she hopes it results in “substantive action.”

“I never would have thought that our story would be part of that,” she said. “I think it’s incredible that the Department of Labor is paying attention to this issue and is investigating the insurance doctors. But I also hope they look beyond the actions of the individual doctors to deeper issues of the way insurance companies operate more systematically.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Duaa Eldeib, Maya Miller, Annie Waldman and Max Blau.

The Al Jazeera Network has condemned the arrest of its occupied West Bank correspondent by Palestinian security services as a bid by the Israeli occupation to “block media coverage” of the military attack on Jenin.

Israeli soldiers have killed at least 12 Palestinians in the three-day military assault that has rendered the refugee camp “nearly uninhabitable” and forced displacement of more than 2000 people. Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said the Jenin operation was a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights”.

Al Jazeera said in a broadcast statement that the arrest of its occupied West Bank correspondent Muhammad al-Atrash by the Palestinian Authority (PA) could only be explained as “an attempt to block the media coverage of the occupation’s attack in Jenin”.

• READ MORE: International media’s reluctance to show solidarity with Palestinian journalists could backfire
• Bulldozer or Butcher: Netanyahu follows in Sharon footsteps from Jenin to Jabalia: Marwan Bishara
• Killing of five Gaza journalists by Israel strike highlights weak NZ media response
• Other media freedom reports in occupied Palestine

We’re following with concern the arrest of journalist Mohammed Al-Atrash by the Palestinian security forces in connection with his work at Al Jazeera and call for his immediate release./1 pic.twitter.com/M2ZcEoWqJl

— Al-Haq الحق (@alhaq_org) January 23, 2025

“The arbitrary actions of the Palestinian Authority are unfortunately identical to the occupation’s targeting of the Al Jazeera Network,” it said.

“We value the positions and voices that stand in solidarity and defend colleague Muhammad al-Atrash and the freedom of the press.”

The network said the journalist was brought before a court in Hebron after being arrested yesterday while covering the events in Jenin “simply for doing his professional duty as a journalist”.

“We confirm that these practices will not hinder our ongoing professional coverage of the facts unfolding in the West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s statement added.

The Israeli occupation has been targeting Al Jazeera for months in an attempt to gag its reporting.

Calling for al-Atrash’s immediate release, the al-Haq organisation (Protecting and Promoting Human Rights & the Rule of Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory) said in a statement: “Freedom of opinion and expression cannot be guaranteed without ensuring freedom of the press.”

Rage over AJ ban
Earlier this month journalists expressed outrage and confusion about the PA’s decision to shut down the Al Jazeera office in the occupied West Bank after the Israeli government had earlier banned the Al Jazeera broadcasting network’s operation within Israel.

“Shutting down a major outlet like Al Jazeera is a crime against journalism,” said freelance journalist Ikhlas al-Qarnawi.

Also earlier this month, award-winning Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab criticised the Israeli government for targeting journalists and attempting to “cover up” the assassination of five Palestinian journalists last month.

He said a December 26 press statement by the Israeli army attempted to “justify a war crime”.

“It unabashedly admitted that the military incinerated five Palestinian journalists in a clearly marked press vehicle outside al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip,” Kuttab said in an op-ed article.

Many Western publications had quoted the Israeli army statement as if it was an objective position and “not propaganda whitewashing a war crime”, he wrote.

“They failed to clarify to their audiences that attacking journalists, including journalists who may be accused of promoting ‘propaganda’, is a war crime — all journalists are protected under international humanitarian law, regardless of whether armies like their reporting or not.”

Israel not only refuses to recognise any Palestinian media worker as being protected, but it also bars foreign journalists from entering Gaza.

“It has been truly disturbing that the international media has done little to protest this ban,” wrote Kuttab.

“Except for one petition signed by 60 media outlets over the summer, the international media has not followed up consistently on such demands over 15 months.”

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

Janine Jackson interviewed the Sentencing Project’s Richard Mendel about coverage of youth crime for the December 20, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Sentencing Project (12/11/24)

Janine Jackson: Some listeners may know the Sentencing Project for their work calling out racial disparities in sentencing associated with crack versus powder cocaine, and mandatory minimums. A recent project involves looking into another factor shaping public understanding and public policy around criminal justice—the news media. In this case, the focus is young people.

“The Real Cost of ‘Bad News’: How Misinformation Is Undermining Youth Justice Policy in Baltimore” has just been released. We’re joined now by the report’s author. Richard Mendel is senior research fellow for youth justice at the Sentencing Project. He joins us now by phone from Prague. Welcome to CounterSpin, Richard Mendel.

Richard Mendel: Thanks for having me.

JJ: Before we get into findings, what, first of all, is the scope of this study? What did you look at, and then, what were you looking to learn, or to illuminate?

RM: We’ve been seeing, just anecdotally, a big increase in fearful reporting, sensational reporting, about youth crime over the last few years. And we, luckily, in this country had a very long period of almost continually declining youth crime rates, from the mid-’90s to 2010 or so, and continuing positive trends.

And then we saw some increase nationally in the murder rate, and young people took part in that, in 2020 and 2021. But there’s really been an epidemic of scary and problematic reporting, we saw across the country.

We decided to look in depth at how media is covering youth crime, and we decided to pick one jurisdiction, and we looked in Baltimore, but I think that a lot of the findings would probably be seen in other places, too. And what we did was we looked at many of the major outlets, the four main local TV news stations, as well as the Baltimore Sun, and an online paper, a prominent one in Baltimore, called the Baltimore Banner.

We just looked at all their crime coverage to see, first of all, what share of crime coverage is focusing on young people. And then, of the crime, what are they saying about the trends in youth crime, and how are they presenting their information? And that’s what we did, and we found really alarming results.

JJ: Let’s get into it. What were some of the key things revealed by the research?

Richard Mendel: “Young people in Baltimore…are 5% of arrests..and yet almost 30% of the stories that identified the age of the offenders focused on young people.”

RM: What we found is that young people in Baltimore, according to the Baltimore Police Department, are 5% of arrests in the Baltimore area, and yet almost 30% of the stories that identified the age of the offenders focused on young people. One station, more than a half of them focused on young people, and really creating a misimpression in the public that the young people are responsible for most of the crime, or a huge portion of it, when it’s really just not true.

Also, a lot of the coverage indicated a spike in youth crime, which really is not supported by the data; the trends are mixed. Some of the findings, in some areas, there are areas of concern, but overall, things are still trending downward, mostly. And just a lot of the rhetoric around young people, really using the sensationalistic, fear-inducing rhetoric to describe their role in crime.

So it was really creating a false impression among the public, presumably, that youth are responsible for a lot of very dangerous crime, and creating a crisis atmosphere in the legislature this year in Maryland to do something about this perceived problem, which is really a creation of the media rather than the fact.

JJ: Before we talk about impacts, I would just note that part of the way that media can just paint a picture about crime rates rising when they are not, or that doesn’t match the reality, is they don’t use numbers. They don’t use statistics, they just kind of tell stories. That was part of what you found, is that they didn’t use data to back up these claims.

RM: In many cases they didn’t. And in other cases, they cherry picked them—there’s overall arrest, there’s arrest for this, there’s arrest for that. And they, in many cases, just focused on the couple of crime categories where the crime rates were going up, and made a huge deal out of that, while ignoring all the other crime categories where youth offending was down. It’s a combination of not reporting, not using data, or not using data in responsible ways.

JJ: Well, of course the point is not just to say that this is inadequate and bad journalism, which it is, but these media problems and the story that they tell have effects.

Fox45 (12/28/22)

RM: For certain. And I think that the Baltimore example is an extreme example. One of the stations in the area made a crusade out of highlighting as much as they can, and in as fearful ways as they can, almost every instance of youth offending. And more than half of the stories on that station were about youth. Many of them were long. And each incident was then followed by going back to show frightening video of previous incidents, and just over and over again, and many assertions that youth crime is out of control. And a banner headline behind the anchors on that station, “City in Crisis,” whenever they were looking at youth crime stories. So it was really just a fearmongering approach.

And it really affected the legislature this year. At the beginning of the Maryland legislative session, the Senate president, at a news conference, said that we need to do something about youth crime this year, because of a “perception problem.” And he even acknowledged that youth are responsible for less than 10% of the crimes, and that they’ve addressed it two years previously, in a comprehensive bill to update their approach to youth justice, that was a two-year study commission, and they really followed the evidence.

And this time, they created a policy environment that was very much crisis-driven, and there were no hearings, there was no expert testimony, there was no process, other than backroom discussion, and come up with something to solve the perception problem created by the media, not to address real problems in the real world.

JJ: I just want to draw you out just on precisely that point, because corporate media frame questions of crime, or of court-involved people, as a problem, a scandal, a controversy. And it has to be a perennial, unsolvable problem, or that boilerplate story goes away. But the reality is, we do know what works to reduce youth crime and to promote public safety. So please talk a bit more about that.

Sentencing Project (3/1/23)

RM: Yes, all of the evidence shows that detention and incarceration lead to bad outcomes. Comparable young people, if they’re based in detention, versus allowed to remain free pending their trial, and if they’re incarcerated following their trial, they do worse than young people who remain in the community.

And it just makes sense. Disconnecting young people from school, disconnecting them from their family, and instead surrounding them by other troubled young people, and disrupting their natural adolescent development, it’s not a good approach. And the results show it, that the recidivism is much higher if you’re punitive towards them. And just involving them in the system, arresting them, disrupting their educations and getting a record like that, really leads to worse outcomes for young people. And the kids who were diverted from the system, again, do much better.

JJ: And so that diversion, what can that look like? It’s not just, don’t do what you’ve been doing, but there are things that have been tried and that have shown success, right, in terms of diverting young people?

RM: Some of diversion programs just connect young people to positive mentors in the community, and there’s a very promising approach of restorative justice, in which the young person meets with the persons that they’ve harmed, and makes apologies, and together craft a solution for the young person to have restored some of the harm that they’ve caused. That leads to much, much higher victim satisfaction, which is an important goal of the justice system, which the traditional system does terrible at, and also leads to better outcomes for the young people.

JJ: Finally, I’m not sure how much media coverage you can expect on the report, though media do love to talk about themselves. But I wonder what audiences you do hope to get this work in front of, and what are just some of the recommendations or things that you would hope folks would take away?

Sentencing Project (12/11/24)

RM: We had three goals in terms of the report, and first is to influence media themselves, just to help them see the impact of their current practices. And I think that most reporters are well-intentioned, but I think that they maybe don’t understand the impact of their current approach. And we’re trying to show them there’s some better ways to cover this issue, in terms of the proportion of coverage focused on young people, in terms of presenting trends in fair and accurate ways, in terms of showing the impacts of not having the knee-jerk “more punishment is safer,” because the actual research shows the opposite. So that’s one audience.

Another audience are political leaders that have a responsibility to pursue policies that really do produce the best long-term safety, and not to succumb to pressure created by media narratives like the ones that we’ve seen in Baltimore and around the country.

And the third is to provide a tool for advocates around the country, people who care about this, that there’s ways of pushing back against irresponsible or misleading or imbalanced coverage in the media. And to do studies like this and show, “Hey, the picture that’s being presented is not accurate.” And make sure that the people in the community know and that the political leaders in that community know and that the media in that community know the negative, scary picture that you’re painting isn’t the reality. And the punitive solutions that are being suggested in response to this made-up problem are going to make things worse rather than better.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Richard Mendel, senior research fellow at the Sentencing Project. You can find the report, “The Real Cost of ‘Bad News’” on their website, SentencingProject.org. Richard Mendel, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

RM: Thank you. Great to be with you.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

This article discusses suicide.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Geneva Moore’s therapist pulled out her spiral notebook. At the top of the page, she jotted down the date, Jan. 30, 2024, Moore’s initials and the name of the doctor from the insurance company to whom she’d be making her case.

She had only one chance to persuade him, and by extension Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, to continue covering intensive outpatient care for Moore, a patient she had come to know well over the past few months.

The therapist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation from insurers, spent the next three hours cramming, as if she were studying for a big exam. She combed through Moore’s weekly suicide and depression assessments, group therapy notes and write-ups from their past few sessions together.

If you or someone you know needs help, here are a few resources:

• Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
• Text the Crisis Text Line from anywhere in the U.S. to reach a crisis counselor: 741741

She filled two pages with her notes: Moore had suicidal thoughts almost every day and a plan for how she would take her own life. Even though she expressed a desire to stop cutting her wrists, she still did as often as three times a week to feel the release of pain. She only had a small group of family and friends to offer support. And she was just beginning to deal with her grief and trauma over sexual and emotional abuse, but she had no healthy coping skills.

Less than two weeks earlier, the therapist’s supervisor had struck out with another BCBS doctor. During that call, the insurance company psychiatrist concluded Moore had shown enough improvement that she no longer needed intensive treatment. “You have made progress,” the denial letter from BCBS Texas read.

When the therapist finally got on the phone with a second insurance company doctor, she spoke as fast as she could to get across as many of her points as possible.

“The biggest concern was the abnormal thoughts — the suicidal ideation, self-harm urges — and extensive trauma history,” the therapist recalled in an interview with ProPublica. “I was really trying to emphasize that those urges were present, and they were consistent.”

She told the company doctor that if Moore could continue on her treatment plan, she would likely be able to leave the program in 10 weeks. If not, her recovery could be derailed.

The doctor wasn’t convinced. He told the therapist that he would be upholding the initial denial. Internal notes from the BCBS Texas doctors say that Moore exhibited “an absence of suicidal thoughts,” her symptoms had “stabilized” and she could “participate in a lower level of care.”

The call lasted just seven minutes.

Moore was sitting in her car during her lunch break when her therapist called to give her the news. She was shocked and had to pull herself together to resume her shift as a technician at a veterinary clinic.

“The fact that it was effective immediately,” Moore said later, “I think that was the hardest blow of it all.”

Many Americans must rely on insurers when they or family members are in need of higher-touch mental health treatment, such as intensive outpatient programs or round-the-clock care in a residential facility. The costs are high, and the stakes for patients often are, too. In 2019 alone, the U.S. spent more than $106.5 billion treating adults with mental illness, of which private insurance paid about a third. One 2024 study found that the average quoted cost for a month at a residential addiction treatment facility for adolescents was more than $26,000.

Health insurers frequently review patients’ progress to see if they can be moved down to a lower — and almost always cheaper — level of care. That can cut both ways. They sometimes cite a lack of progress as a reason to deny coverage, labeling patients’ conditions as chronic and asserting that they have reached their baseline level of functioning. And if they make progress, which would normally be celebrated, insurers have used that against patients to argue they no longer need the care being provided.

Their doctors are left to walk a tightrope trying to convince insurers that patients are making enough progress to stay in treatment as long as they actually need it, but not so much that the companies prematurely cut them off from care. And when insurers demand that providers spend their time justifying care, it takes them away from their patients.

“The issues that we grapple with are in the real world,” said Dr. Robert Trestman, the chair of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Healthcare Systems and Financing. “People are sicker with more complex conditions.”

Mental health care can be particularly prone to these progress-based denials. While certain tests reveal when cancer cells are no longer present and X-rays show when bones have healed, psychiatrists say they have to determine whether someone has returned to a certain level of functioning before they can end or change their treatment. That can be particularly tricky when dealing with mental illness, which can be fluid, with a patient improving slightly one day only to worsen the next.

Though there is no way to know how often coverage gets cut off mid-treatment, ProPublica has found scores of lawsuits over the past decade in which judges have sharply criticized insurance companies for citing a patient’s improvement to deny mental health coverage. In a number of those cases, federal courts ruled that the insurance companies had broken a federal law designed to provide protections for people who get health insurance through their jobs.

Reporters reviewed thousands of pages of court documents and interviewed more than 50 insiders, lawyers, patients and providers. Over and over, people said these denials can lead to real — sometimes devastating — harm. An official at an Illinois facility with intensive mental health programs said that this past year, two patients who left before their clinicians felt they were ready due to insurance denials had attempted suicide.

Dr. Eric Plakun, a Massachusetts psychiatrist with more than 40 years of experience in residential and intensive outpatient programs, and a former board member of the American Psychiatric Association, said the “proprietary standards” insurers use as a basis for denying coverage often simply stabilize patients in crisis and “shortcut real treatment.”

Plakun offered an analogy: If someone’s house is on fire, he said, putting out the fire doesn’t restore the house. “I got a hole in the roof, and the windows have been smashed in, and all the furniture is charred, and nothing’s working electrically,” he said. “How do we achieve recovery? How do we get back to living in that home?”

Unable to pay the $350-a-day out-of-pocket cost for additional intensive outpatient treatment, Moore left her program within a week of BCBS Texas’ denial. The insurer would only cover outpatient talk therapy.

During her final day at the program, records show, Moore’s suicidal thoughts and intent to carry them out had escalated from a 7 to a 10 on a 1-to-10 scale. She was barely eating or sleeping.

A few hours after the session, Moore drove herself to a hospital and was admitted to the emergency room, accelerating a downward spiral that would eventually cost the insurer tens of thousands of dollars, more than the cost of the treatment she initially requested.

Buried in the denial letters that insurance companies send patients are a variety of expressions that convey the same idea: Improvement is a reason to deny coverage.

“You are better.” “Your child has made progress.” “You have improved.”

In one instance, a doctor working for Regence Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oregon wrote that a patient who had been diagnosed with major depression was “sufficiently stable,” even as her own doctors wrote that she “continued to display a pattern of severe impairment” and needed round-the-clock care. A judge ruled that “a preponderance of the evidence” demonstrated that the teen’s continued residential treatment was medically necessary. The insurer said it can’t comment on the case because it ended with a confidential settlement.

In another, a doctor working for UnitedHealth Group wrote in 2019 that a teenage girl with a history of major depression who had been hospitalized after trying to take her own life by overdosing “was doing better.” The insurer denied ongoing coverage at a residential treatment facility. A judge ruled that the insurer’s determination “lacked any reasoning or citations” from the girl’s medical records and found that the insurer violated federal law. United did not comment on this case but previously argued that the girl no longer had “concerning medical issues” and didn’t need treatment in a 24-hour monitored setting.

To justify denials, the insurers cite guidelines that they use to determine how well a patient is doing and, ultimately, whether to continue paying for care. Companies, including United, have said these guidelines are independent, widely accepted and evidence-based.

Insurers most often turn to two sets: MCG (formerly known as Milliman Care Guidelines), developed by a division of the multibillion-dollar media and information company Hearst, and InterQual, produced by a unit of UnitedHealth’s mental health division, Optum. Insurers have also used guidelines they have developed themselves.

MCG Health did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Optum division that works on the InterQual guidelines said that the criteria “is a collection of established scientific evidence and medical practice intended for use as a first level screening tool” and “helps to move patients safely and efficiently through the continuum of care.”

A separate spokesperson for Optum also said the company’s “priority is ensuring the people we serve receive safe and effective care for their individual needs.” A Regence spokesperson said that the company does “not make coverage decisions based on cost or length of stay,” and that its “number one priority is to ensure our members have access to the care they need when they need it.”

In interviews, several current and former insurance employees from multiple companies said that they were required to prioritize the proprietary guidelines their company used, even if their own clinical judgment pointed in the opposite direction.

“It’s very hard when you come up against all these rules that are kind of setting you up to fail the patient,” said Brittainy Lindsey, a licensed mental health counselor who worked at the Anthem subsidiary Beacon and at Humana for a total of six years before leaving the industry in 2022. In her role, Lindsey said, she would suggest approving or denying coverage, which — for the latter — required a staff doctor’s sign-off. She is now a mental health consultant for behavioral health businesses and clinicians.

A spokesperson for Elevance Health, formerly known as Anthem, said Lindsey’s “recollection is inaccurate, both in terms of the processes that were in place when she was a Beacon employee, and how we operate today.” The spokesperson said “clinical judgment by a physician — which Ms. Lindsey was not — always takes precedence over guidelines.”

In an emailed statement, a Humana spokesperson said the company’s clinician reviewers “are essential to evaluating the facts and circumstances of each case.” But, the spokesperson said, “having objective criteria is also important to provide checks and balances and consistently comply with” federal requirements.

The guidelines are a pillar of the health insurance system known as utilization management, which paves the way for coverage denials. The process involves reviewing patients’ cases against relevant criteria every handful of days or so to assess if the company will continue paying for treatment, requiring providers and patients to repeatedly defend the need for ongoing care.

Federal judges have criticized insurance company doctors for using such guidelines in cases where they were not actually relevant to the treatment being requested or for “solely” basing their decisions on them.

Wit v. United Behavioral Health, a class-action lawsuit involving a subsidiary of UnitedHealth, has become one of the most consequential mental health cases of this century. In that case, a federal judge in California concluded that a number of United’s in-house guidelines did not adhere to generally accepted standards of care. The judge found that the guidelines allowed the company to wrongly deny coverage for certain mental health and substance use services the moment patients’ immediate problems improved. He ruled that the insurer would need to change its practices. United appealed the ruling on grounds other than the court’s findings about the defects in its guidelines, and a panel of judges partially upheld the decision. The case has been sent back to the district court for further proceedings.

Largely in response to the Wit case, nine states have passed laws requiring health insurers to use guidelines that align with the leading standards of mental health care, like those developed by nonprofit professional organizations.

Cigna has said that it “has chosen not to adopt private, proprietary medical necessity criteria” like MCG. But, according to a review of lawsuits, denial letters have continued to reference MCG. One federal judge in Utah called out the company, writing that Cigna doctors “reviewed the claims under medical necessity guidelines it had disavowed.” Cigna did not respond to specific questions about this.

Timothy Stock, one of the BCBS doctors who denied Moore’s request to cover ongoing care, had cited MCG guidelines when determining she had improved enough — something judges noted he had done before. In 2016, Stock upheld a decision on appeal to deny continued coverage for a teenage girl who was in residential treatment for major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. Pointing to the guidelines, Stock concluded she had shown enough improvement.

The patient’s family sued the insurer, alleging it had wrongly denied coverage. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois argued that there was evidence that showed the patient had been improving. But, a federal judge found the insurer misstated its significance. The judge partially ruled in the family’s favor, zeroing in on Stock and another BCBS doctor’s use of improvement to recommend denying additional care.

“The mere incidence of some improvement does not mean treatment was no longer medically necessary,” the Illinois judge wrote.

In another case, BCBS Illinois denied coverage for a girl with a long history of mental illness just a few weeks into her stay at a residential treatment facility, noting that she was “making progressive improvements.” Stock upheld the denial after an appeal.

Less than two weeks after Stock’s decision, court records show, she cut herself on the arm and leg with a broken light bulb. The insurer defended the company’s reasoning by noting that the girl “consistently denied suicidal ideation,” but a judge wrote that medical records show the girl was “not forthcoming” with her doctors about her behaviors. The judge ruled against the insurer, writing that Stock and another BCBS doctor “unreasonably ignored the weight of the medical evidence” showing that the girl required residential treatment.

Stock declined to comment. A spokesperson for BCBS said the company’s doctors who review requests for mental health coverage are board certified psychiatrists with multiple years of practice experience. The spokesperson added that the psychiatrists review all information received “from the provider, program and members to ensure members are receiving benefits for the right care, at the right place and at the right time.”

The BCBS spokesperson did not address specific questions related to Moore or Stock. The spokesperson said that the examples ProPublica asked about “are not indicative of the experience of the vast majority of our members,” and that it is committed to providing “access to quality, cost-effective physical and behavioral health care.”

A former contemporary dancer with a bright smile and infectious laugh, Moore’s love of animals is eclipsed only by her affinity for plants. She moved from Indiana to Austin, Texas, about six years ago and started as a receptionist at a clinic before working her way up to technician.

Moore’s depression has been a constant in her life. It began as a child, when, she said, she was sexually and emotionally abused. She was able to manage as she grew up, getting through high school and attending Indiana University. But, she said, she fell back into a deep sadness after she learned in 2022 that the church she found comfort in as a college student turned out to be what she and others deemed a cult. In September of last year, she began an intensive outpatient program, which included multiple group and individual therapy sessions every week.

Moore, 32, had spent much of the past eight months in treatment for severe depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety when BCBS said it would no longer pay for the program in January.

The denial had come to her without warning.

“I was starting to get to the point where I did have some hope, and I was like, maybe I can see an actual end to this,” Moore said. “And it was just cut off prematurely.”

At the Austin emergency room where she drove herself after her treatment stopped, her heart raced. She was given medication as a sedative for her anxiety. According to hospital records she provided to ProPublica, Moore’s symptoms were brought on after “insurance said they would no longer pay.”

A hospital social worker frantically tried to get her back into the intensive outpatient program.

“That’s the sad thing,” said Kandyce Walker, the program’s director of nursing and chief operating officer, who initially argued Moore’s case with BCBS Texas. “To have her go from doing a little bit better to ‘I’m going to kill myself.’ It is so frustrating, and it’s heartbreaking.”

After the denial and her brief admission to the hospital emergency department in January, Moore began slicing her wrists more frequently, sometimes twice a day. She began to down six to seven glasses of wine a night.

“I really had thought and hoped that with the amount of work I’d put in, that I at least would have had some fumes to run on,” she said.

She felt embarrassed when she realized she had nothing to show for months of treatment. The skills she’d just begun to practice seemed to disappear under the weight of her despair. She considered going into debt to cover the cost of ongoing treatment but began to think that she’d rather end her life.

“In my mind,” she said, “that was the most practical thing to do.”

Whenever the thought crossed her mind — and it usually did multiple times a day — she remembered that she had promised her therapist that she wouldn’t.

Moore’s therapist encouraged her to continue calling BCBS Texas to try to restore coverage for more intensive treatment. In late February, about five weeks after Stock’s denial, records show that the company approved a request that sent her back to the same facility and at the same level of care as before.

But by that time, her condition had deteriorated so severely that it wasn’t enough.

Eight days later, Moore was admitted to a psychiatric hospital about half an hour from Austin. Medical records paint a harrowing picture of her condition. She had a plan to overdose and the medicine to do it. The doctor wrote that she required monitoring and had “substantial ongoing suicidality.” The denial continued to torment her. She told her doctor that her condition worsened after “insurance stopped covering” her treatment.

Her few weeks stay at the psychiatric hospital cost $38,945.06. The remaining 10 weeks of treatment at the intensive outpatient program — the treatment BCBS denied — would have cost about $10,000.

Moore was discharged from the hospital in March and went back into the program Stock had initially said she no longer needed.

It marked the third time she was admitted to the intensive outpatient program.

A few months later, as Moore picked at her lunch, her oversized glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose every so often, she wrestled with another painful realization. Had the BCBS doctors not issued the denial, she probably would have completed her treatment by now.

“I was really looking forward to that,” Moore said softly. As she spoke, she played with the thick stack of bracelets hiding the scars on her wrists.

A few weeks later, that small facility closed in part because of delays and denials from insurance companies, according to staff and billing records. Moore found herself calling around to treatment facilities to see which ones would accept her insurance. She finally found one, but in October, her depression had become so severe that she needed to be stepped up to a higher level of care.

Moore was able to get a leave of absence from work to attend treatment, which she worried would affect the promotion she had been working toward. To tide her over until she could go back to work, she used up the money her mother sent for her 30th birthday.

She smiles less than she did even a few months ago. When her roommates ask her to hang out downstairs, she usually declines. She has taken some steps forward, though. She stopped drinking and cutting her wrists, allowing scar tissue to cover her wounds.

But she’s still grieving what the denial took from her.

“I believed I could get better,” she said recently, her voice shaking. “With just a little more time, I could discharge, and I could live life finally.”

We’re Investigating Mental Health Care Access. Share Your Insights.

Kirsten Berg contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Maya Miller and Duaa Eldeib.

The conventional U.S. media treated the ominous events as a tale of the daily lives of two individuals — Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and Bashar al-Assad — Jesse James vs the evil banks. Amidst their entertaining stories are misinterpretations, lack of depth in analysis, and inattention to details. More valid discussion of a momentous event and where the United States is centered in the crisis are helpful.

Bashar Assad had already fallen.
With half the population displaced or out of the country, with sanctions depriving the people of energy, and with foreign forces wandering at will throughout the countryside, Syria navigated on fumes. Its government hardly breathed. Assad had already fallen. Considering the coming winter chill, he decided to change residences.

The U.S. had no fingers in the cookie jar.
What a whopper.

• Is it a coincidence that the U.S. supported Syrian Democratic Forces launched an attack on villages in the northern countryside of Deir Al Zor province on Tuesday, December 3?
• Is it a coincidence that, on Nov 12, U.S. Central Command in Eastern Syria said, “it had carried out attacks against ‘Iranian backed groups’ in Syria, hitting nine targets at two separate locations in the country over the previous 24-hour period.”
• Didn’t the U.S. air force bomb, strafe, and repulse militias from the Iraq Popular Mobilization Forces, who tried to enter Iraq and assist the Syrian military?
• Why did the “US A-10s, B-52s, target dozens of ISIS sites in Syria? Air Force planes dropped roughly 140 munitions on a ‘very broad’ gathering of ISIS fighters early Sunday morning (December 8).” Why weren’t the attacks done before the walkover? Obvious answer ─ previously the U.S. encouraged ISIS’ needling the Syrians. Now, Uncle Sam did not favor ISIS needling the new favorites in the neocon world.

Another U.S. counterproductive and foreign policy failure.
U.S. foreign policy initiatives have one common thread ─ counterproductive and homicidal.

• Calculated to prevent North Vietnam from obtaining control of all of Vietnam, 10 years of war resulted in 1-2 million Vietnamese casualties and North Vietnam obtaining control of Vietnam.
• Fifty years of a Cold War struggle, in which the United States inflicted casualties on millions around the world, designed to prevent the Soviet Union from extending its hammer and sickle and challenge U.S. hegemony, resulted in a Russia that extends its territory and vigorously challenges U.S. hegemony.
• U.S. troops, sent on a mission to feed and stabilize Somalia, shot up the place, paved the road for al-Shabaab, a Salafi terrorist organization, and scurried out of an anarchic Somalia.
• The U.S. fought twenty years in Afghanistan to replace the Taliban with…..the Taliban.
• The U.S. invasion of a moribund Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, alleged as an opportunity to remove an international threat, triggered the emergence of a parade of international threats, which terrorized the Fertile Crescent, and solidified the Iraq Popular Mobilization Forces that challenge the U.S. in Iraq. These forces ally with Iran, which the U.S. State Department considers an international threat. The Iraq Body Count project documents 186,901 – 210,296 violent civilian deaths during the Iraq war. In 2007, due to sectarian violence that emerged from the U.S. invasion, Iraq had about 4 million displaced persons. Between January 2014 and August 2015, 2.9 million persons fled their homes in three new mass waves of displacement following offensives by ISIL.
• Together with NATO, the U.S. replaced Muammar Gaddafi, who suppressed al-Qaeda terrorists, with the same terrorists, and engineered the creation and arming of several terrorists groups in North Africa.
• After sending its military into Syria’s civil war, a war that estimated deaths at about 600 thousand, more than six million internally displaced, and around five million refugees, with defined purpose of preventing ISSIS from seizing control of Syria, the U.S. enabled Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the successor to al-Qaeda’s previous partner, Al-Nusra Front, to seize control of Syria.

The release of dissidents from prisons was an incomplete story.
Media attention to Saydnaya prison, “which had become synonymous with arbitrary detention, torture and murder,” would have been genuine if the same attention had been given to similar prisons in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. The horrific incarcerations of dissidents in the three mentioned countries cannot be adequately described in less than a 1000 page book. Here are some details.

Israel has, by magnitudes, exceeded Syria in the number of detainees of Palestinian dissidents.

On 11 December 2012, the office of then-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad stated that since 1967, 800,000 Palestinians, or roughly 20% of the total population and 40% of the male population, had been imprisoned by Israel at one point in time. According to Palestinian estimates, 70% of Palestinian families have had one or more family members sentenced to jail terms in Israeli prisons as a result of activities against the occupation.

From the New Yorker magazine, March 21, 2024, “The Brutal Conditions Facing Palestinian Prisoners”:

Israel has also detained thousands of Palestinians from Gaza; prisoners who have described extensive physical abuse from Israeli forces, and, already, at least twenty-seven detainees from Gaza have died in military custody. At the same time, Israeli forces have arrested thousands more Palestinians, mostly from the West Bank, at least ten of whom have reportedly died in Israel prisons.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (P.C.A.T.I.), a non-governmental organization, established in 1990, represents Palestinians and Israelis who claim to have been tortured by Israeli authorities. In the New Yorker article, they claim,

We’re currently looking at almost ten thousand Palestinian detainees from the West Bank and Gaza…We know that the International Committee of the Red Cross (I.C.R.C.) has been banned from visiting all Israeli prisons since October 7th. We also know—through evidence that P.C.A.T.I. and other N.G.O.s have collected—of what we view as systemic abuse and violence by prison guards toward Palestinian detainees since October 7th. We’ve documented nineteen different incidents of torture and abuse in seven different Israel Prison Service (I.P.S.) facilities by different I.P.S. units, all of which have led us to believe that we’re looking at a policy rather than just isolated incidents.

Although the number of arbitrary executions in Saydnaya prison is not known, much mention is made of the executions. Passing mention is made of the hundreds of arbitrary executions of Palestinians in the West Bank, shot while escaping Israeli military, and the tens of thousands murdered in Gaza.

Where are investigations into the number of dissidents held in Saudi and Egypt jails. We read of constant executions in Saudi Arabia and pay no attention to the reports. No execution has matched the grisly slicing and dicing of Saudi journalist, Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, “who was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 by agents of the Saudi government.”

We now have good terrorists.
Questioned, in a CNN interview, as to why the U.S. accepts HTS, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and with a $10m bounty on its leader, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan replied, “The group at the vanguard of this rebel advance, HTS, is actually a terrorist organization designated by the United States. So we have real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization. At the same time, of course, we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure. So it’s a complicated situation.”

Placed in words often described to the hypocritical U.S. government, “Yes, they are bad guys and they are a terrorist organization, but they are our bad guys and they are our terrorist organization.”

We know where Assad is; where is the United States?
Uncle Sam’s voices to the world give their usual empty and meaningless words to a packed and meaningful event — closely monitoring, historic opportunity, a moment of risk and uncertainty, work together with allies and partners to urge de-escalation and protect U.S. personnel and military positions, and strongly support a peaceful transition of power.

The U.S. should be forced to answer why it did not use its power to prevent a Civil War that caused an estimated deaths of about 600 thousand, more than six million internally displaced, and around five million refugees, and why it has not used its power to insist that the more democratically inclined opposition in Syria be immediately given leading roles in the new Syrian government. Isn’t it dangerous to have Mohammed al-Bashir, a deputy in Abu Mohammad al-Jolani’s National Salvation Front, serve as “acting” prime minister for Syria’s transitional government. Will Mohammed al-Bashir “act” for one month, one year, or one decade?

It’s becoming shameful to be a U.S. citizen.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

Far-right activist Laura Loomer confronting a “Chinese invader” in Panama’s Darien Gap (X, 2/22/24).

In February, far-right political activist Laura Loomer—the self-defined “white advocate” and “proud Islamophobe” whom Donald Trump has praised as a “terrific” person and “very special”—descended on Panama to investigate the “invasion of America” allegedly taking place via the Darién Gap.

The Darién Gap, mind you, is 5,000 kilometers away from the US border. The only land bridge connecting South and Central America, it is largely comprised of spectacularly hostile jungle. It has become an epicenter of the global migration crisis, as international refuge seekers are forced to contend with its horrors in the pursuit of a better life. More than 520,000 people crossed the Darién Gap in 2023, while an untold number died trying—victims of rushing rivers, steep precipices, armed assailants and sheer exhaustion.

Over the course of her Darién expedition, Loomer exposed the diabolical logistics of the “invasion” by accosting numerous migrants who had just emerged from the deadly jungle, and now had a mere six countries—and all manner of additional life-imperiling danger—lying between them and the United States.

There were the “invaders from Africa,” for example, several of whom Loomer reported “were wearing tribal outfits.” Then there were the “Venezuelans invaders” [sic] who informed Loomer that Trump was a “bitch,” and the men from Afghanistan who “openly admitted” that they were migrating to “escape the Taliban”—the upshot in Loomerland being that it was “only a matter of time before we have another 9/11-style terrorist attack in our country.” And there was the “Chinese invader” from Beijing who was traveling with two children, and who constituted undeniable proof that “the Chinese Communist Party is actively invading the US via invaders. And they are coming in via the Darién Gap.”

Omission of context

Map showing the Darién Gap, which separates the Pan-American Highway into two segments (Wikipedia).

As Trump now prepares to retake America’s presidential reins and realize his dream of manic mass deportations, the likes of Loomer are dutifully standing by with their arsenal of “invading invader” babble. And while US Democrats are generally better at camouflaging their own anti-migrant militance with slightly more refined rhetoric, let’s not forget that President Joe Biden presided over plenty of deportations himself (Washington Post, 12/29/23)—in addition to expanding Trump’s border wall (Reuters, 10/6/23), in contravention of his promise not to do so.

Enter the corporate media, which play an integral role in abetting the bipartisan US war on migrants—even as the more centrist outlets enjoy cultivating the illusion of moral superiority to Trump’s brand of transparently sociopathic xenophobia. Much of the media’s complicity in this war has to do with what is not said in news reports—namely, that the US is itself largely responsible for wreaking much of the international political and financial havoc that forces people to migrate in the first place.

This conscious omission of context has long been on display in the Darién Gap, where, unlike in Loomer’s “reporting,” a constant stream of mainstream dispatches does serve to convey the terrific plight of migrants—but simultaneously excises the US role in the whole sinister arrangement.

‘A hole in the fence’

For corporate media (CNN, 4/17/23), the bad guys are those who help refugees escape, not those who create the conditions they’re escaping from.

Take CNN (4/17/23), which begins one of its countless Darién Gap interventions with a rundown on the various perils: “Masked robbers and rapists. Exhaustion, snakebites, broken ankles. Murder and hunger.”

Throughout the article, we are introduced sympathetically to an array of migrants, such as Jean-Pierre of Haiti, who is carrying his sick son strapped to his chest. According to CNN, Jean-Pierre was driven to leave Haiti because “gang violence, a failed government and the worst malnutrition crisis in decades make daily life untenable.”

This, to be sure, is a rather cursory flyover of the situation in a country where the untenability of daily life is due in good part to more than a century of pernicious meddling by the United States—from military invasion and occupation to support for torture-happy Haitian dictatorships, from repeated coups to economic subjugation. In 2011, WikiLeaks cables revealed that the Barack Obama administration had agitated to block an increase in the minimum wage for Haitian apparel workers beyond 31 cents per hour.

As is par for the corporate media course, CNN deems such history irrelevant, and instead assigns the overarching blame for the human tragedy playing out in the “most dangerous” Darién Gap to migrant traffickers:

The cartel overseeing the route is making millions off a highly organized smuggling business, pushing as many people as possible through what amounts to a hole in the fence for migrants moving north, the distant American dream their only lodestar.

Never mind that, absent the selective US-backed criminalization of migration for the have-nots of the global capitalist system, migrant traffickers would have no business to organize.

‘Seventy miles in hell’

For the Atlantic (8/6/24), economic suffering in Venezuela is the fault of its government’s “corruption and mismanagement,” with US sanctions merely a response to an “authoritarian crackdown.”

Caitlin Dickerson’s recent cover story for the Atlantic, “Seventy Miles in Hell” (8/6/24), similarly purports to show the human side of the story in the Darién Gap—but again without delving too deeply or accurately into the political realities that govern human existence. Traveling through the jungle with a Venezuelan couple, Dickerson offers a brief politico-economic analysis as to why, ostensibly, the pair found it necessary to pick up and leave:

Venezuela’s economy imploded in 2014, the result of corruption and mismanagement. Then an authoritarian crackdown by the leftist president, Nicolás Maduro, led to punishing American sanctions. The future they had been working toward ceased to exist.

This soundbite is no doubt music to the ears of the US establishment, precisely because it all but disappears the fundamental role of the United States in undertaking to destroy Venezuela as punishment for daring to attempt an economic model that deviated from imperial demands.

Hardly a new phenomenon, US sanctions on Venezuela were initially imposed by George W. Bush back in 2005, and extended by Barack Obama in 2015. They were further expanded by Trump in 2017, then intensified in 2019 in hopes of forcing out the government in favor of Juan Guaidó, the right-wing figure who had emerged from virtual obscurity to proclaim himself the country’s interim president. And yet, even prior to the intensification of coercive economic measures, US sanctions reportedly caused more than 40,000 deaths in the country in 2017–18 alone, as per the Washington, DC–based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Of course, the US is also known for inciting and waging incredibly bloody wars worldwide, as well as contributing disproportionately to the climate crisis, which is also increasingly fueling displacement and migration. The corporate media’s refusal to mention such crucial facts when reporting on the Darién Gap, then, will only feed into Trumpian fearmongering about a migrant “invasion” in which the US is the victim rather than a key aggressor.

‘Migrant highway’

AP (12/17/23): “Driven by economic crises, government repression and violence, migrants from China to Haiti decided to risk three days of deep mud, rushing rivers and bandits.”

Another xenophobic media habit that feeds Trumpite self-righteousness is that of referring to the Darién Gap as a migrant “highway”—as in the December 2023 Associated Press report (12/17/23) headlined “The Jungle Between Colombia and Panama Becomes a Highway for Migrants from Around the World.” In the article, journalist Christopher Sherman contended that the more than half a million migrants who traversed the Darién Gap in 2023 were “enabled by social media and Colombian organized crime,” which had converted the “once nearly impenetrable” forest into a “speedy but still treacherous highway.”

As I note in my forthcoming book on the Darién Gap, millions of people somehow managed to make their way to Ellis Island without the enabling of either social media or Colombian organized crime—which simply underscores that human beings migrate when they perceive an existential need to do so.

For its part, the New York Times (11/9/22) characterizes the Darién Gap as “a traffic jam” that is playing host to an “enormous flood of migrants.”

And an April Financial Times piece (4/10/24), headlined “The Migrant Highway That Could Sway the US Election,” remarked on the “rapid transformation” of a “once-impenetrable jungle…into a global migration highway.”  “The human tide crossing the Central American isthmus and heading north to the border has swelled to record proportions,” the Financial Times reported. It included a quote from a US Department of Homeland Security Official assuring readers that it was all the fault of “smugglers, coyotes and other bad actors.”

There’s nothing like visions of a migrant deluge surging up the Darién highway and straight into the heart of America to fuel a xenophobic field day under Trump’s second administration. Such rhetoric serves to justify the trampling of rights at home and in the United States’ self-appointed “backyard”—where Mexico already does a hell of a job making life hell for US-bound migrants.

Based on my own incursion into the Darién Gap in January 2024, I can safely say that “highway” is about the last word that comes to mind to describe the place. But the mediatic use of such terminology certainly paves the road for ever more hostile terrain ahead.

When two Venezuelan friends of mine crossed the Darién Gap, separately, in February and March, one reported that women in his group had been raped when they were found to have no money to hand over to armed assailants. The other said she had witnessed women be forced to squat in order to facilitate the probing of their intimate parts for valuables potentially tucked away.

In April, the New York Times (4/4/24) warned that sexual violence against migrants on the Panamanian side of the Darién Gap had reached a “level rarely seen outside war.”

But this is war. And by rendering sectors of the Earth unlivable while simultaneously criminalizing migration, the US is the principal belligerent.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Belén Fernández.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

For years, it was a mystery: Seemingly out of the blue, therapists would feel like they’d tripped some invisible wire and become a target of UnitedHealth Group.

A company representative with the Orwellian title “care advocate” would call and grill them about why they’d seen a patient twice a week or weekly for six months.

In case after case, United would refuse to cover care, leaving patients to pay out-of-pocket or go without it. The severity of their issues seemed not to matter.

Around 2016, government officials began to pry open United’s black box. They found that the nation’s largest health insurance conglomerate had been using algorithms to identify providers it determined were giving too much therapy and patients it believed were receiving too much; then, the company scrutinized their cases and cut off reimbursements.

By the end of 2021, United’s algorithm program had been deemed illegal in three states.

But that has not stopped the company from continuing to police mental health care with arbitrary thresholds and cost-driven targets, ProPublica found, after reviewing what is effectively the company’s internal playbook for limiting and cutting therapy expenses. The insurer’s strategies are still very much alive, putting countless patients at risk of losing mental health care.

Optum, its subsidiary that manages its mental health coverage, is taking aim at those who give or get “unwarranted” treatment, flagging patients who receive more than 30 sessions in eight months. The insurer estimates its “outlier management” strategy will contribute to savings of up to $52 million, according to company documents.

The company’s ability to continue deploying its playbook lays bare a glaring flaw in the way American health insurance companies are overseen.

While the massive insurer — one of the 10 most profitable companies in the world — offers plans to people in every state, it answers to no single regulator.

The federal government oversees the biggest pool: most of the plans that employers sponsor for their workers.

States are responsible for plans that residents buy on the marketplace; they also regulate those funded by the government through Medicaid but run through private insurers.

In essence, more than 50 different state and federal regulatory entities each oversee a slice of United’s vast network.

So when a California regulator cited United for its algorithm-driven practice in 2018, its corrective plan applied only to market plans based in California.

When Massachusetts’ attorney general forced it to restrict the system in 2020 for one of the largest health plans there, the prosecutor’s power ended at the state line.

And when New York’s attorney general teamed up with the U.S. Department of Labor on one of the most expansive investigations in history of an insurer’s efforts to limit mental health care coverage — one in which they scored a landmark, multimillion-dollar victory against United — none of it made an ounce of difference to the millions whose plans fell outside their purview.

It didn’t matter that they were all scrutinizing the insurer for violating the same federal law, one that forbade companies from putting up barriers to mental health coverage that did not exist for physical health coverage.

For United’s practices to be curbed, mental health advocates told ProPublica, every single jurisdiction in which it operates would have to successfully bring a case against it.

“It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole all the time for regulators,” said Lauren Finke, senior director of policy at the mental health advocacy group The Kennedy Forum. The regulatory patchwork benefits insurance companies, she said, “because they can just move their scrutinized practices to other products in different locations.”

Now internal documents show that United, through its subsidiary Optum, is targeting plans in other jurisdictions, where its practices have not been curbed. The company is focused on reducing “overutilization” of services for patients covered through its privately contracted Medicaid plans that are overseen by states, according to the internal company records reviewed by ProPublica. These plans cover some of the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable patients.

United administers Medicaid plans or benefits in about two dozen states, and for more than 6 million people, according to the most recent federal data from 2022. The division responsible for the company’s Medicaid coverage took in $75 billion in revenue last year, a quarter of the total revenue of its health benefits business, UnitedHealthcare.

UnitedHealthcare told ProPublica that the company remains compliant with the terms of its settlement with the New York attorney general and federal regulators. Christine Hauser, a spokesperson for Optum Behavioral Health, said its process for managing health care claims is “an important part of making sure patients get access to safe, effective and affordable treatment.” Its programs are compliant with federal laws and ensure “people receive the care they need,” she said. One category of reviews is voluntary, she added; it allows providers to opt out and does not result in coverage denials.

ProPublica has spent months tracking the company’s efforts to limit mental health costs, reviewing hundreds of pages of internal documents and court records, and interviewing dozens of current and former employees as well as scores of providers in the company’s insurance networks.

One therapist in Virginia said she is reeling from the costly repercussions of her review by a care advocate. Another in Oklahoma said she faces ongoing pressure from United for seeing her high-risk patients twice a week.

“There’s no real clinical rationale behind this,” said Tim Clement, the vice president of federal government affairs at the nonprofit group Mental Health America. “This is pretty much a financial decision.”

Former care advocates for the company told ProPublica the same as they described steamrolling providers to boost cost savings.

One said he felt like “a cog in the wheel of insurance greed.”

The year 2008 was supposed to mark a revolution in access to mental health care.

For decades, United and other insurers had been allowed to place hard caps on treatment, like the number of therapy sessions. But after Congress passed the ​​Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, insurers could no longer set higher copays for behavioral services or more strictly limit how often patients could get them; insurers needed to offer the same access to mental health care as to physical care. The law applied to most plans, regardless of whether federal or state regulators enforced it.

As access to services increased, so did insurers’ costs. Company documents show United was keenly aware of this threat to its bottom line.

But there was a loophole: Insurers could still determine what care was medically necessary and appropriate.

Doing so case by case would be expensive and time-consuming. But United already had a tool that could make it easier to spot outliers.

Called ALERT, the algorithmic system was created years earlier to identify patients at risk of suicide or substance use. The company redeployed it to identify therapy overuse.

Company and court filings reveal that ALERT comprised a suite of algorithms — totaling more than 50 at one point — that analyzed clinical and claims data to catch what it considered unusual mental health treatment patterns, flagging up to 15% of the patients receiving outpatient care.

The algorithms could be triggered when care met the company's definition of overly frequent, such as when patients had therapy sessions twice a week for six weeks or more than 20 sessions in six months. Therapists drew scrutiny if they provided services for more than eight hours a day, used the same diagnosis code with most clients or worked on weekends or holidays — even though such work is often necessary with patients in crisis.

The system was originally designed to save lives, said Ed Jones, who co-developed the algorithm program when he worked as an executive at PacifiCare Behavioral Health, which later merged with United. Using ALERT to limit or deny care was “perverting a process that was really pretty good,” he told ProPublica.

Once patients or therapists were flagged, care advocates, who were licensed practitioners, would “alert” providers, using intervention scripts to assess whether care was medically necessary. The calls felt like interrogations, therapists told ProPublica, with the predetermined conclusion that their therapy was unnecessary or excessive.

ProPublica spoke with seven former employees from Optum who worked with the ALERT system from 2006 through 2021. They requested not to be named in order to speak freely, some citing fears of retaliation.

Even though the reviews were purportedly intended to identify cases where care was inappropriate or violated clinical standards, several former care advocates said these instances were rare. Instead, they questioned care if it passed an allotted number of sessions.

“It had to be really extreme to help the client be able to continue with the care,” said one former care advocate, who was troubled by the practice. “Not everyone with depression is going to be suicidal, but they still need therapy to support them.”

The advocates often overruled a provider’s expertise, a former team manager said. “There was always this feeling, ‘Why are we telling clinicians what to do?’” he said. “I didn’t think it was OK that we were making decisions like that for people.”

If the advocates found fault with therapists’ explanations — or couldn’t persuade them to cut back on care — they elevated the case to a peer-to-peer review, where a psychologist could decide to stop covering treatment.

According to court records, regulators alleged United doled out bonuses to care advocates based on productivity, such as the number of cases handled, and pushed workers to reduce care by modifying a therapist’s treatment or referring therapists to peer review in 20% of assigned cases.

At one point, care advocates were referring 40%, regulators alleged in court filings. Each peer review tended to last less than 12 minutes, offering providers little time to prove they had a “clear and compelling” reason to continue treatment.

Former advocates described feeling like parts of a machine that couldn’t stop churning. “Literally, we had to tell the company when we were going to the restroom,” one advocate said, “and so you would do that and come back and your manager would say, ‘Well, that was a little long.’”

The former workers told ProPublica they were pressured to keep calls brief; the rush added to the tension as therapists pushed back in anger.

“There was an expiration date on those jobs because there was such a pull on you emotionally,” one former care advocate said.

Three of them quit, they told ProPublica, citing damage to their own mental health.

New York and federal regulators started looking into the practice around 2016. A California regulator and the Massachusetts attorney general’s office soon followed.

All concluded that while United may not have set official caps on coverage, it had done so in practice by limiting mental health services more stringently than medical care. Therefore, it was breaking the federal parity law.

While California and Massachusetts got United to scale back its use of ALERT within their jurisdictions, New York was able to stretch its reach by teaming up with the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate and sue the insurer. Together, they found that from 2013 through 2020, United had denied claims for more than 34,000 therapy sessions in New York alone, amounting to $8 million in denied care.

By using ALERT to ration care, United calculated that it saved the company about $330 per member each time the program was used, the regulators said in court records. Cut off from therapy, some patients were hospitalized. The regulators did not specifically address in court filings whether the treatment denials met medical guidelines.

The company, which denied the allegations and did not have to admit liability or wrongdoing, agreed to pay more than $4 million in restitution and penalties in 2021. Notably, it also agreed to not use ALERT to limit or deny care.

The final terms of the settlement, however, only applied to plans under New York and federal regulators’ jurisdiction.

In the three years since the settlement, the company has quietly rebranded ALERT.

The Outpatient Care Engagement program continues to use claims and clinical data to identify patients with “higher-than-average intensity and/or frequency of services,” according to internal company documents, to ensure “that members are receiving the right level of care at the right time.”

Up to 10% of cases are flagged for scrutiny, public company documents show. If care advocates take issue with a case, they can elevate it to a peer review, which can result in a denial.

The advocates’ script is nearly the same as the one used for ALERT.

Care advocates are even calling therapists from the same phone number.

Overseen by the former director of ALERT, the team’s more than 50 care advocates are tasked with ensuring that “outpatient care follows clinical and coverage guidelines” and “reduces overutilization and benefit expense when appropriate,” according to company documents.

The team conducts thousands of reviews each month, targeting plans that are mostly regulated by states and fall outside of the jurisdictions of previous sanctions. Patients impacted include workers with fully insured plans and people covered by Medicaid.

Nearly 1 in 3 adults in the Medicaid program has a mental health condition, and a fifth of its members have a substance use disorder. “This is probably disproportionately sweeping up those that are most distressed, most ill and most in need of care,” Clement said.

Private insurers that manage Medicaid plans, also known as managed care organizations, are often paid a fixed amount per person, regardless of the frequency or intensity of services used. If they spend less than the state’s allotted payment, plans are typically allowed to keep some or all of what remains. Experts, senators and federal investigators have long raised concerns that this model may be incentivizing insurers to limit or deny care.

“They basically manage the benefits to maximize their short-term profit,” said David Lloyd, chief policy officer with the mental health advocacy group Inseparable and an expert on state-level mental health parity laws.

State regulators are supposed to be making sure private insurers that manage Medicaid plans are following the mental health parity laws. But this year, a federal audit found that they were failing to do so. “They are not well designed to essentially be watchdogs,” Lloyd said. “There’s very little accountability. Insurers can run roughshod over them.”

The internal records reviewed by ProPublica show the plans and geographic areas now scrutinized by the rebranded program. The team conducts two types of reviews, those considered “consultation” and those that question medical necessity.

For the first kind, the team flags members with high use (more than 30 sessions in eight months) or high frequency (twice-a-week sessions for six weeks or more) to engage their providers in “collaborative” conversations about the treatment plan.

Internal records indicate that the company uses this “consultation” model for about 20 state Medicaid programs, including Washington, Minnesota, Mississippi, Virginia and Tennessee. The company is also deploying the program with Medicaid plans in Massachusetts and, as of the fourth quarter of this year, New York, which are outside of the jurisdiction of the earlier state agreements.

While the Department of Labor does not have jurisdiction over Medicaid, a spokesperson said it “would be concerned about ‘consultation’ reviews that are conducted in a way that violates [the mental health parity act].” The department did not comment on whether it was investigating the insurer, as a matter of agency policy.

Company records show Optum is applying its more stringent review method, questioning medical necessity, to psychological testing services and a type of therapy to treat children with autism, known as applied behavior analysis, for people with Medicaid coverage in about 20 states. It is doing the same for routine therapy for its members with dual Medicare-Medicaid plans in about 18 states and Washington, D.C. Such plans are largely overseen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency responsible for overseeing both Medicare and Medicaid programs. While the dual plans are not subject to federal mental health parity laws, a CMS spokesperson said the agency was taking steps to “ensure that people enrolled in these plans have timely access to care.”

The internal company records reveal that Optum has continued to use quotas with its medical necessity reviews, setting productivity targets for how many cases its employees scrutinize. According to records from this year, the target was 160 reviews per employee, which the company exceeded with 180 reviews per employee.

Several state agencies that oversee Medicaid programs, including those in New York and Massachusetts, told ProPublica that they follow federal mental health parity laws and have strong monitoring practices to ensure that the private insurers that manage benefits are in compliance.

Katie Pope, a spokesperson for Washington’s Health Care Authority, told ProPublica that ALERT was discontinued three years ago but did not directly respond to questions about the current iteration of the program. Scott Peterson, a spokesperson for Minnesota’s Human Services Department, said that while United’s policies were compliant with federal parity laws, the company’s contract would expire at the end of the year. Last May, the state blocked for-profit insurers, like United, from participating in its Medicaid program.

Amy Lawrence, a spokesperson for Tennessee’s Medicaid program, said United’s outlier review practice entailed “voluntary collaborative conversations on best practices” and did not question the medical necessity of services nor result in denials of treatment. “There are no adverse consequences for providers who elect not to participate,” she said.

Mississippi’s, Louisiana’s and Virginia’s state Medicaid agencies did not respond to ProPublica’s questions. (Read all state responses.)

In response to ProPublica’s questions about its oversight of state Medicaid programs, a spokesperson for CMS said it was “actively engaged with states and other stakeholders to improve compliance and oversight of parity requirements.” (Read the full responses of federal agencies.)

Hauser, the spokesperson for Optum, told ProPublica that the company is committed to working with state Medicaid programs to ensure access to effective and necessary care. She said its new program was separate from ALERT, which she said had been discontinued. (She did not explain why the original ALERT program appears to be still operational in Louisiana, according to a recent company manual.) When the team conducts medical necessity reviews, she said, they are compliant with mental health parity law. (Read the company’s full response.)

Therapists who underwent the reviews told ProPublica that they felt the practice was intended to discourage them from providing necessary care, interfering with their ability to treat their patients.

This year, Oklahoma therapist Jordan Bracht received multiple calls from the team related to the care of two patients, who were both on United’s dual Medicare-Medicaid plan. “If we don’t hear back from you within a week,” a care advocate said in a voice message, “then the case will be forwarded to the peer review process to make a decision based upon the information available.”

Both of Bracht’s patients had diagnoses of dissociative identity disorder and required therapy twice a week. “Many of my clients are suicidal and would be hospitalized if I had to cut down the care,” Bracht told ProPublica.

Reviewers pushed for end dates for their therapy. “They really wanted me to nail down a discharge date,” she said. “We are really trying to keep this person alive, and it felt like they were applying their one-size-fits-all model. It doesn’t feel right.”

Virginia therapist Chanelle Henderson got a voice message in 2022 from the same number about her care of a patient with state Medicaid coverage. “We’d like to complete a clinical review,” the caller said. “We’ll follow up with one more call before the case is referred to the peer review process.”

When Henderson called back, a reviewer informed her that her practice had been flagged for providing longer sessions. Henderson tried to explain they were necessary to treat trauma, her practice’s specialty. “She had no trust in me as a clinician,” Henderson said of the reviewer.

The inquiry progressed to questions about other patients, including one who was being treated by a therapist under Henderson’s supervision. The reviewer said that the company did not cover sessions of supervised therapists at practices with less than 12 therapists. At the time, Henderson’s practice had eight.

The reviewer elevated her case, triggering an aggressive audit of the entire practice going back two years that threatened to shut it down.

Citing issues with supervision and longer sessions, United demanded the practice pay back about $20,000 for services it had already provided. Henderson and her business partner pushed back, hiring a biller to help submit hundreds of pages of additional notes and documentation. They also pointed out that during the audit, the company had even changed its policy to allow smaller practices to supervise therapists. United eventually decreased the penalty by half. Neither Optum, United nor Virginia’s Medicaid program directly responded to ProPublica’s questions about the case.

Bethany Lackey, who co-founded the practice with Henderson, said that the reviews felt like a pretext for additional scrutiny. “It’s all set up in order to catch someone doing something so that they can take back payments,” she said. “We all know that behind it is this more malicious intent of getting their money back.”

Maya Miller contributed reporting. Kirsten Berg contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Annie Waldman.

The New York Times (11/8/24), like other corporate media, framed the Amsterdam violence in terms of antisemitism—treating anti-Arab violence as an ancillary detail at best.

When violence broke out in Amsterdam last week involving Israeli soccer fans, Western media headlines told the story as one of attacks that could only be explained by antisemitism. This is the story right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants them to tell: “On the streets of Amsterdam, antisemitic rioters attacked Jews, Israeli citizens, just because they were Jews” (Fox News, 11/10/24).

Yet buried deep within their reports, some of these outlets revealed a more complicated reality: that many fans of Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club had spent the previous night tearing down and burning Palestinian flags, attacking a taxi and shouting murderous anti-Arab chants, including “Death to the Arabs” and “Why is there no school in Gaza? There are no children left there” (Defector, 11/8/24).

As Marc Owen Jacobs of Zeteo (11/9/24) wrote, the media coverage revealed

troubling patterns in how racial violence is reported; not only is anti-Arab violence and racism marginalized and minimized, but violence against Israelis is amplified and reduced to antisemitism.

Buried context

James North (Mondoweiss, 11/10/24): “You had to jump to paragraph 7, buried on an inside page, to learn that the Israeli fans had, in fact, been violent and provocative the night before.”

“Israeli Soccer Fans Attacked in Amsterdam,” announced NBC News (11/8/24). That piece didn’t mention until the 25th paragraph the Maccabi fans’ Palestinian flag-burning and taxi destruction, as if these were minor details rather than precipitating events.

Similarly, the Washington Post (11/8/24)—“Israeli Soccer Fans Were Attacked in Amsterdam. The Violence Was Condemned as Antisemitic”—didn’t mention Maccabi anti-Arab chants until paragraph 22, and didn’t mention any Maccabi fan violence.

James North on Mondoweiss (11/10/24) summed up the New York Times article’s (11/8/24) similar one-sided framing:

The Times report, which started on page 1, used the word “antisemitic” six times, beginning in the headline. The first six paragraphs uniformly described the “Israeli soccer fans” as the victims, recounting their injuries, and dwelling on the Israeli government’s chartering of “at least three flights to bring Israeli citizens home,” insinuating that innocent people had to completely flee the country for their lives.

Also at Mondoweiss (11/9/24), Sana Saeed explained:

Emerging video evidence and testimonies from Amsterdam residents (here, here and here, for instance) indicate that the initial violence came from Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, who also disrupted a moment of silence for the Valencia flood victims.

But despite that footage and Amsterdammer testimonies, coverage—across international media, especially in the United States—has failed to contextualize the counter-attacks against the anti-Arab Israeli mob.

Misrepresented video

Image from Annet de Graaf’s video showing violence by Israeli soccer fans—widely misrepresented as an example of antisemitic violence.

Several news outlets outright misrepresented video from local Dutch photographer Annet de Graaf. De Graaf’s video depicts Maccabi fans attacking Amsterdam locals, yet CNN World News (11/9/24) and BBC (11/8/24) and other outlets initially labeled it as Maccabi fans getting attacked.

De Graaf has demanded apologies from the news outlets and acknowledgement that the video was used to push false information. CNN World News‘ video now notes that an earlier version was accompanied by details from Reuters that CNN could not independently verify. BBC’s caption of De Graaf’s footage reads “Footage of some of the violence in Amsterdam—the BBC has not been able to verify the identity of those involved.”

Message to news outlets:

Today I received an apology from Tagesschau for abusing my footage of the incident which took place after the soccer game in Amsterdam between Ajax and M. Tel Aviv. I refer also to the footage of reporter @OmeBender who covered that same fight with more… pic.twitter.com/9QyEezb8tL

— iAnnet (@iAnnetnl) November 9, 2024

The New York Times (11/8/24) corrected its misuse of the footage in an article about the violence:

An earlier version of this article included a video distributed by Reuters with a script about Israeli fans being attacked. Reuters has since issued a correction saying it is unclear who is depicted in the footage. The video’s author told the New York Times it shows a group of Maccabi fans chasing a man on the street—a description the Times independently confirmed with other verified footage from the scene. The video has been removed.

‘Historically illiterate conflation’

Jacobin (11/12/24): “Far from acting like tsarist authorities during a pogrom, the police in Amsterdam seem to have cracked down far harder on those who attacked Maccabi fans than the overtly racist Maccabi hooligans who started the first phase of the riot.”

It is undoubtedly true that antisemitism was involved in Amsterdam alongside Israeli fans’ anti-Arab actions; the Wall Street Journal (11/10/24) verified reports of a group chat that called for a “Jew hunt.” But rather than acknowledging that there was ethnic animosity on both sides, some articles about the melee (Bret Stephens, New York Times, 11/12/24; Fox News, 11/10/24; Free Press, 10/11/24) elevated the violence to the level of a “pogrom.”

Jacobin (11/12/24) put the attacks in the context of European soccer riots:

There were assaults on Israeli fans, including hit-and-run attacks by perpetrators on bicycles. Some of the victims were Maccabi fans who hadn’t participated in the earlier hooliganism. In other words, this played out like a classical nationalistic football riot—the thuggish element of one group of fans engages in violence, and the ugly intercommunal dynamics lead to not just the perpetrators but the entire group of fans (or even random people wrongly assumed to share their background or nationality) being attacked.

But Jacobin pushed back against media using the word “pogrom” in reference to the soccer riots:

Pogroms were not isolated incidents of violence. They were calculated assaults to keep Jews locked firmly in their social place…. Pogroms cannot occur outside the framework of a society that systematically denies rights to a minority, ensuring that it remains vulnerable to the violence of the majority. What happened in Amsterdam, however, bears no resemblance to this structure. These were not attacks predicated on religious or racial oppression. They were incidents fueled by political discord between different groups of nationalists….

Furthermore, using that designation to opportunistically smear global dissent against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza as classically antisemitic only serves to trivialize genuine horrors. This historically illiterate conflation should be rejected by all who truly care about antisemitism.

Breaking with the Netanyahu government’s spin, former Israeli President Ehud Olmert said that the riots in Amsterdam were “not a continuation of the historic antisemitism that swept Europe in past centuries.” Olmert, unlike Western media coverage of the event, seemed to be able to connect the violence in Amsterdam to anti-Arab sentiment in his own country. In a more thoughtful piece than his paper’s news coverage of the event, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (11/13/24) quoted Olmert extensively:

The fact is, many people in the world are unable to acquiesce with Israel turning Gaza, or residential neighborhoods of Beirut, into the Stone Age—as some of our leaders promised to do. And that is to say nothing of what Israel is doing in the West Bank—the killings and destruction of Palestinian property. Are we really surprised that these things create a wave of hostile reactions when we continue to show a lack of sensitivity to human beings living in the center of the battlefield who are not terrorists?

The events in Amsterdam called for nuanced media coverage that contextualized events and condemned both anti-Jewish and anti-Arab violence. Instead, per usual, world leaders and media alike painted Arabs and Pro-Palestine protesters as aggressors and Israelis as innocent victims.

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

The post KPFA News Election Night Special Coverage (10pm-midnight) appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

With just days to go before Election Day, political coverage is everywhere. At ProPublica, we avoid horse race reporting and focus on telling stories about deeper issues and trends affecting the country.

Here are some stories from the last year about issues that are important to voters.

When the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1970s-era ruling that guaranteed access to abortion throughout the country, states quickly enacted a patchwork of laws restricting the procedure. In all, 13 states now have a total ban on abortion.

ProPublica has thoroughly examined the impact of those laws over the last two years. Doctors have told ProPublica that confusion and fear about the potential for legal repercussions are changing the way their colleagues treat pregnant patients who have complications.

• In Tennessee, we followed one mother, Mayron Hollis, for a year after she was denied an abortion because of the state’s newly enacted ban. She had become addicted to drugs at 12, and the state had already taken away several of her children. Doctors were concerned that this latest pregnancy, which had implanted in scar tissue from a recent cesarean section, could kill her. The story and visual narrative follows Hollis’ struggles to get care following the birth of her daughter.

• In Georgia, Amber Thurman took abortion medication to end a pregnancy but died of an infection after her body failed to expel all of the fetal tissue, a rare complication that the suburban Atlanta hospital she went to was readily equipped to treat. But earlier that summer, the state had made abortion a felony, and with Thurman’s infection spreading, doctors waited nearly 20 hours before operating. When they finally did, it was too late. Thurman was the mother of a 6-year-old son. U.S. senators are examining whether the hospital broke federal law by failing to intervene sooner, and an official state committee concluded that her death was preventable. Doctors and a nurse involved in Thurman’s care declined to explain their thinking and did not respond to questions from ProPublica. Communications staff from the hospital did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Georgia’s Department of Public Health, which oversees the state maternal mortality review committee, said it cannot comment on ProPublica’s reporting because the committee’s cases are confidential and protected by federal law.

• Most abortions in the U.S. take place in the early weeks of pregnancy, and roughly 63% are done using medication. We recently examined how abortion pills work and answered common questions about them.

• In Texas, Josseli Barnica is one of at least two pregnant women who died after doctors delayed emergency care. She’d told her husband that the medical team said it couldn’t act until the fetal heartbeat stopped. The doctors involved in Barnica’s care at HCA Houston Healthcare Northwest did not respond to multiple requests for comment on her case. In a statement, HCA Healthcare said, “Our responsibility is to be in compliance with applicable state and federal laws and regulations,” and said that physicians exercise their independent judgment. The company did not respond to a detailed list of questions about Barnica’s care.

• In a second Texas case, 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain, who was six months pregnant, visited two emergency rooms a total of three times after experiencing abdominal cramps and other troubling symptoms. The first hospital diagnosed her with strep throat without evaluating her pregnancy. At the second, she screened positive for sepsis, a life-threatening and fast-moving reaction to an infection, medical records show. But doctors said her fetus had a heartbeat and that Crain was fine to leave. On Crain’s third hospital visit, an obstetrician insisted on two ultrasounds to “confirm fetal demise,” a nurse wrote, before offering a procedure called a dilation and curettage to remove the fetus. Hours later, Crain was dead. Doctors involved in Crain’s care did not respond to several requests for comment. The two hospitals, Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas and Christus Southeast Texas St. Elizabeth, declined to answer detailed lists of questions about her treatment.

As the number of migrant encounters at the U.S. border has surged under the Biden administration, immigration has become a top issue for voters. ProPublica has recently explored how this increase differs in key ways from past surges. In recent years, more of the people crossing the border have been turning themselves in and claiming asylum rather than trying to avoid arrest.

• The U.S. faces a shortage of skilled workers, and immigrants have helped fill that gap. Even areas critical to national security, such as Navy shipbuilding, are struggling to find enough qualified workers. So undocumented workers have stepped in as contractors, but that means they get fewer protections if something goes wrong on the job.

• Cities and towns far from the southern border are facing new challenges with the arrival of significant numbers of immigrants. In the small town of Whitewater, Wisconsin, several hundred immigrants from Nicaragua have arrived — mostly looking for low-paying jobs in factories and farms. Police say the biggest challenge has been strained resources and immigrants driving without licenses — not a wave of crime, as falsely claimed by former President Donald Trump.

• For decades, lobbyists from the business community shaped immigration legislation and moderated the contours of the debate. But in the Trump era, businesses see far more risk in advocating for these policies, a change that’s made it even harder to get to consensus on immigration reforms, even as businesses in a variety of sectors say they need more immigrant workers.

The condition of the U.S. economy is the top concern for voters, according to multiple polls. Across the world, inflation — the rate at which prices increase — surged beginning in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic, brought on by supply chain disruptions, surges in demand for goods and services, and the war in Ukraine.

• Last year, ProPublica looked at inflation through the lens of the humble automobile tire, tracing the raw materials from a rubber plantation in Southeast Asia to a repair shop in Mississippi to try to answer the question: Why are prices so high?

• For a time in 2022, a cadre of ocean carriers were charging exorbitant, potentially illegal, fees on shipping containers stuck because of congestion at ports, another reason the price of goods rose so quickly. That congestion has now eased considerably.

• Surveys also suggest housing costs are a primary concern to many Americans. While most economists agree that the lack of housing supply and a decade of low interest rates have fueled increases in housing prices and rents, there may be another factor at work: the use of algorithms to determine the price of your rent through the company RealPage.

• Democrats, including Ohio’s Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, face tough reelection fights in states that have shifted swiftly toward Trump, despite investments from the Biden administration in reviving manufacturing through the Inflation Reduction and CHIPS acts. National Democrats often overlook how important the place you live can be: Even if your own finances are secure, if you look out your window and see your city or town struggling, you believe you are, too. Some academics have referred to this as a sense of “shared fate,” and it could be a powerful force in this election, especially in small cities in the industrial Midwest.

Fourteen years after the Affordable Care Act passed, more Americans have health care coverage, but the system itself remains as broken and fractured as ever. ProPublica has investigated various players in the health care system, from doctors accused of wrongdoing to insurers refusing to cover lifesaving treatments. We’ve also extensively explored mental health treatment this year and how, despite rising needs, America’s health care infrastructure can’t provide meaningful support.

• When companies such as Aetna or UnitedHealthcare want to rein in costs, they turn to EviCore, whose business model depends on turning down payments for care recommended by doctors for their patients. EviCore counters that it develops its guidelines for approvals with the input of peer-reviewed medical studies and professional societies, and that they are routinely updated to stay current with the latest evidence-backed practices. It said its decisions are based solely on the guidelines and are not interpreted differently for different clients.

• For Americans searching for mental health providers, many of the lists compiled by insurance companies are misleading or outdated. It’s a “ghost network” that leaves patients frustrated and unable to get timely care.

• Health insurer Cigna tracks every minute that its staff doctors spend deciding whether to pay for health care. One doctor who used to work for the company, Debby Day, said her bosses cared more about being fast than being right: “Deny, deny, deny. That’s how you hit your numbers,” Day said. In written responses, Cigna has said its medical directors are not allowed to “rubber stamp” a nurse’s recommendation for denial. In all cases, the company wrote, it expects its doctors to “perform thorough, objective, independent and accurate reviews in accordance with our coverage policies.” In 2023, ProPublica revealed how Cigna rejects claims from patients without even reading them. In written responses about this program, Cigna said the reporting by ProPublica and The Capitol Forum was “biased and incomplete.” Cigna said its review system was created to “accelerate payment of claims for certain routine screenings,” Cigna wrote. “This allows us to automatically approve claims when they are submitted with correct diagnosis codes.”

Few issues ignite as much passion as educating America’s schoolchildren. ​​School boards and districts are facing battles over school vouchers, book bans and COVID-19 — conflict that is slowly changing how the U.S. educates kids, leaving them on different and unequal paths at school.

Many states led by conservative legislators and governors have pushed a rapid expansion of school voucher programs that promise to allow students and their parents to put state money toward the school — private or public — of their choice.

• The model for voucher programs in the country has been Arizona, which now offers vouchers to all students. But the state has spent so much money paying private schoolers’ tuition that it’s now facing hundreds of millions in budget cuts to critical state programs and projects.

• A ProPublica analysis shows that low-income families are using the system far less than wealthier families, in part because the location of private schools and the additional costs for transportation, tuition and meals makes using the vouchers more difficult.

• School choice advocates are intent on expanding the availability of vouchers to fund private education at the expense of public schools, but they’re facing a surprising pocket of resistance: Some conservative, rural residents are fighting the program, fearing their tax dollars will flow from the only public school in their area to benefit people in cities.

• Texas, however, remains one of the biggest holdouts against a school voucher program in which state tax dollars could be used to pay for private schools. Gov. Greg Abbott aggressively campaigned against members of his own party who did not support voucher programs. This fall, Abbott may finally get the votes needed to pass a bill, fulfilling a decadeslong wish of conservative donors in the state.

• We told the story of Courtney Gore, a Texas school board candidate who won her seat after claiming on the campaign trail that children were being indoctrinated. She later disavowed her party’s far-right platform after finding no evidence of such efforts.

• After COVID-19 school closures ended, absenteeism nearly doubled. With state and federal governments largely abdicating any role in getting kids back into classrooms, some schools have turned to private companies for a reimagined version of the truant officer.

The now yearlong war between Israel and Hamas has left tens of thousands dead, and Gaza is facing massive shortages of food, water and medical care. The war has sparked infighting in the Democratic Party and debates within the State Department over how best to manage the situation given the U.S.’s longtime trade and military ties to Israel. Both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have signaled their desire to end the war soon, though what will get both sides to agree isn’t entirely clear.

• The U.S. has long supported Israel with weapons. In January, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew urged Washington to give thousands more bombs to the Israelis because they have a “decades-long proven track record” of avoiding killing civilians, a request that came, at the time, amid the deaths of at least 25,000 Palestinians in the war.

• The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden did not accept either finding.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by ProPublica.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Every day, patients across America crack open envelopes with bad news. Yet another health insurer has decided not to pay for a treatment that their doctor has recommended. Sometimes it’s a no for an MRI for a high school wrestler with a strained back. Sometimes for a cancer procedure that will help a grandmother with a throat tumor. Sometimes for a heart scan for a truck driver feeling short of breath.

But the insurance companies don’t always make these decisions. Instead, they often outsource medical reviews to a largely hidden industry that makes money by turning down doctors’ requests for payments, known as prior authorizations. Call it the denials for dollars business.

The biggest player is a company called EviCore by Evernorth, which is hired by major American insurance companies and provides coverage to 100 million consumers — about 1 in 3 insured people. It is owned by the insurance giant Cigna.

A ProPublica and Capitol Forum investigation found that EviCore uses an algorithm backed by artificial intelligence, which some insiders call “the dial,” that it can adjust to lead to higher denials. Some contracts ensure the company makes more money the more it cuts health spending. And it issues medical guidelines that doctors have said delay and deny care for patients.

EviCore and companies like it approve prior authorizations “based on the decision that is more profitable for them,” said Barbara McAneny, a former president of the American Medical Association and a practicing oncologist. “They love to deny things.”

EviCore says it scrutinizes requests to make sure that procedures recommended by doctors are safe, necessary and cost-effective. “We are improving the quality of health care, the safety of health care and, by very happy coincidence, we’re also decreasing a significant amount of unnecessary cost,” an EviCore medical officer explains in a video produced by the company.

But EviCore’s cost-cutting is far from coincidental, according to the investigation.

EviCore markets itself to insurance companies by promising a 3-to-1 return on investment — that is, for every $1 spent on EviCore, the insurer would pay out $3 less on medical care and other costs. EviCore salespeople have boasted of a 15% increase in denials, according to the investigation, which is based on internal documents, corporate data and dozens of interviews with former employees, doctors, industry experts, health care regulators and insurance executives. Almost everybody interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because they continue to work in the industry.

An analysis of the company’s own data shows that, since 2021, EviCore turned down prior authorization requests, in full or in part, almost 20% of the time in Arkansas, which requires the publication of denial rates. By comparison, the equivalent figure for federal Medicare Advantage plans was about 7% in 2022.

They love to deny things.

EviCore has several ways to cut costs for insurers. Chief among them is the dial, the proprietary algorithm that’s the first stop in evaluating a prior authorization. Based on data entered by a doctor’s office, it can automatically approve a request.

The algorithm cannot say no, however. If it finds problems, it sends the request for review to a team of in-house nurses and doctors who consult company medical guidelines. Only doctors can issue a final denial.

This is where tweaking the dial comes in. EviCore can adjust the algorithm to increase the number of requests sent for review, according to five former employees. The more reviews, the higher the chance of denials.

Here’s how it works, the former employees said: The algorithm reviews a request and gives it a score. For example, it may judge one request to have a 75% chance of approval, while another to have a 95% chance. If EviCore wants more denials, it can send on for review anything that scores lower than a 95%. If it wants fewer, it can set the threshold for reviews at scores lower than 75%.

“We could control that,” said one former EviCore executive involved in technology issues. “That’s the game we would play.”

Over the years, medical groups have repeatedly complained that EviCore’s guidelines were outdated and rigid, resulting in inappropriate denials or delays in care. Frustration with the rules has led some doctors to refer to the company as EvilCore. There is even a parody account on X.

The guidelines are also used as a tool to cut costs, the investigation found. Company executives “would say, ‘Keep a closer eye on the guidelines for reviews for a particular company because we’re not showing savings,’” said a former EviCore employee involved in the radiation oncology program.

EviCore says that it develops its guidelines with the input of peer-reviewed medical studies and professional societies, and that they are routinely updated to stay current with the latest evidence-backed practices. It said its decisions are based solely on the guidelines and are not interpreted differently for different clients.

EviCore is not alone in engaging in the denials-for-dollars business. The second-biggest player is Carelon Medical Benefits Management, a subsidiary of Elevance Health, the health insurer formerly known as Anthem. It has been accused in court of wrongfully denying legitimate requests for coverage. The company has denied all charges. Several smaller companies do the same kind of work.

Simply put, EviCore uses the latest evidence-based medicine to ensure that patients receive the care they need and avoid the services they do not.

There is no question that prior authorizations play an important role in modern medicine. They serve to guard against doctors who recommend unnecessary and even potentially harmful treatments. They also protect insurers from fraudulent physicians who overbill for services.

In a response to questions, a Cigna spokesperson provided a statement on behalf of EviCore. “Simply put, EviCore uses the latest evidence-based medicine to ensure that patients receive the care they need and avoid the services they do not,” it said.

The statement acknowledged that EviCore used algorithms for some clinical programs, but “ONLY to accelerate approval of appropriate care and reduce the administrative burden on providers.”

The statement noted that doctors have the ability to appeal prior authorization denials, and that the company routinely monitors the outcomes “as part of our continuous quality improvement to ensure accurate and timely medical necessity decision-making.”

Prior authorization reviews provided by EviCore save money for the entire health insurance system, the statement said. “The natural product of improved care quality and reduced waste is savings for our clients, lower out-of-pocket costs for patients, and fewer health care premium increases for Americans.”

In the fall of 2021, when the air grew crisp and the leaves reddened in central Ohio, Little John Cupp began feeling short of breath. He gasped while pushing a shopping cart. His feet and ankles swelled. He could only sleep while sitting up.

An echocardiogram revealed that his heart was having trouble pumping blood. Cupp’s doctor suggested more testing, including the insertion of a catheter to examine whether his arteries were blocked.

A few days after the doctor made the request, Cupp received a letter from his insurance company, UnitedHealthcare. The procedure, it said, was “not medically necessary.”

One sentence in 8-point type revealed that the insurer had outsourced the decision to EviCore.

Cupp’s doctor put him on medications to reduce swelling and high blood pressure and tried a second time to win approval for a left heart catheter examination. EviCore turned it down again. He revealed his disappointment in shorthand in Cupp’s medical records: “ideally he needs LHC (denied twice by insurance).”

Cupp was 5-foot-7 and 282 pounds, with a wedding ring the size of a quarter. He had a white beard, his face wide and warm. He wore blue jean overalls and scuffed leather work boots. He had spent most of his life as a welder, working at metal fabrication shops in and around his hometown of Circleville, Ohio, population 14,063. He was 61, nearly the same age as his father when he died from a massive heart attack. Cupp was a stoic, his daughter Chris said, but the denial worried him.

“Well, I have to call the doctor and see what we’re going to do,” he told her after the second rejection.

The doctor decided to give up on getting an approval for the catheter exam. In challenging EviCore, he was fighting not just a company but an industry.

EviCore is the product of a massive, decadeslong push by insurance companies to control health care costs. They point to studies that show 20% to 45% of some medical treatments are wasteful or ineffective. To decrease such spending, insurers began requiring doctors to seek permission for medical care before agreeing to pay for it — a process known as “utilization review.” As treatments became more complex, the reviews proved costly in themselves.

Created from a 2014 merger of two smaller companies, EviCore offered a solution: It allowed insurers to outsource prior authorization decisions for the most specialized and expensive procedures. EviCore today issues recommendations for imaging, oncology, cardiology, gastroenterology, sleep problems and many other fields.

It works with more than 100 insurers across the country, including industry titans such as UnitedHealthcare, Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield and some Medicare and Medicaid contractors. Cigna took over the company in 2018, but EviCore maintains its independence by blocking insurers from prying into one another’s proprietary data.

In responses to inquiries, the large insurance companies said they hired EviCore as a way to make sure that customers received safe and necessary medical treatments, while holding down costs for inappropriate care.

EviCore built its business by relying on different types of contracts. In one, a health insurance company pays EviCore a flat rate to review coverage requests.

Another type is more lucrative, providing an incentive for EviCore to cut costs, former employees said. Known as risk contracts, EviCore takes on the responsibility for paying claims. As an example, say an insurer spends $10 million a year on MRIs. If EviCore keeps costs below that figure, it pockets the difference. In some cases, it splits the savings with the insurance company.

“Where you really made your money was on a risk model,” a former EviCore executive said. “Their margins were exponentially higher.”

EviCore teams involved in developing the algorithms and contracting with clients “operate separately” from reviewers “to prevent any potential conflicts of interest,” according to the statement from Cigna’s spokesperson.

Insurers do not make explicit demands for more denials, a former EviCore sales executive said, Instead, they asked about “controlling the spend” — the amount of money paid out on certain procedures, he said. Nor would EviCore always use the word “denials” — they employed circumlocutions like “inappropriate determinations.”

Aetna and Cigna are two of the companies that have requested “high touch” plans — those that would send more cases to clinical review and thus generate more denials, according to the former employee involved in data issues.

Aetna did not directly respond to whether it used “high touch” plans. “Although we never automate medical necessity denials, we automate and provide real-time approval of some services to ease administrative burden and allow providers to focus on patient care,” the insurer said in a statement. Cigna did not respond to questions about its use of such plans.

The fact that these big companies focused on profits and can play all these games is quite disturbing to me.

“When you have human eyes on something, you can pick up where there might be a gray area where the algorithm might not pick up,” a former EviCore account executive said. “That is how you would increase the denial rate.”

EviCore can also adjust the algorithm to achieve its internal goals, without the knowledge of clients, former employees said. This happened when EviCore was not generating enough savings to demonstrate its value to insurers, several former employees told ProPublica.

“The pressure from our business leaders was to make sure that we were able to provide evidence of a strong enough impact to justify the contracts with clients,” said the former employee involved with technology.

The system also runs in reverse. When doctors or employer health plans complain about high rejection rates, insurance companies can ask EviCore to back off. The company simply adjusts its algorithm to approve more prior authorization requests.

Dave Jones, a former California insurance commissioner and now director of the climate risk initiative at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said arbitrarily increasing or decreasing manual reviews didn’t appear to violate any standards. Still, he questioned whether a payment structure or contract for EviCore based on reducing claims payments or authorizations would result in objective and thorough evaluations of prior authorization requests, as required by law.

“That to me is troubling,” Jones said. “It suggests that the claim settlement procedure is not objective, right?” He added, “It calls into question everything that’s occurring.”

Other industry experts found the manipulation of denial rates upsetting.

“The fact that these big companies focused on profits and can play all these games is quite disturbing to me,” said Martin Lustick, a former insurance executive and the author of a book on industry practices. “They know the more reviews they do, the more denials they get.”

On March 2, 2022, Cupp and his daughter entered the Adena Regional Medical Center, a gray and glass building surrounded by central Ohio’s low rolling hills.

It had been almost three months since EviCore first turned down coverage for the catheterization. Changing tack, Cupp’s doctor ordered a new exam, which EviCore approved, called a nuclear stress test. It shows how well blood flows through your heart.

A heart catheterization generally costs around $3,500 when done in network, according to Fair Health, a nonprofit that tracks health care prices. A nuclear stress test runs about $315.

Afterward, Cupp greeted Chris in the waiting room. He told her he felt fine. They went for lunch at a favorite hamburger spot. At the time, they did not know the results of the stress test, which showed that his heart was pumping even less blood than indicated by his echocardiogram.

At each step of the way, EviCore had steered Cupp’s medical treatment by denying or approving his doctor’s coverage requests based on its own internal guidelines.

Those guidelines have long been the subject of complaints from doctors. Over the past five years, organizations ranging from the American College of Cardiology to the Society for Vascular Surgery to ASTRO, the American Society for Radiation Oncology, have written to EviCore or regulators that the guidelines are flawed and can interfere with delivering the right care for patients. Benjamin Durkee, a doctor who chairs ASTRO’s payor relations committee, said EviCore had generally made “a good faith” effort to respond to the society’s concerns. But, he noted, the company continues to consistently deny a radiation treatment called proton beam therapy for some pelvic tumors that is more costly but supported by ASTRO’s recommendations.

A 2023 academic study examined the criteria EviCore used to approve payment for imaging of the lower spine in cases of extreme pain. It found the guidelines deficient. Two of five medical experts who reviewed the guidelines even recommended not using them.

A 2018 audit by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, found that Health Care Service Corporation, a Blue Cross Blue Shield insurer, had hired EviCore to review prior authorizations. EviCore, the audit found, played a role in making “inappropriate denials” for 30 patients because it failed to keep its cancer guidelines up to date. As a result, EviCore retrained its staff. HCSC did not respond for comment.

Former employees have also questioned how the guidelines were put to use.

A maternal-fetal medicine physician in Colorado, Gail Miller, took a job as a doctor at EviCore in 2018. The idea of ensuring safe medical practices appealed to her. But she soon grew convinced that EviCore was more interested in saving money.

EviCore rejected her suggestions for improving its maternal fetal health guidelines. Her supervisor required her to decide at least 15 cases an hour — or one every four minutes. She often reviewed requests by physicians outside her specialty.

Nine months after starting at EviCore, Miller quit, disappointed by the attitudes of some of her colleagues. “Most of the physicians who work at these places just don’t care,” she said. “Any empathy they had is gone.”

EviCore noted its clinical staff had “high engagement, satisfaction and retention rates.” It said the most common reason for denying a prior authorization is because doctors neglect to include necessary information.

EviCore meets regularly with insurers and state Medicaid programs. It is a critical part of the business. The company has to demonstrate savings or clients will have little reason to continue their contracts.

Typical was a 2019 meeting with Vermont’s Medicaid program, which for years had used EviCore to review coverage requests for advanced radiology and cardiology scans. A slide show demonstrated how the company had helped lower costs for cardiac imaging through denials. Rates had zigzagged, from a high of almost 15% of requests in one three-month period to a low of 6.1% in another.

But the presentation, obtained through Vermont’s Public Records Act, revealed another way that EviCore saved money for insurers. Prior authorization requests for radiology imaging services had dropped to 3,629, a decline of 16%. Cardiology requests had plummeted even more — down 38% in a little more than a year. Doctors had simply stopped asking for procedures for their patients.

An EviCore executive called this the “sentinel effect” at a legislative hearing in Kansas. It is like the sheriff coming to town. Once doctors know EviCore is watching, they make fewer inappropriate prior authorization requests, he said.

Doctors, however, say that such decreases reflect how difficult it is to fight EviCore and similar companies. Their entrance into the market frustrates doctors from making otherwise legitimate requests.

In its statement, Cigna described the sentinel effect differently. The company said that it helps doctors stay up to date on best practices. “Sentinel effect refers to the reduction in frequency with which physicians order inappropriate services because they are now aware of the latest clinical evidence,” the statement read.

A spokesperson for Vermont’s Medicaid program said the state does not believe that EviCore made unfair or unsound coverage recommendations. Instead, EviCore helped Vermont make “sound decisions from both a fiscal and patient care perspective.”

“It is never a goal for the state of Vermont or our third-party contractors to deny service,” said Alex McCracken, spokesperson of Department of Vermont Health Access. “We are committed to delivery of service for our customers.”

Vermont eventually ended its contract with EviCore because it decided to no longer require prior authorization for advanced imaging scans in its Medicaid program.

The day after his stress test, Cupp drove to his granddaughter’s high school to drop off her archery bow — it had been left behind in the morning rush. He and his wife went shopping at the grocery store. That evening, he watched as his grandkids showed off some baby frogs they had purchased at a pet store.

He went to bed at 8:30 p.m. in order to wake at 2:30 a.m. for the hourlong drive to his job as a maintenance worker at a medical supplies warehouse just south of Columbus.

At about 10:30 p.m., Cupp’s wife, Vivian, shook Chris awake. “Your dad’s breathing funny,” she told her. Chris ran into their bedroom. Her father was gasping for air. Suddenly, he stopped. Chris began CPR. She told her mom to call 911.

By the time the ambulance arrived at Adena Regional Medical Center, where he had received his nuclear stress test 36 hours earlier, his body was mottled and cool. He had suffered cardiac arrest. The time of death was 11:39 p.m.

ProPublica asked four cardiology experts to review Cupp’s medical situation. One cardiologist said she would not have recommended a heart catheterization. Given his symptoms, which did not include complaints about chest pain, the best diagnostic tool would have been the stress test, she said.

Three others said the heart catheterization was appropriate. One cardiologist noted that Cupp was diabetic, overweight and showed signs of having suffered a prior heart attack. “It’s very reasonable to say we’ll just go straight to a heart catheterization,” the cardiologist said.

If Cupp had received the procedure when first ordered, his life may have been saved, one expert said. “The doctor was absolutely right to order the catheterization. It was certainly necessary,” said Jonni Cooper, president of American Board of Cardiovascular Medicine and a board certified cardiovascular nurse practitioner.

State and federal regulators rarely impose onerous penalties on companies like EviCore.

Connecticut’s Insurance Department recently reviewed EviCore and Carelon. It found no problems with Carelon. EviCore was fined $16,000 this year for more than 77 violations found in a review of 196 files. EviCore is also accredited by two trade associations, which review companies periodically for compliance with industry standards.

Holding the companies legally responsible for their decisions is also difficult. In 2022, Carelon settled a lawsuit for $13 million that alleged the company, then called AIM, had used a variety of techniques to avoid approving coverage requests. Among them: The company set its fax machines to receive only 5 to 10 pages. When doctors faxed prior authorization requests longer than the limit, company representatives would deny them for failing to have enough documentation. Carelon denied the allegations in court and admitted no fault. A spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Elevance, Carelon’s parent company, said its subsidiary “is focused on improving health outcomes while also lowering the cost of care.”

This year, Chris, representing Cupp’s estate, sued United Healthcare, EviCore, the Adena Regional Medical Center and Cupp’s doctor, accusing them of malpractice, among other allegations. Cupp’s attorney, John Markus, later decided to drop United and EviCore. Lawsuits against employer-funded health plans, like the one Cupp had with United, must be tried in federal court, where case law favors insurance companies. For instance, insurers found at fault do not pay punitive damages, only the cost of treatment. The medical center and the doctor declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation. In court, both denied any wrongdoing. United and EviCore declined to discuss Cupp’s case, despite an offer from Chris to sign a waiver of medical privacy rights.

Her father’s death wracked Chris. He had been her best friend. He helped raise her three kids. He provided for the family. Two years before his death, he purchased a new double-wide trailer to replace a rusting single-wide the family had lived in for years. It had four bedrooms, enough for everyone. It stood on the side of a hill, surrounded by oak and maple, a leafy retreat with a view of the valley below.

Cupp was buried at a cemetery across from a cornfield on March 9. A gray granite headstone marks his date of death.

Chris Cupp drives a school bus to make ends meet. For extra pay, she picks up a lot of the trips for night games. She says she hopes that no one else has to go through what she did.

“Insurance has too much say over something that can save your life,” she said. “When it comes to your heart, something that’s going to kill you, they have too much say in that. That’s my thought about it.”

Do You Have Insights Into Dental and Health Insurance Denials? Help Us Report on the System.

Agnel Philip contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by .

Representatives from over 200 media outlets — including executives from Reuters and The Associated Press — government agencies and international organizations attended the 6th World Media Summit, which opened Monday in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, to discuss how artificial intelligence, or AI, is transforming the media industry.

The summit was organized by China’s official Xinhua News Agency and the Xinjiang regional government.

In addition to speeches about AI, Chinese officials blasted Western news reports that have shed light on the oppression of the 12 million Uyghurs who live in Xinjiang, or East Turkistan, as Uyghurs prefer to call it.

The United States and some Western parliaments have said there is credible evidence that China’s treatment of the Uyghurs is a “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.” The U.S. Congress has also passed a law banning the import of goods and materials suspected of being made by Uyghur forced labor.

But Ma Xingrui, Communist Party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, rejected the accusations, saying all ethnic groups in the region live peacefully.

“Some anti-China forces in the world have disregarded the facts, wantonly fabricated lies such as ‘genocide’ and ‘forced labor’ in Xinjiang, China, and maliciously imposed unilateral sanctions,” he said in a speech, according to a post on the Xinjiang government website.

“At present, Xinjiang has a stable society, a prosperous economy, and people of all ethnic groups live and work in peace and contentment, and the development situation continues to improve,” he continued.

Amplifying a narrative

Ma’s comments are an example of how China is amplifying its own narrative about the Uyghurs living happily and enjoying prosperity despite evidence to the contrary, including many stories by Radio Free Asia.

China does not permit journalists to travel freely in Xinjiang and convincing Uyghurs contacted by phone to talk to reporters outside the country puts them at considerable risk of punishment.

Representatives from Al Jazeera, Russian news agency TASS, the Malaysian National News Agency, the Kyrgyz State News Agency, South Africa’s Independent Media, Hungary’s ATV and media organizations from China-friendly countries also attended the event.

RELATED STORIES

Uyghurs sentenced to cumulative 4.4 million years in prison: study

China pushes ‘Sinicization of Islam’ in Xinjiang as Ramadan arrives

Visiting Xinjiang, Xi Jinping doubles down on hard-line policies against Uyghurs

“Their fundamental purpose is to drag the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang into poverty and backwardness, and then realize the plot of ‘using Xinjiang to control China,’” Ma said, according to comments from the speech published in Chinese by the Xinjiang government. 

The report went on to make comments that weren’t clearly attributed to any one person, saying, “Everyone appreciates China’s Xinjiang’s remarkable achievements in various fields and fully recognizes Xinjiang’s important contributions to regional social stability, economic development and cultural prosperity.

It said that “China’s Xinjiang has repeatedly been the target of false propaganda and malicious attacks. But it turns out that the narrative about human rights violations in Xinjiang is based on false information and is purely for political purposes.”

Harnessing AI

Also, it comes as no surprise that China is interested in harnessing the power of AI — the theme of the conference — to spread its narratives, said Henryk Szadziewski, research director at the Uyghur Human Rights Project in Washington.

“Urumqi is, of course, a strategic place because the Uyghur region is one of the leading spaces in China where China is spreading disinformation about conditions on the ground,” he told RFA. “It’s a leading part in China’s messaging to the globe.” 

China’s efforts to promote its narrative appears to be paying off.

Bassam Zakarneh, a member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council of Palestine, who led a delegation of Palestinian and other Arab politicians on a visit to Xinjiang in March, told Xinhua in an interview on Monday that the West was “trying to exploit anything to undermine China's progress and development” through a smear campaign against Beijing’s Xinjiang policy.  

“Our visit and observation on the ground were proof that Western propaganda is false,” he said.   

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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

Hurricane Helene tears through the southeastern United States as scientists say climate change rapidly intensifies hurricanes. The storm devastated large swaths of the southeastern United States after making landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm. Officials say the death toll is likely to rise, as many are still missing. Helene is expected to be one of the costliest hurricanes in U.S. history and was fueled by abnormally warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, but most of the media coverage has failed to connect the devastation to the climate crisis. “The planet’s overheating. It’s irreversible. It’s caused by the fossil fuel industry,” says climate activist and climate scientist Peter Kalmus in Raleigh, North Carolina. “This will get worse as the planet continues to get hotter.”

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

“The sentencing of Tunisian lawyer and media commentator Sonia Dahmani to eight months in prison on appeal, instead of releasing and acquitting her, is unacceptable because she did not belong in prison in the first place,” said CPJ Interim MENA Program Coordinator Yeganeh Rezaian. “Tunisian authorities must release Dahmani, drop all charges against her, and allow all journalists in the country to cover the elections without intimidation.”

The Tunisian appeals court, issuing its verdict without a hearing and without the presence of Dahmani’s legal representatives, reduced her sentence from one year to eight months.

Dahmani, a lawyer and commentator for local independent radio station IFM and television channel Carthage Plus, was arrested on May 11 over comments that authorities deemed critical of President Kais Saied. On July 6, a court convicted her and imposed a one-year sentence.

Dahmani’s defense team said she had been subjected to a “disgraceful body search” while in custody and forced to wear a long white veil typically worn by inmates convicted of sexual offenses.

Tunisian authorities have tightened their grip over media coverage of the upcoming October 6 elections. Last week, authorities banned sales of the September print issue of Paris-based magazine Jeune Afrique featuring an investigative report about Saied, while the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) prevented journalists from attending the announcement of final election candidates. On August 20, ISIE revoked the press accreditation of Khaoula Boukrim, editor-in-chief of local news website Tumedia, which would likely prevent her from covering the elections.

CPJ’s email to ISIE, and its phone call to the Ministry of Interior, requesting comment on Dahmani’s sentencing, and violations regarding the election coverage received no responses.

Editor’s note: The headline was updated to correct a typo.

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

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The Biden administration announced on Monday that it has finalized new regulations to strengthen protections for mental health care coverage and hold insurance companies accountable for unlawfully denying it.

The rules update the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which was passed in 2008, requiring health insurance plans to provide the same access to mental health care as medical care. The new provisions will force health insurance plans to collect and report more robust data on how they limit and deny mental health claims. If disparities exist between mental and medical care, insurers will need to lay out how they are attempting to address these gaps.

“Mental health care is health care. But for far too many Americans, critical care and treatments are out of reach,” President Joe Biden said in a press release announcing the final rules. “There is no reason that breaking your arm should be treated differently than having a mental health condition.”

The updated rules seek to address a problem captured in numerous studies and reports and examined in a new level of detail in a recent ProPublica investigation.

Although nearly all Americans have health insurance, millions still can't access mental health care. ProPublica found that insurance companies have interfered with patient care, deployed aggressive audits and set reimbursement rates so low that providers felt they had no choice but to quit insurance networks. Our reporting also documented how consequences can be fatal when patients can’t find therapists or mental health treatment.

Federal regulators have struggled to police insurance companies. Nearly all of the recent reports that the Department of Labor has collected from insurers and health plans have lacked enough detail to determine companies’ compliance with the law, the department reported to Congress last year. Some states have passed laws to close those gaps in information, but we found mental health protections often depend on where one lives.

The new rules require insurers to collect and turn over outcomes data, like denial rates, to measure how often patients access care. The companies will have to disclose details on insurance networks, which may include how regularly patients go out of network for mental health treatment and how reimbursement rates are calculated for mental health providers.

The rules also clarify that patients have the right to access this data and require insurers and health plans to furnish records within 30 days of a request.

Republican U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who chairs the Committee on Education and the Workforce, said the rules are too burdensome. “These rules do nothing to improve mental health care access and instead put paperwork over patients,” she said in an emailed statement.

But former U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, who sponsored the 2008 parity bill and co-founded the mental health advocacy nonprofit The Kennedy Forum, said the new rules will protect access for patients. “This is an opportunity for consumers to finally have a seat at the table,” he told ProPublica.

The law applies to 175 million people who have private health insurance. Under the new rules, these protections will also cover people with health insurance through state and local governments, about 120,000 additional Americans.

The finalized regulations came after a yearlong review process, in which three departments — Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Labor — collected thousands of public comments. The departments had initially published proposed rules in August 2023. Some of the provisions will go into effect on Jan. 1, said Lisa Gomez, the assistant secretary of employee benefits security at the Department of Labor.

“People living with mental health conditions and substance use disorders continue to face greater barriers,” she said. “That’s not fair, it’s not right and it’s against the law.”

We’re Investigating Mental Health Care Access. Share Your Insights.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Maya Miller and Annie Waldman.

Advocates estimate that hundreds of Russian journalists have fled into exile, where some continue to face transnational repression such as arrest warrants and jail terms in absentia Those who remain are under heavy scrutiny as independent reporting hangs on by a thread. 

While practicing journalism in Russia has long been difficult, the government has stepped up efforts to quash the work of the media by passing new anti-press laws, amending others, and expanding censorship efforts. “The overall aim, no doubt, if we’re talking about all these tools, of course it’s to muzzle, and they manage to do that, so that people … self-censor,” the JMWU representative told CPJ. 

Here are the most common methods Russia has used to silence the press since the war began: 

Criminalizing ‘fake news’ about the war 

One of the Russian government’s first acts to prevent coverage of the war, in March 2022, was to pass amendments to the criminal code to punish the distribution of “fake news” about the army. At least five journalists are imprisoned for allegedly distributing fake information on the military, one is under house arrest, and several others have been charged in absentia. That includes U.S.-Russian journalist and author Masha Gessen; Russia issued an arrest warrant against Gessen in 2023 for allegedly spreading “fake information” about Russia’s massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha in a 2022 interview and sentenced Gessen to eight years in absentia on July 15, 2024. A week later, on July 23, the Russian authorities sentenced Mikhail Zygar,  the former editor-in-chief of the now-exiled Russian broadcaster Dozhd TV (TV Rain) and a CPJ 2014 International Press Freedom Awardee, to eight-and-a half years in absentia over an Instagram post about the Bucha massacre.

Russia has used anti-state laws to retaliate against other members of the press, such as the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich, convicted on espionage charges, and Russian journalist Ivan Safronov, who is serving a 22-year prison term for treason. Another journalist, Antonina Favorskaya, was charged with participating in an extremist formation after covering the court hearings of late opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Her colleague Artyom Krieger is currently jailed on similar charges. 

Expanding ‘foreign agent’ and ‘undesirable’ designations 

Russia’s “foreign agent” law, first introduced in 2012 and extended in 2017 to specifically target media outlets and journalists, originally required recipients of foreign funding to apply a “foreign agent” label to any published material and report their own activities and expenses to the government. Initially seen as a badge of honor and opposition by independent news outlets and journalists, the label has become more burdensome during the war. In March 2024, Russia banned advertisements on “foreign agent” outlets, harming the bottom line for many news organizations and YouTube channels. Russia has also made it easier for authorities to impose the “foreign agent” label on individuals and outlets by removing the requirement that the Ministry of Justice prove foreign funding in July 2022. 

According to Dmitrii Anisimov, a spokesperson and campaigner for the human rights news website OVD-Info, as of July 2024, some 268 journalists and media outlets were labeled as “foreign agents” in the country. With the Ukraine war, journalists have been increasingly fined for failing to list their status or submit the required reports, and some even face imprisonment. Prior to her release, Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian journalist and an editor for U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was detained for more than nine months after being accused of failing to register as a “foreign agent” and later sentenced to 6-and-a-half years on charges of spreading “fake” news about the Russian army. Denis Kamalyagin, a Russian journalist in exile, is facing two years in jail for not complying with the law, he told CPJ. 

Since the war, Russia has also been increasingly applying another label—“undesirable” —to media outlets. Widely considered an escalation of the “foreign agent” label, the “undesirable” label was first introduced in 2015 to effectively ban organizations registered abroad from operating in the country. Working for an “undesirable” organization can carry a six-year prison sentence and administrative fines. It’s also a crime to distribute content from an “undesirable” organization or donate to it from inside or outside Russia. 

Before the war, the investigative site Proekt, was the only media outlet deemed “undesirable,” but as of July 2024, 20 have been slapped with the label, according to Anisimov. Between January and June 2024, Russian authorities opened at least 28 media-related cases against individuals for “participation in an undesirable organization,” according to Alexander Borodikhin, a data reporter with independent news outlet Mediazona. Borodikhin told CPJ that of the 28 cases, 12 are against journalists, 14 are against people who reposted “undesirable” content, and two are against journalistic sources. 

Maria Epifanova, CEO of Latvia-based Novaya Gazeta Europe, which was deemed “undesirable” in June 2023, told CPJ that the label impacted the outlet’s work and finances. Freelancers in Russia “have to work in fear, write under pseudonyms,” she said. Anyone who talks to the outlet is also at risk. “We have to hide the names and details that help identify a person. That dramatically influences the credibility of articles,” Epifanova said.

Some outlets can’t survive the designation. HelpDesk media was launched shortly before the full-scale invasion “to show the war in Ukraine through the eyes of ordinary people,” according to the website. On May 20, less than five months after being labeled “undesirable,” it announced its closure, saying it did not have enough funds to keep operating. 

Revoking media licenses and blocking websites

Some Russian outlets are in danger of losing their government-issued licenses over coverage, particularly since Russia passed a July 2022 law allowing authorities to invalidate the registration of media outlets without a court order. According to the Mass Media Defense Center, a Russian group that provides legal aid to journalists and news outlets, as well as other journalists CPJ spoke with, registration has many benefits, including faster responses to requests for comment from officials and eligibility for accreditation to cover official functions. 

Leading Russian independent news site Novaya Gazeta — not to be confused with Novaya Gazeta Europe, made up of ex-employees of the former who fled the country — had both its print and online licenses canceled in September 2022. Nadezhda Prusenkova, the head of the outlet’s press department, told CPJ that the outlet is in survival mode. “No circulation, no advertising, just crowdfunding and [an] online shop. No salary for journalists. No possibility to work officially [from places that require accreditation].” 

Some outlets have their content blocked online before they lose their license. Mark Nebesnyi, the editor-in-chief of independent news outlet Svobodnye Media, told CPJ that the Russian state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, blocked its website shortly after the start of the full-scale invasion without any explanation. He believes the blocking was in retaliation for the outlet’s critical reporting on the war, the Russian government, and the outlet’s investigations into alleged embezzlement of the state budget. After the blocking, which he said caused a significant economic blow, Svobodnye Media lost its license in October 2023. 

According to a representative of Russian independent internet freedom group Roskomsvoboda, who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, the organization’s records show that more than 18,500 websites had been blocked in connection with their reporting on the war as of May 2024. Many websites pull down their own content in fear of retaliation, Roskomsvoboda reported last year. 

Foreign journalists and their outlets have also faced arbitrary and repressive measures. Several members of the foreign press were forced to leave following the withdrawal of their accreditation or the denial of their visa renewals. In late June, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that access to 81 European media outlets would be blocked because they spread “false information” about the war. 

“[In Russia], independent journalism is still possible. But that’s the problem. You never know how long you’re going to exist and what you’re risking,” the JMWU representative said.

CPJ emailed the Russian investigative committee, the Russian prosecutor general’s office, and media regulator Roskomnadzor for comment on measures against the press, but did not receive any reply.

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

Government security forces shot and injured one journalist and arrested six others—two of whom remain in detention—while covering the protests.

“CPJ is extremely concerned about a sharp increase in the harassment and detention of journalists in Venezuela by government security agents following the contentious July 28 presidential election,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, from São Paulo. “CPJ calls on authorities to allow the media to do its job of keeping the public properly informed in the aftermath of the vote.”

Venezuela’s National Press Workers Union (SNTP) said the state regulator Conatel warned numerous private radio stations in the states of Bolívar, Falcón, Zulia, Carabobo, and Aragua not to report on opposition protests, as broadcasting news that “violates elements classified as violence” could result in fines or the cancellation of their broadcast licenses.

Última Hora, an online newspaper in western Portuguesa state, said Friday that it would close after state governor Primitivo Cedeño accused local media outlets of “inciting hatred” in their coverage of the presidential election and its aftermath, according to the SNTP.  

Members of the National Guard shot Jesús Romero, editor of news website Código Urbe, in the abdomen and leg while he was covering anti-government protests in Maracay, the capital of Aragua state, on Monday. Romero is recovering at a local hospital. 

National Guard troops arrested Yousner Alvarado, a camera operator covering protests that same day for the online news site Noticia Digital, in the western city of Barinas. SNTP reported that he remains detained and has been charged with terrorism. 

Police officers arrested Paul León, a camera operator for online TV station VPI-TV, while he covered protests in the western city of Valera on Tuesday. He remained in detention as of Friday, August 2.

CPJ’s calls seeking comment from Conatel and the Defense Ministry, which controls the National Guard, were unanswered.

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

Imagine that you’re the parent of a child who suffers from a rare mental health condition that causes anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. Psychiatric medications and therapy do not work for this condition.

There is a treatment that has been shown to work in adults, but there’s very little research in kids, apart from a few small studies that have come out of the Netherlands, where they are prescribing these treatments. Doctors in your own country, however, won’t prescribe it until your child is 18, to avoid any unwanted side effects from the medication.

Meanwhile, your child has suffered for years, and attempted suicide multiple times. As a parent, what do you do? Do you take your kid overseas, or let them continue to suffer?

“Awareness of transgender children is growing,” the Guardian (8/13/08) reported 16 years ago.

This is precisely the situation that parents of trans kids in Britain were facing 16 years ago, when the Guardian (8/13/08) ran a story on their efforts to get the country’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) to prescribe puberty blockers for their kids. The Guardian noted how grim the situation was for these kids and their parents:

Sarah believes that anyone watching a teenager go through this process would want them to have the drugs as soon as possible. Her daughter was denied them until the age of 16, by which point she already had an Adam’s apple, a deep voice and facial hair….

“It takes a long, long time to come to terms with. It took us about two years to stop crying for our loss and also for the pain that we knew our child was going to have to go through. No one would choose this. It’s too hard.”

Short-lived success

Dr. Hilary Cass told the BBC (4/20/24) that “misinformation” about her work makes her “very angry.”

After years of struggle, UK parents successfully lobbied the NHS to start prescribing gender-affirming medical treatments for minors under 16 in 2011. Their success, however, was short-lived.

In April, NHS England released the findings of a four-year inquiry into GIDS led by Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician with no experience treating adolescents with gender dysphoria. On the recommendation of the Cass Review, which was highly critical of adolescent medical transition, the NHS services in England, Wales and Scotland have stopped prescribing puberty blockers for gender dysphoria. The British government also banned private clinics from prescribing them, at least temporarily.

Though there is much more evidence now to support gender-affirming care than in 2008, there is also a much stronger anti-trans movement seeking to discredit and ban such care.

British media coverage has given that movement a big boost in recent years, turning the spotlight away from the realities that trans kids and their families are facing, and pumping out stories nitpicking at the strength of the expanding evidence base for gender-affirming care. Its coverage of the Cass Review followed suit.

US media, unsurprisingly, gave less coverage to the British review, but most of the in-depth coverage followed British media’s model. Underlying this coverage are questionable claims by people with no experience treating minors with gender dysphoria, and double standards regarding the evidence for medical and alternative treatments.

More evidence, worse coverage

The most impactful—and controversial—recommendation of the Cass Review is that puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones on those under 16 should be confined to clinical research settings only, due to the supposed weakness of the studies underpinning gender-affirming treatments for minors, and the possibility of unwanted side effects:

While a considerable amount of research has been published in this field, systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices.

This stands in direct opposition to guidelines and recommendations from major medical associations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), which support gender-affirming medical interventions for youth.

WPATH (5/17/24) expressed bewilderment at the Cass Review’s approach, and noted that its reviews “do not contain any new research that would contradict the recommendations” of those groups, which were updated in 2022.

So what could explain the divergence? For starters, the review took place in the context of a rising anti-trans culture in England, and the NHS took the highly unusual approach of excluding experts on pediatric gender-affirming care from the review.

At the same time, the Cass Review, and the NHS England Policy Working Group that preceded it, had clinicians on its team with ties to advocacy groups that oppose gender-affirming treatment for minors, so its bias was questioned even before the review was released. The Cass Review has been a major boon for these advocacy groups, as its recommendations are exactly what those groups have been calling for.

‘Arbitrarily assigned quality’

“It’s a bad-faith claim that we don’t have enough evidence for pubertal suppressants or gender-affirming hormones,” a Harvard Med School psychiatry professor told Mother Jones (5/10/24).

The systematic review on puberty blockers conducted by the Cass Review excluded 24 studies, with reviewers scoring this research as “low quality.” But Meredithe McNamara, assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale, told FAIR that the scale the Cass Review used to grade study quality is not typically used by guideline developers. Under this methodology, the authors excluded many studies from consideration for what she describes as “arbitrarily assigned quality.”

A recent white paper from the Yale Law School Integrity Project, co-authored by McNamara, explains the flaws more in depth:

They modified the scale in an arbitrary way that permitted the exclusion of studies from further consideration, for reasons irrelevant to clinical care. For instance, in the York SR on social transition, the modified NOS asked if study samples were “truly representative of the average child or adolescent with
gender dysphoria.” There is no such thing as the “average child or adolescent with gender dysphoria”—this is an inexpertly devised and meaningless concept that is neither defined by the authors nor used in clinical research. And yet it was grounds for excluding several important studies from consideration.

The Yale report highlights the problems that come from assigning authors who are unfamiliar with essential concepts in gender care. For example, puberty blockers are not intended to reduce gender dysphoria, but rather halt the effects of puberty. The systematic review looked at gender dysphoria reduction as a metric of the treatment’s success, however, which the Yale report says was an “inappropriate standard.”

Moreover, even studies scored as low quality by more standard scales are not uncommon in medicine, and do not mean “poor quality” (despite Cass’s slippage between the two) or “junk science.” Doctors can and do often make treatment recommendations based on evidence that is rated low quality. A 2020 study in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology (9/2/20) found that 53% of treatments are supported by either “low quality” or “very low quality” evidence. Many commonly prescribed antidepressants, for example, have low-quality evidence for use in populations under 18—but many families decide, with the help of a doctor, that it’s still the best choice for their child.

This is why the guidelines supported by WPATH do not deviate from the norms of medical practice in recommending puberty blockers based on the large amount of evidence we do have. As with all medical treatments, WPATH recommends doctors should inform patients and their parents of the potential risks and benefits, and allow them to decide what is best. This approach aligns with evidence-based medicine’s requirement to integrate the values and preferences of the patient with the best available evidence.

‘Shaky foundations’

Of eight articles the Guardian ran on the Cass Review, only one (4/9/24) quoted any trans youth or their parents.

Cass also conducted a second systematic review on cross-sex hormones, which excluded 19 studies for being “low quality.” In spite of their exclusion, the systematic review still found “moderate quality” evidence for the mental health benefits of these treatments, a fact that Cass omits from her BMJ column (4/9/24) published concurrently with the review’s release, where she claims that pediatric gender medicine is built on “shaky foundations.”

These “shaky foundations” of “poor quality” evidence that Cass trumpeted were largely gobbled up by media, despite the criticisms of both expert groups like WPATH, and trans kids and their parents. Guardian readers almost certainly wouldn’t know that the amount of data we have on these treatments since the paper’s 2008 piece has expanded considerably: Every single one of the 103 studies on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors that the Cass Review found was published after 2008. That’s not the story that’s being told; in fact, it’s not even mentioned in the Guardian’s initial story (4/9/24) on the findings of the Cass Review, which put Cass’s “shaky foundations” quote in its headline.

That story exemplifies the problem with the frequent media scrutiny of evidence quality that is completely devoid of the circumstances under which trans youth and their parents have sought these treatments for more than a decade. In fact, these teens and their parents have been all but erased from the paper’s coverage.

The Guardian released eight stories and a podcast on the Cass Review in the first month of its coverage. Only two trans youth and one parent were quoted across these nine pieces.

Readers can’t fully understand why trans youth and their parents would seek out a treatment with “low-quality” or “moderate-quality” evidence without understanding their circumstances. And they can’t fully judge a policy decision to restrict these treatments without understanding how much more evidence we have now than we did when desperate parents were seeking them out abroad.

Same problem across the pond

WBUR‘s interviewer (5/8/24) did not challenge Cass on her nonsensical statements, such as her assertion that “let[ting] young people go through their typical puberty” is the best way to “leave their options open.”

Some US outlets have, unsurprisingly, followed the British pattern in their coverage of the Cass Review, not questioning Cass’s tendentious interpretations, and sidelining the voices of trans youth and their parents.

Boston NPR station WBUR (OnPoint, 5/8/24) aired a lengthy interview with Cass. For almost two hours, host Meghna Chakrabarti gave Cass a friendly platform to pontificate on such matters as how pornography might be causing more kids to identify as trans, without asking her to substantiate her claims:

So we looked at what we understand about the biology, but obviously biology hasn’t changed suddenly in the last 10 years. So then we tried to look at, what has changed? And one is the overall mental health of teenage girls, in particular, although boys, to some degree. And that may also be driven by social media, by early exposure to pornography, and a whole series of other factors that are happening for girls.

While Chakrabarti raised some criticisms of the Cass Review, she never pressed Cass on her answers. For instance, when the host quoted WPATH’s statement that the Cass Review would “severely restrict access to physical healthcare for gender-questioning young people,” Cass suggested that trans youth will still be able to access treatment “under proper research supervision”—yet such research has yet to be announced. Chakrabarti did not press her on when these studies will start, what the criteria for participation will be, or what parents and kids are supposed to do in the meantime. Nor did she ask how long it will take to get into a study; currently the GIDS wait times are over six years.

Cass repeatedly argued that the key for youth seeking gender-affirming care was to “keep their options open.” Yet Chakrabarti never questioned how preventing young people from accessing puberty blockers helps achieve this, even when Cass argued that trans boys shouldn’t receive hormone treatment because male hormones “cause irreversible effects.” By this logic, the Cass Review should have required all trans girls to receive puberty blockers to prevent those same “irreversible effects.” Cass’s double standard also doesn’t take into account that estrogen puberty likewise causes irreversible effects that are not fully or easily reversible, such as height, voice and breast growth.

Incredibly, Cass described decisions about these treatments as very individual ones that need to be made with patients and doctors—which happens to be what WPATH recommends, and what the Cass Review has made virtually impossible. Cass told WBUR:

And for any one person, it’s just a careful decision about balancing, whether you have arrived at your final destination in terms of understanding your identity, versus keeping those options open. And that’s a really personal decision that you have to take with your medical practitioner, with the best understanding that we can give young people about the risks versus the benefits.

Rather than asking how exactly this squares with the Cass Review recommendations that have, at least for now, shut down all NHS medical gender-affirming care, Chakrabati changed the subject.

Chakrabarti’s segment also had a second part, which could have been used to interview an expert who disagreed with Cass’s findings. Instead, she interviewed two pediatric gender clinicians—one of whom, Laura Edwards-Leeper, had been a speaker at a conference against gender-affirming care in 2023—who offered no criticism aside from the fact that requiring mental health treatment for social transition would be impractical in the US, due to a lack of national healthcare.

‘Under political duress’

“There are young people who absolutely benefit from a medical pathway, and we need to make sure that those young people have access,” Cass told the New York Times (5/13/24)—before adding, “under a research protocol,” even though such research has yet to be announced.

The New York Times (5/13/24), in a published interview conducted by reporter Azeen Ghorayshi, also ignored the realities facing trans kids in Britain as a result of Cass’s recommendations. Cass accused the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) of not being forthright about the evidence around gender-affirming treatments, and suggested its motivations are political:

I suspect that the AAP, which is an organization that does massive good for children worldwide, and I see as a fairly left-leaning organization, is fearful of making any moves that might jeopardize trans healthcare right now. And I wonder whether, if they weren’t feeling under such political duress, they would be able to be more nuanced, to say that multiple truths exist in this space—that there are children who are going to need medical treatment, and that there are other children who are going to resolve their distress in different ways.

Ghorayshi agreed with Cass, asking her how she would advise US doctors to thread this needle:

Pediatricians in the United States are in an incredibly tough position, because of the political situation here. It affects what doctors feel comfortable saying publicly. Your report is now part of that evidence that they may fear will be weaponized. What would you say to American pediatricians about how to move forward?

This entire line of questioning ignored that this issue is politicized in Britain as well. In March, former Prime Minister Liz Truss proposed a legislative ban on gender-affirming medical treatments for minors, which the government later implemented temporarily. The British government has also implemented recommendations that make social transition in schools extremely difficult. Ghorayshi could have pressed Cass on the political situation in her own country, rather than speculating on how doctors in the US are reacting to the one here.

Cass also presented the widely discredited theory that an exponential rise in the number of children and adolescents seeking gender-affirming care over the past decade is evidence of a “social contagion”:

It doesn’t really make sense to have such a dramatic increase in numbers that has been exponential. This has happened in a really narrow time frame across the world. Social acceptance just doesn’t happen that way, so dramatically. So that doesn’t make sense as the full answer.

This gigantic leap in logic goes completely without follow-up by Ghorayshi. Exponential rises can happen easily when a number is low to begin with. According to Cass’s own report, there were fewer than 50 referrals to GIDS in 2009. And while that number increased to 5,000 for 2021–22, this is 0.04% of the approximately 14 million people under the age of 18 in Britain.

Despite Cass’s claims to the contrary, these numbers could easily show that while very few adolescents were comfortable being out as trans at the outset of the 2010s, increased social acceptance has made that possible for more of them. Ghorayshi, however, does not press her to show any evidence for her highly unscientific theory.

The therapy trap

A BBC report (5/7/24) cited Cass suggesting “‘evidence based’ treatment such as psychological support” as an alternative to puberty blockers, even though her review found no studies showing psychotherapy as an effective treatment for gender dysphoria.

One of the underlying problems with the Cass Review is that where it (dubiously) claims that medical interventions are not supported by evidence, it pushes psychotherapy as an effective treatment for gender dysphoria—with even less evidence. Most media have blindly accepted this contradiction.

In an article headlined “Cass Review Author Calls for ‘Holistic’ Gender Care,” the BBC (5/7/24) reported on Cass’s claim to the Scottish parliament implying psychotherapy and “medications” are “evidence-based” ways to treat gender-dysphoric children.

However, she told MSPs a drawback of puberty blockers, which she said had become “almost totemic” as the route to get on to a treatment pathway, was they stopped an examination of other ways of addressing young people’s distress—including “evidence-based” treatment such as psychological support or medication.

The BBC did not interrogate this claim. This is especially egregious in light of the fact that Cass’s own systematic review found no studies that show psychotherapy is an effective means of improving gender dysphoria. Moreover, it deemed nine of the ten studies of psychosocial support “low quality.”

Dan Karasic, a psychiatrist who has worked with patients with gender dysphoria for over 30 years, and an author on WPATH’s current treatment guidelines, told FAIR that there’s no evidence for her claim that psychiatric medications could be effective either:

There is absolutely no evidence to support Dr. Cass’s suggestion to substitute antidepressants for puberty blockers. It’s telling that Cass suggests an intervention utterly devoid of any evidence—antidepressants for gender dysphoria—over established treatments.

‘Alternative approaches’

The Washington Post (4/18/24) featured an op-ed criticizing the “poor quality of evidence in support of medical interventions for youth gender dysphoria”—by someone pushing evidence-free psychotherapy treatment for youth gender dysphoria.

The Washington Post (4/18/24) accepted this same fallacy when it published an op-ed on the Cass Review by Paul Garcia-Ryan. Garcia-Ryan is the president of the organization Therapy First, which supports psychotherapy as the “first-line” treatment for gender dysphoria. Garcia wrote that in light of the Cass Review’s findings on the evidence behind gender-affirming treatments, psychotherapy needed to be encouraged:

The Cass Review made clear that the evidence supporting medical interventions in youth gender dysphoria is utterly insufficient, and that alternative approaches, such as psychotherapy, need to be encouraged. Only then will gender-questioning youth be able to get the help they need to navigate their distress.

Garcia-Ryan provides no evidence that psychotherapy is an effective alternative to the current treatment model that he is criticizing—which is no surprise, given the Cass Review’s findings. This is especially disturbing, given that his organization has published “clinical guidelines” for treating “gender-questioning” youth.

One of the case studies in the Therapy First’s guidelines involved an adolescent struggling with gender dysphoria, who described their family situation—where they don’t “feel understood and supported,” and their parents “don’t think trans exists”—to a therapist. The therapist then hypothesized that the gender dysphoria may be caused by an “oedipal process,” a subconscious infatuation with the father that the child “dealt with…by repudiating her femininity and her female-sexed body.”

Op-ed pages certainly exist to represent a diversity of viewpoints. But opinion editors have a duty to not let them be used for blatant misinformation. Though Garcia-Ryan protests that Therapy First is “strongly opposed to conversion therapy,” the sort of psychoanalysis he champions has a long, dark history of being used in conversion therapy. The American Psychoanalytic Association did not depathologize homosexuality until nearly 20 years after the American Psychiatric Association did.

‘Notably silent’

The Washington Post (5/3/24) ran another pro-Cass op-ed from Benjamin Ryan, who it described as “covering LGBTQ health for over two decades”; it didn’t mention that much of that coverage has been in right-wing publications like the New York Sun and New York Post.

Rather than publishing any op-eds critical of the Cass Review for balance, the Washington Post (5/3/24) added a second op-ed a week later by freelance journalist Benjamin Ryan, who has recently published several pieces on trans issues for the conservative New York Sun and New York Post. Ryan criticized the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for being “notably silent” on Cass’s findings, and citing the fact that the only panel at its 2024 conference contained supporters of gender transition:

The program for the 2024 APA annual meeting lists only one panel that touches on pediatric gender-transition treatment, titled “Channeling Your Passion and ‘Inner Outrage’ by Promoting Public Policy for Evidence-Based Transgender Care.”

The panel notably includes Jack Turban, a University of California at San Francisco child psychiatrist and a vocal supporter of broad access to gender-transition treatment.

A letter to the editor in the Washington Post (5/10/24) noted that abstracts for the APA were due before the final Cass Review was published, so it would not have been possible to submit a panel examining its findings. This is something the Post could have easily factchecked.

In the US, gender-affirming care bans for minors have taken place amongst a similar backdrop of relentless media assault, based on similarly poor sources (FAIR.org, 8/30/23) and bad interpretations of data (FAIR.org, 6/22/23). The coverage of the Cass Review shows just how much US media have taken their cues from the Brits.

Research assistance: Alefiya Presswala, Owen Schacht

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Lexi Koren.

“I had already recorded the interview, but they told me it couldn’t be broadcast,” Di Giampaolo told CPJ, adding that it would have been the first radio interview with González since becoming the opposition’s front-runner.

Di Giampaolo believes the radio station, which is waiting for state regulator Conatel to renew its license, did not want to risk offending President Nicolás Maduro, who will face González at the polls on July 28 in a critical presidential election. 

In a video posted to his social media accounts, Di Giampaolo announced that he had abruptly quit Éxitos 93.1 with “sadness and deep indignation,” and he published his conversation with González on his Instagram page. Speaking by phone from the city of Maracay, Di Giampaolo told CPJ that he “preferred to leave the station while standing than to remain there on my knees.” 

The episode typifies how government control of the media and self-censorship has distorted election coverage in Venezuela and deprived voters of vital information about the presidential candidates, according to journalists and press freedom groups who spoke with CPJ,

They said that TV and radio stations that reach nearly every Venezuelan household provide a barrage of ruling party propaganda and Maduro campaign rallies while mostly ignoring the opposition. By contrast, news about González and his opposition partner María Corina Machado is largely confined to independent news websites, many of which are blocked in Venezuela, and to social media like X, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and WhatsApp.

Appearances by opposition politicians in the mainstream media are so rare that when González spoke to TV station Venevisión in April, the resulting commentary on social media ignored the candidates presidential plans and largely focused on the channel’s startling decision to broadcast the interview at all

“This was treated like an extraordinary event when, in reality, it should be the obligation of a TV station to cover the opposition,” said Marco Ruíz, secretary general of the National Union of Journalists. 

Yet for Ruíz and other veteran press watchers, none of this comes as a surprise. They point out that the Maduro government has spent its 11 years in power closing TV and radio stations, blocking news websites, confiscating newspapers and fomenting fear and self-censorship. 

The result is a kind of news desert. Indeed, the long-running attack on independent journalism has been so effective that the government has not felt the need to engage in a major media crackdown in the runup to this month’s election.

“The regime has closed 200 radio stations over the past two years, which means there are fewer stations that they need to close now,” Ruíz said.

According to a report by Venezuelan free press group Espacio Público, there have been at least 14 radio stations closed in the country this year. Additionally, at least 297 radio stations from 2003 to 2023 were forced to close for various reasons in connection with the renewal of their broadcast licenses.

Fredy Andrade, who founded Radio Minuto in 1989, in the western city of Barquisimeto, said he received no explanation when state regulator Conatel did not renew the station’s license, forcing it to shutter on April 26. But he pointed out that his daily news programs included reports about the opposition, including polls that showed González with a huge lead over Maduro.  

“González is going to win this election, and I think the government feared we would go on the air on July 28 and announce an opposition victory,” Andrade told CPJ. “They wanted to silence us. This was a preemptive strike.”

There was no response from Maduro’s press office nor from Conatel to CPJ’s requests for comment. 

Due to the closure of so many media outlets, budget problems for those that remain in operation, and the lack of visas for foreign correspondents, there are relatively few journalists covering this election, said Carlos Correa, director of Espacio Público.

Independent Venezuelan news sites such as Efecto Cocuyo and El Pitazo provide detailed coverage and analysis of both the Maduro and González campaigns. But these two sites and more than 40 others have been blocked in Venezuela by state and private internet service providers, according to the internet watchdog group Venezuela Sin Filtro.

Determined newshounds can circumvent the blocks and access these sites through virtual private networks (VPNs), but Ruíz said most internet users lack the know-how, patience, and money to set up VPNs. 

As a result, nearly all the news about the opposition comes from social media. These sites are flooded with video clips of speeches and campaign rallies by Machado, the popular opposition leader who has been banned by the Maduro government from running for president and by González who has replaced her on the ballot. 

“Social media does not compensate for government censorship but there is no other way to get news about the opposition,” said Ibis León, a former journalist who now works for the Caracas-based Venezuela Electoral Observatory.

But relying on social media brings a new set of challenges for accessing information in Venezuela. 

Power outages are common, internet connections are slow and often unavailable in rural areas, and the service is expensive in a country where poverty has jumped amid a deep economic crisis. Moreover, with Maduro facing a battle for reelection, his government is inundating X, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp groups with propaganda and fake news.

“For the government, this is war,” said Marianela Balbi, director of the Caracas-based Institute for Press and Society. “State TV, Conatel, the Communications Ministry, the ruling party and the military are all getting involved in slandering the opposition.”

Last month, Machado denounced false reports posted on X by military officials that claimed the Venezuelan Armed Forces would be eliminated should the opposition take power. 

In response to so much disinformation, Efecto Cocuyo has produced a chatbot to help readers weed out lies and distortions while they can also go to the factchecking website Cazadores de Fake News (Fake News Hunters).

Correa of Espacio Público warns that social media sites remain a poor substitute for curated election news that used to come from radio, TV, and newspapers, because most information is fragmented and lacking in context.

“What kind of a candidate proposals and debates can you have on WhatsApp?” he said. “These sites are just not the same as a national TV station dedicated to covering the election.”

Yet Correa admits that the flood of campaign information on X, Facebook, Instagram and other social media has helped the opposition offset the government’s dominance of traditional news media. Judging by Maduro’s poll numbers, it appears that fewer Venezuelans are being swayed by his propaganda.

“The government’s message is unconvincing,” Correa said. “But it remains unclear just how well-informed Venezuelan voters will be on election day.”

González, the opposition candidate, is promising to fully respect press freedom which has inspired new hope among Venezuelan journalists. Speaking of a possible González victory, Di Giampaolo, the former Éxitos 93.1 journalist, said: “I hope better times are coming for journalism and for Venezuela.”

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

Reuters (6/14/24) reported that the US military was behind social media messages like ““COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!”

Canada-based news agency Reuters (6/14/24) revealed that the Pentagon, beginning in spring 2020, carried out a year-long anti-vax messaging campaign on social media. Reuters reported that the purpose of the clandestine psychological operation was to discredit China’s pandemic relief efforts across Southeast and Central Asia, as well as in parts of the Middle East.

“We weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective,” a “senior military officer involved in the program” told Reuters. “We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.”

The Reuters report straightforwardly implicated the US military in a lethal propaganda operation targeting vulnerable populations, centrally including the Filipino public, to the end of scoring geostrategic points against China:

To Washington’s alarm, China’s offers of assistance were tilting the geopolitical playing field across the developing world, including in the Philippines, where the government faced upwards of 100,000 infections in the early months of the pandemic.

The findings were unequivocal. In conjunction with private contractors, the US military created and employed fake social media profiles across popular platforms in multiple countries in order to sow doubt, not only about China’s Sinovac immunization, but also about the country’s humanitarian motivations with respect to their dispersal of pandemic-related aid. The news agency quoted “a senior US military officer directly involved in the campaign in Southeast Asia”:  “We didn’t do a good job sharing vaccines with partners…. So what was left to us was to throw shade on China’s.”

Failure to pounce

This New York Times headline (7/3/24), pointedly critical of the Pentagon’s anti-vaccine disinformation, did not appear in the Times newspaper, but only in a subscriber-only newsletter.

One might be forgiven for assuming that US news media editors would pounce on the fact that the most powerful institution in the US, and quite possibly the world, promulgated anti-vax material on social media over the course of a year. However, nearly a month later, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico, CNN and MSNBC have yet to cover the news.

The New York Times, which has consistently covered anti-vaccine disinformation (7/24/21, 8/1/21, 12/28/22, 3/16/24) and extremism (3/26/21, 4/5/21, 8/31/21, 6/14/24), has yet to cover the Pentagon’s unparalleled anti-vax indoctrination efforts in its news section; it ran one subscriber-only newsletter opinion piece (7/3/24) on the story nearly three weeks after Reuters‘ revelations.

Meanwhile, independent (Common Dreams, 6/14/24; WSWS, 6/16/24) and international sources (Al Jazeera, 6/14/24; South China Morning Post,  6/16/24, 6/17/24, 6/18/24) immediately relayed the revelations.

‘Amplifying the contagion’

Given the Times’ track record in the fight against vaccine disinformation, one might expect to see that paper in particular give this blockbuster news front-page status. After all, the Pentagon was busy secretly inculcating anti-vax attitudes in its targets when Neil MacFarquhar of the Times (3/26/21) warned that “extremist organizations are now bashing the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines in an effort to try to undermine the government.”

In a New York Times Magazine thinkpiece (5/25/22), Moises Velasquez-Manoff took stock of the “nightmarish and bizarre” conspiratorial “skullduggery swirling around vaccines”:

The process of swaying people with messaging that questions vaccines is how disinformation—deliberately fabricated falsehoods and half-truths—becomes misinformation, or incorrect information passed along unwittingly. Motivated by the best intentions, these people nonetheless end up amplifying the contagion, and the damaging impact, of half-truths and distortions.

Anxiety and doubt around immunizations, readers were told, “may be seeping into their relationship with medical science—or governmental mandates—in general.”

Surely this line of reasoning applies as much if not more so to the Pentagon’s anti-vaccine propaganda offensive in Asia and the Middle East: The US military’s own skullduggery has primed countless victims around the world to be more skeptical of medical technology in general.

Even if Americans weren’t targeted by the Pentagon’s scheme, their tax dollars were employed to materially endanger people throughout Asia and the Middle East, and to undermine public health mandates in general. And in the midst of a global pandemic, infections anywhere threaten peoples’ lives everywhere. But the threat of anti-vax disinformation is apparently not a high priority for the establishment press if the US military is implicated.

In keeping with a rich history of obsequious editorial decision-making when it comes to the Pentagon’s activities abroad, this remarkable lack of attention on the part of the Times and the rest of the corporate US press serves as yet another example of corporate media’s timorous attitude towards structural power in this country.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Tyler Poisson.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, caught on a secret recording, recently attacked ProPublica for its reporting on Supreme Court ethics. The nonprofit investigative news outlet has spearheaded coverage of possible conflicts of interest among judges on the nation’s top court, including Justice Clarence Thomas, who has accepted millions in gifts and trips from conservative billionaires. Alito told a filmmaker posing as a conservative activist that ProPublica “gets a lot of money” to dig up “any little thing they can find,” suggesting the reporting was politically motivated. That notion “is just wrong,” says Justin Elliott, one of the lead ProPublica journalists reporting on the Supreme Court. “We took a very hard look at the Democratic-appointed justices, and we simply haven’t found anything close to similar to what we found when it came to Justice Thomas and Justice Alito.” He also says the Senate Judiciary Committee has power it is not currently using to investigate the court amid the ongoing ethics scandal. “There’s really no reason to believe that we actually know all the facts about what these justices have gotten.”

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

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

A few hours after we published a story on the luxury travel a billionaire provided to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the email arrived in my inbox.

A reader had tapped out a single sentence on their iPhone and hit send: We should look, it said, at a relative Thomas had taken in and raised as a son. The reader informed me that Harlan Crow, the same politically connected billionaire who had bankrolled the justice’s travels around the globe, had also paid private school tuition for the relative.

My colleagues and I chased down the tip; a key break came when we found direct evidence of the billionaire’s tuition payments in some bankruptcy filings for one of the private schools in question. As we reported in the resulting story a few weeks later, the billionaire had paid roughly $100,000 for private school tuition, essentially a gift of cash to a sitting Supreme Court justice.

Crow’s office told us that he “has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate.” Thomas didn’t respond to questions for the story. On Friday, the justice acknowledged for the first time in a new financial disclosure filing that he should have publicly reported two free vacations he received from Crow.

At ProPublica, we often discuss the concept of the “maximum story.” It comes up when we’re deciding whether it’s worth spending a chunk of time reporting on a given topic. In gambler’s terms, it translates to what’s the biggest potential payoff of making this bet? What’s the best story, the one most vital to the public, that we might land?

It’s a useful idea, but the truth is the maximum story is often one we can’t even imagine. That was the case with the private school tuition tip. My co-workers and I had spent the previous four months piecing together the luxury travel provided to Thomas, but we had not dreamed that a billionaire was also secretly paying basic living expenses for a justice.

And we never would have thought to look if not for the reader who made the decision to write in with that tip. I’ve been a reporter here at ProPublica for more than 12 years covering politics and business, and every major story I’ve worked on has been propelled forward by tips.

I spent years reporting on how Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has worked against making tax preparation easier and less costly. When I wrote about misleading marketing tactics by Intuit that cost Americans tax filers billions of dollars, I relied on tips from employees at all levels of the company. Sometimes we heard from executives who attended strategy meetings; other times we heard from customer service reps who were unsettled by what they were being asked to do.

After we published, we heard from hundreds of readers who’d experienced deceptive tactics, and we wrote about that, too. In the end, those stories directly led to a legal settlement that delivered $141 million back to consumers.

Many of my sources need to be anonymous, so I’m somewhat limited in what I can tell you about them. In the past, they’ve included company insiders like the Intuit employees or whistleblowers who have seen something that troubled them. But I’m constantly surprised by what I think of as the hydraulics of information: something heard in a restaurant, seen on the street or mentioned by a relative. Those, too, are often important leads for our reporting.

Going from a tip or rumor to a confirmed story can take weeks or months of reporting, of course. That’s especially true because I focus on the rich and powerful: people, companies and organizations that use money and influence to shield themselves from scrutiny. My ability to home in on those important stories relies on hearing from people like you.

Right now I’m reporting on the election. There’s no shortage of political coverage, but I’m still convinced there are important stories about wrongdoing that haven’t been told yet. I’m interested in the world of Donald Trump — his campaign, businesses and the people around him — as well as the broader 2024 political scene. Tips about other candidates, Democrats and Republicans, are also welcome.

I’m also always looking for under-covered stories about business and politics more broadly, no matter the specific subject.

If you know something you think I should know — a rumor, an observation, something you’ve noticed that’s unusual or concerning — please get in touch. Even if it seems small or you heard it second hand, what you know may be hugely important.

My email is justin@propublica.org. You can call or text me at 774-826-6240. If you use the secure messaging apps Signal or WhatsApp, I’m also at that number.

Justin Elliott ProPublica 155 Ave. of the Americas 13th Floor New York, NY 10013

I’ll read whatever you send. I check my texts and email often. You can also leave a voicemail or even send a physical letter.

Many of my stories rely on people who need to be anonymous, and I take privacy very seriously.

If you have an idea but you think it’s a better fit for another reporter, you can find instructions for how to share information with us securely on our general tips page.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Justin Elliott.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

A few hours after we published a story on the luxury travel a billionaire provided to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the email arrived in my inbox.

A reader had tapped out a single sentence on their iPhone and hit send: We should look, it said, at a relative Thomas had taken in and raised as a son. The reader informed me that Harlan Crow, the same politically connected billionaire who had bankrolled the justice’s travels around the globe, had also paid private school tuition for the relative.

My colleagues and I chased down the tip; a key break came when we found direct evidence of the billionaire’s tuition payments in some bankruptcy filings for one of the private schools in question. As we reported in the resulting story a few weeks later, the billionaire had paid roughly $100,000 for private school tuition, essentially a gift of cash to a sitting Supreme Court justice.

Crow’s office told us that he “has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate.” Thomas didn’t respond to questions for the story. On Friday, the justice acknowledged for the first time in a new financial disclosure filing that he should have publicly reported two free vacations he received from Crow.

At ProPublica, we often discuss the concept of the “maximum story.” It comes up when we’re deciding whether it’s worth spending a chunk of time reporting on a given topic. In gambler’s terms, it translates to what’s the biggest potential payoff of making this bet? What’s the best story, the one most vital to the public, that we might land?

It’s a useful idea, but the truth is the maximum story is often one we can’t even imagine. That was the case with the private school tuition tip. My co-workers and I had spent the previous four months piecing together the luxury travel provided to Thomas, but we had not dreamed that a billionaire was also secretly paying basic living expenses for a justice.

And we never would have thought to look if not for the reader who made the decision to write in with that tip. I’ve been a reporter here at ProPublica for more than 12 years covering politics and business, and every major story I’ve worked on has been propelled forward by tips.

I spent years reporting on how Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, has worked against making tax preparation easier and less costly. When I wrote about misleading marketing tactics by Intuit that cost Americans tax filers billions of dollars, I relied on tips from employees at all levels of the company. Sometimes we heard from executives who attended strategy meetings; other times we heard from customer service reps who were unsettled by what they were being asked to do.

After we published, we heard from hundreds of readers who’d experienced deceptive tactics, and we wrote about that, too. In the end, those stories directly led to a legal settlement that delivered $141 million back to consumers.

Many of my sources need to be anonymous, so I’m somewhat limited in what I can tell you about them. In the past, they’ve included company insiders like the Intuit employees or whistleblowers who have seen something that troubled them. But I’m constantly surprised by what I think of as the hydraulics of information: something heard in a restaurant, seen on the street or mentioned by a relative. Those, too, are often important leads for our reporting.

Going from a tip or rumor to a confirmed story can take weeks or months of reporting, of course. That’s especially true because I focus on the rich and powerful: people, companies and organizations that use money and influence to shield themselves from scrutiny. My ability to home in on those important stories relies on hearing from people like you.

Right now I’m reporting on the election. There’s no shortage of political coverage, but I’m still convinced there are important stories about wrongdoing that haven’t been told yet. I’m interested in the world of Donald Trump — his campaign, businesses and the people around him — as well as the broader 2024 political scene. Tips about other candidates, Democrats and Republicans, are also welcome.

I’m also always looking for under-covered stories about business and politics more broadly, no matter the specific subject.

If you know something you think I should know — a rumor, an observation, something you’ve noticed that’s unusual or concerning — please get in touch. Even if it seems small or you heard it second hand, what you know may be hugely important.

My email is justin@propublica.org. You can call or text me at 774-826-6240. If you use the secure messaging apps Signal or WhatsApp, I’m also at that number.

Justin Elliott ProPublica 155 Ave. of the Americas 13th Floor New York, NY 10013

I’ll read whatever you send. I check my texts and email often. You can also leave a voicemail or even send a physical letter.

Many of my stories rely on people who need to be anonymous, and I take privacy very seriously.

If you have an idea but you think it’s a better fit for another reporter, you can find instructions for how to share information with us securely on our general tips page.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Justin Elliott.

The coverage by the New Zealand media over the brutal crackdown in New Caledonia by the French on the indigenous Kanak people as they erupted in protest at France’s naked gerrymandering of electoral law has been depressingly shallow.

To date most mainstream NZ media (with the exception RNZ Pacific, Māori media and the excellent David Robie) have been focused on getting scared Kiwi tourists back home, very few have actually explained what the hell has been going on.

This sudden eruption of protest follows a corrupt new draft law French law allowing French people to vote after only 10 years living there.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

This law is a direct attack on Kanak sovereignty, it’s a purely gerrymandering response to ensure a democratic majority to prevent any independence referendum.

While no one else is allowed in there, as Asia Pacific Report reports the French are using heavy handed tactics…

Pacific civil society and solidarity groups today stepped up their pressure on the French government, accusing it of a “heavy-handed” crackdown on indigenous Kanak protest in New Caledonia, comparing it to Indonesian security forces crushing West Papuan dissent.

A state of emergency was declared last week, at least [seven] people have been killed — [five] of them indigenous Kanaks — and more than 200 people have been arrested after rioting in the capital Nouméa followed independence protests over controversial electoral changes

In Sydney, the Australia West Papua Association declared it was standing in solidarity with the Kanak people in their self-determination struggle against colonialism.

Don’t stand idly by
We should not as a Pacific Island nation be standing idly by while the French are giving the indigenous people the bash.

We need to be asking what the hell has France’s elite troops being doing while no one is watching. The New Zealand government must ask the French Ambassador in and put our concerns to them directly.

Calm must come back but there has to be a commitment to the 1998 Noumea Accord which clearly stipulates that only the Kanak and long-term residents prior to 1998 would be eligible to vote in provincial ballots and local referendums.

To outright vote against this as the French National Assembly did last week is outrageous and will add an extra 25,000 voters into the election dramatically changing the electoral demographics in New Caledonia to the disadvantage of indigenous Kanaks who make up 42 percent of the 270,000 population.

This was avoidable, but the French are purposely trying to screw the scrum and rig the outcome.

We should be very clear that is unacceptable.

Our very narrow media focus on just getting Kiwis out of New Caledonia with no reflection whatsoever on what the French are doing is pathetic.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

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

Photo by Nastya Dulhiier

For those familiar with the disastrous New York Times reporting of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, it will be no great surprise that once again the Times’ trust in sources with self-serving agendas has resulted in reporting that has tragic societal consequences—this time with respect to the treatment of depression.

Establishment psychiatry, Big Pharma, and the mainstream media have acknowledged that a single antidepressant treatment does not work for the majority of patients; but for nearly twenty years, they have told us that in the “real world,” doctors provide patients who have been failed by their initial antidepressant with another antidepressant, and if that fails, still another, and that this real-world treatment is successful for nearly 70% of patients. This nearly 70% antidepressant effectiveness claim, we’ve been told, is backed by the 2006 Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study.

On April 25, 2024, the New York Times repeated this claim in its article titled “What You Really Need to Know About Antidepressants,” in which it reported: “The largest study of multiple antidepressants—nicknamed the STAR*D trial—found that half of the participants had improved after using either the first or second medication that they tried, and nearly 70 percent of people had become symptom-free by the fourth antidepressant.”

In 2024, however, it is journalistic malpractice to not term STAR*D findings as—at the very least—controversial. Even psychiatrists within establishment psychiatry are questioning STAR*D’s validity, with some psychiatrists demanding its retraction. Other researchers have called STAR*D scientific misconduct, and one investigative journalist has termed it as fraud.

In December 2023, the editor-in-chief of Psychiatric Times, John Miller, published a commentary titled “STAR*D Dethroned?” in which he wrote, “Since 2006, STAR*D stands out as an icon guiding treatment decisions of major depressive disorder. But what if it is broken?” Then in March 2024, two psychiatrists, Nicolas Badre and Jason Compton, titled their Psychiatric Times commentary: “STAR*D: It’s Time to Atone and Retract.”

Investigative journalist Robert Whitaker (winner of both the George Polk Award for medical writing and the National Association of Science Writers’ Science in Society Journalism Award) has been following STAR*D disclosures and re-analyses since STAR*D’s 2006 publication, and in 2023, Whitaker termed STAR*D as “scientific misconduct that rises to the level of fraud.”

Why STAR*D Findings Are Viewed as Invalid

In the year-long STAR*D study of 4041 patients, there were four stages. In each stage, patients who did not remit with one antidepressant were prescribed a different one or augmented with another drug. In 2006, STAR*D investigators claimed a 67% cumulative remission rate.

When STAR*D findings were first published, the reported 67% cumulative remission rate was challenged even within establishment psychiatry as being unjustified by the data. An editorial in the same 2006 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry that the STAR*D study had been reported, psychiatrist J. Craig Nelson noted that 67 percent remission rate did not account for relapse, and he pointed out: “Among those achieving remission, relapse rates were 33.5% [in Step 1], 47.4% [in Step 2], 42.9% [in Step 3], and 50.0% [in Step 4] . . . . I found a cumulative sustained recovery rate of 43% after four treatments, using a method similar to the authors but taking relapse rates into account.”

This was only the tip of the disastrous STAR*D iceberg. Psychologist Ed Pigott and his co-researchers published an analysis in 2010 that showed of the 4041 patients who entered STAR*D, only 108 remitted, stayed well, and remained in the study to its one-year end. Thus STAR*D investigators could document a get-well/stay-well rate at the end of a year of only 3%. (This in contrast to another 2006 study that examined the remission rates of depressed patients receiving no medication, and which documented a one-year remission rate of 85% for these non-medicated patients.)

Then in 2023, Ed Pigott and his co-researchers, utilizing the Restoring Invisible and Abandoned Trials initiative, conducted a reanalysis of STAR*D, which was published in BMJ Open. Pigott reported that among the 4041 subjects, only 3110 actually had met the depression criteria, and so 931 patients who should have been excluded from the calculation of a remission rate had not been excluded, which inflated the remission rate.

While STAR*D is replete with scientific misconduct, STAR*D investigators moving a group of 931 subjects that had previously been excluded as being non-evaluable into the evaluable patients category, knowing full well that this would dramatically inflate the remission rate, “tells of a conscious act of scientific fraud,” concluded Robert Whitaker in 2023.

STAR*D remission rate was also inflated through violating research protocol by switching the primary outcome measures, and by reversing the protocol on dropouts so that they were no longer viewed as treatment failures. And then results were further inflated by creating a “theoretical” remission rate based on the notion that if the drop-outs had stayed in the trial through all four stages of treatment, they would have remitted at the same rate as those who did stay in the trial to that end—this not justified by what is known from previous research about dropouts.

If STAR*D investigator’s original protocol been adhered to, Pigott concluded, “In contrast to the STAR*D-reported 67% cumulative remission rate after up to four antidepressant treatment trials, the rate was 35%.” Furthermore, that original protocol did not account for relapse.

So, what could have been the motivation for the STAR*D investigators to inflate these antidepressant remission rates? In the 2006 STAR*D report, at its end in small print, are the details of the financial relationships of the two lead STAR*D investigators (psychiatrists A. John Rush and Madhukar H. Trivedi) with multiple pharmaceutical companies, including the manufacturers of several of the antidepressants used in STAR*D, such as Forest Pharmaceuticals (Celexa), Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories (Effexor), GlaxoSmithKline (Wellbutrin), and Pfizer (Zoloft). Also detailed were the financial relationships of the several other STAR*D investigators with drug companies.

In 2023, John Miller, editor-in-chief of the Psychiatric Times, acknowledged that Pigott and his co-researchers’ reanalysis is “well-researched,” and he concluded: “For us in psychiatry, if the BMJ authors are correct, this is a huge setback, as all of the publications and policy decisions based on the STAR*D findings that became clinical dogma since 2006 will need to be reviewed, revisited, and possibly retracted.”

In March 2024, psychiatrists Nicolas Badre and Jason Compton wrote: “It is our opinion that the importance of STAR*D and its ramifications for the field of psychiatry are too serious to be dismissed. STAR*D is too cited and used too often to justify current prescribing practices. . . . Our patients, our field, and our integrity demand a better explanation of what happened in STAR*D than what has thus been provided. Short of this, the best remaining course to take is a retraction.”

What Explains the New York Times Egregious Reporting?

A simple Google search of “STAR*D” reveals the STAR*D critiques that I have linked to can be found on the first page of such a search. So, why would the New York Times omit all of this?

For one thing, the New York Times is desperate for advertising income, which drug companies provide; and drug companies would not look kindly on real investigative journalism with respect to STAR*D. The obvious purpose of drug-company advertising is to persuade consumers to buy drugs, but drug companies’ capacity to withdraw advertising dollars serves as leverage to intimidate mainstream media from exposing truths about these drugs.

Another possible explanation for the New York Times egregious reporting is that the Times and much of the rest of the mainstream media has been intimidated by a societal narrative financed by drug companies. In this narrative, to be critical of psychiatry and psychiatric drugs is to be anti-science and lacking compassion for emotionally suffering individuals. It is, of course, a false narrative, but a powerful one that has intimidated the mainstream media from true investigative journalism when it comes to psychiatry and psychiatric drugs.

As Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman detailed in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), reporters and editors in the mainstream media routinely deny that such intimidation and censorship exists, but they have been selected and socialized with internalized assumptions and self-censorship with respect to industry-created narratives, so overt coercion of them is unnecessary.

But perhaps there is a simpler explanation for the egregious reporting by the New York Times. It could just be that its reporters and editors are, in general, incompetent when it comes to journalism.

The post New York Times Sinks to New Low in Its Psychiatric Drug Coverage appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bruce E. Levine.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

ProPublica won the prestigious public service Pulitzer Prize for what the judges described as “groundbreaking and ambitious reporting that pierced the thick wall of secrecy surrounding the Supreme Court to reveal how a small group of politically influential billionaires wooed justices with lavish gifts and travel, pushing the Court to adopt its first code of conduct.” The prize is given to the staff of a news organization that performed “meritorious public service.” It is the seventh Pulitzer Prize for ProPublica.

The Pulitzer Board also recognized a collaboration between The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and FRONTLINE as a finalist in the explanatory reporting category. The investigation provided a detailed analysis of the deeply flawed law enforcement response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The designation is ProPublica’s 17th Pulitzer finalist in 16 years.

ProPublica’s “Friends of the Court” series uncovered the biggest ethics scandal to hit the Supreme Court in the modern era. Reporters Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, Brett Murphy and Kirsten Berg pierced decades of judicial secrecy and uncovered major gifts to justices from a small set of politically influential donors.

The series began a national conversation about ethics and judicial reform of the Supreme Court. In response to ProPublica’s reporting, the court announced in November that it had unanimously adopted the first ethics code in its 234-year history. Justice Clarence Thomas for the first time acknowledged that he should have reported selling real estate to billionaire Harlan Crow in 2014, writing in his annual financial disclosure form that he “inadvertently failed to realize” that the deal needed to be disclosed. Thomas also disclosed receiving three private jet trips from Crow, two of which ProPublica had already reported. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to authorize subpoenas of Crow and conservative legal activist Leonard Leo as part of its ongoing effort to investigate ethics lapses by justices.

In the series honored as a Pulitzer finalist in explanatory reporting, the Tribune, ProPublica and FRONTLINE used a trove of unreleased investigative files to produce a startling and exhaustive investigation of the Uvalde shooting, which included a documentary. It revealed what no one else had: States across the country are providing devastatingly insufficient training for law enforcement to confront a mass shooter, leaving critical and long-overlooked gaps in preparedness between children and the officers expected to protect them. The series involved the work of Lomi Kriel, Lexi Churchill, Perla Trevizo and Jessica Priest for ProPublica and the Tribune; Jinitzail Hernández and Zach Despart for the Tribune; and Juanita Ceballos, Michelle Mizner and Lauren Prestileo for FRONTLINE.

After the news investigation, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland unveiled the findings of a federal probe into the response. Garland pointed to missteps that led to delays in confronting the shooter. Then he turned to what he said was the biggest failure, one that required the most urgent action to avoid another colossal breakdown such as the one that cost lives that day: the lack of sufficient active shooter training for law enforcement. Garland’s comments validated the investigation’s finding that there is an astounding dearth of such instruction around the country.

ProPublica received Pulitzer Prizes for national reporting in 2020, feature writing in 2019, public service in 2017, explanatory reporting in 2016, national reporting in 2011 and investigative reporting in 2010. Local Reporting Network partner Anchorage Daily News won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2020.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by ProPublica.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

After a federal appeals court ruled this week that transgender people are legally entitled to the same access to medically necessary health care as everyone else, the immediate reaction of the states of North Carolina and West Virginia was to vow to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The immediate reaction of Hann Henson, an employee of a North Carolina school district who’d spent years struggling to access gender-affirming care, was to break into tears. Last year, ProPublica wrote about his tumultuous journey seeking medical support in his gender transition while living in a state with a long history of discrimination against transgender people.

“Having something that you know is going to help you feel better, is going to help you feel whole, and having it constantly dangled above your head is just dehumanizing,” he said.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Virginia, ruled that the two states violated federal law by banning coverage of certain treatments for transgender people but allowing it for others. These cases were the first of their kind to reach a federal appeals court and the decision could influence states and courts in other parts of the country.

For years, transgender people have argued in court that the North Carolina state employee health plan and West Virginia Medicaid program discriminated against them by refusing to cover certain treatments when they are prescribed for transgender people. The court’s majority agreed with this argument, in line with previous district court rulings, highlighting that West Virginia’s Medicaid program “covers mastectomies to treat cancer, but not to treat gender dysphoria.”

Henson found out about the lawsuit in 2022 soon after he started his job as a communications specialist for a North Carolina school district. He realized he was sprinting against a clock, with the state under a court order to cover gender-affirming care while the legal fight was underway. He scheduled what he hoped would be his last major surgery for November 2023, two months after the appeals court heard oral arguments on the case.

But as he got closer to the date, he realized he had to delay the surgery due to a stomach ulcer. He said the looming court decision was all he could think about for months. He even considered trying to go ahead with the procedure despite his poor health. He finally got the surgery in late March.

Dale Folwell, the state treasurer and a named defendant, used the lawsuit in his campaign for governor. (He lost the Republican primary in March.) He maintained in interviews and court documents that the state health plan should have the authority to determine which employee benefits are covered. He reiterated those comments in a statement this week: “Untethered to the reality of the Plan’s fiscal situation, the majority opinion opens the way for any dissatisfied individual to override the Plan’s reasoned and responsible decisions and drive the Plan towards collapse.”

Henson will need a follow-up surgery in five months, a common part of the process. He said he now feels a sense of relief knowing the appeals court decision ensures that he likely won’t lose access to his care at a critical time. But he worries about other transgender people seeking services and imagines them refreshing a court website compulsively just like he did.

For now, the ruling protects access to gender-affirming care for transgender people on both states’ health plans. The decision would apply to any federal court cases brought in other states in the 4th Circuit: South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. The 11th Circuit is currently considering two similar cases out of Georgia and Florida.

All the active judges on the court heard oral arguments in the case in September. In their ruling Monday, eight of the 14, almost all of whom were appointed by Democratic presidents, ruled in favor of the transgender plaintiffs. “In addition to discriminating on the basis of gender identity, the exclusions discriminate on the basis of sex,” wrote Judge Roger Gregory, who was initially appointed by President Bill Clinton and confirmed under the George W. Bush administration.

The states argued that gender-affirming care cost too much and was medically ineffective, so they were justified in not covering it. The court’s majority opinion dismissed both arguments as lacking support. Evidence shows covering the care would likely cost states very little, and major medical associations support broad access to gender-affirming care, citing evidence that prohibiting it can harm transgender people’s mental and physical health.

The judges who signed the three dissenting opinions were all appointed by Republican presidents. “In the majority’s haste to champion plaintiffs’ cause, today’s result oversteps the bounds of the law,” Judge Julius Richardson, a President Donald Trump appointee, wrote in the principal dissent. “The majority asserts that the challenged exclusions use medical diagnosis as a proxy for transgender persons, despite the complete lack of evidence for this claim.”

North Carolina and West Virginia are planning to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to press releases from each state. “We are confident in the merits of our case: that this is a flawed decision and states have wide discretion to determine what procedures their programs can cover based on cost and other concerns,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement.

It remains to be seen how and whether other states and insurance companies with restrictive policies for covering gender-affirming care will act in response to the opinion.

“It should serve as a cautionary tale not just to states that implement state health plans and Medicaid programs but also to private insurers,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan with Lambda Legal, which represented the transgender plaintiffs in North Carolina and West Virginia. “I would hope that this serves as a determining factor in the adoption of any bad policies as an inspiration to get rid of policies that currently exist.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Aliyya Swaby.

Abuja, April 16, 2024—Nigerian authorities should immediately drop their investigation into the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) and its founder, the award-winning undercover reporter, Fisayo Soyombo, and stop intimidating the chairperson of FIJ’s board of trustees, Bukky Shonibare, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

On February 21, Soyombo published an investigation detailing how he had smuggled rice into Nigeria with the collusion of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) officials and accused local businessman Ibrahim Dende Egungbohun of being a smuggler. FIJ’s accompanying documentary was also broadcast by Arise News.

On February 26, Egungbohun’s lawyer, David Olaoluwa Folalu, petitioned the police, Arise News, and the regulatory National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) over FIJ’s investigation, which it described as “defamatory, false and malicious” and “contrary to Section 24 of the cybercrimes (prohibition, prevention) Act, 2015,” according to multiple news reports, including by FIJ. Folalu demanded retractions, apologies, and 500 million naira (US$403,159) in damages, those sources said.

Separately, on March 15, another lawyer for Egungbohun, Bolarinwa Elijah Aidi, wrote to Soyombo, similarly demanding damages and retraction of the story, according to a copy of the letter posted on FIJ’s website.

Allegation of cybercrime

On March 26, FIJ board chairperson Shonibare was questioned by police at the National Cybercrime Center in the capital, Abuja, following their written request to interview her, reviewed by CPJ.

Shonibare told CPJ that the police said they were investigating an allegation of cybercrime in connection with one of FIJ’s articles, which they did not name, and asked about FIJ’s journalistic standards. The police also said they knew that Soyombo was not in Nigeria and instructed Shonibare to return with him, she told CPJ and said in a report on FIJ’s website.

Shonibare said that one official threatened her by saying that the police could access her personal and financial information via records associated with her phone number.

“Nigerian authorities must cease their efforts to intimidate the Foundation for Investigative Journalism, including its founder, the renowned investigative reporter Fisayo Soyombo, and the chairperson of its board of trustees, Bukky Shonibare, and allow them to continue reporting on issues of public interest,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “The Nigerian police’s investigation into such a reputable media outlet demonstrates the alarming extent to which they are willing to go to silence journalists seeking to expose crime.”

Death threat on social media

Soyombo said that he received a death threat on social media, reviewed by CPJ, telling him to stay away from Egungbohun, whose nickname is IBD Dende. It said, “step back from this called IBD DENDE … does [those] whom are paying you doesn’t [don’t] want you to live long.”

Soyombo said that two friends also warned him to be careful as they feared for his life after speaking with associates of Egungbohun and the Nigeria Customs Service who made threats against him.

On February 24, an opinion piece defending Egungbohun and criticizing Soyombo’s investigation was published in multiple local news outlets.

Soyombo is a winner of the Kurk Schork and Fetisov journalism awards and wrote about the coordinated discrediting of journalists in Nigeria while he was a fellow of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Folalu confirmed to CPJ by phone that he was seeking to press charges for cyberstalking under Section 24 of the law and described the FIJ’s story as “deliberately targeted at the character and reputation of our client” and “purely criminal in nature.”

Folalu said his office had sent a pre-action letter to Arise News, notifying the outlet that they planned to file a civil suit against it demanding 500 million naira (US$403,159) in damages but put the matter on hold after the regulatory NBC wrote to Arise News on the same issue.

A senior member of staff at Arise News confirmed to CPJ, on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, that the outlet had received written communication from Egungbohun’s lawyers, which had been forwarded to their lawyers, but declined to provide further details.

Possible criminal case

Egungbohun’s second lawyer, Aidi, told CPJ on April 5, that his office had sent pre- action letters to Soyombo and Arise News, notifying them about the possible civil suit and that their plans did not preclude a possible criminal case against the FIJ.

NCS spokesperson Abdullahi Aliyu Maiwada told CPJ via text message that the customs service remained “resolute in addressing genuine, evidence-based observations” but it was “not formally aware” of FIJ’s investigation.

He rejected the claim by Soyombo’s friends that NCS officials made threats against the journalist.

“Constructive, fact-based criticism channelled through appropriate means are always welcomed,” he said.

NBC spokesperson Ekanem Antia told CPJ on April 15 that the regulator did not receive any petition against Arise News about FIJ’s documentary.

Reached by phone and messaging app, Uche Ifeanyi Henry, director of the police’s National Cybercrime Center, told CPJ that requests for comment on the case should be send via the police’s “official channel,” but he did not specify a contact.

CPJ’s emails to the National Cybercrime Center and the police in Abuja requesting comment did not receive any response.

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

Pacific media commentator and Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie has criticised New Zealand media coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, describing it as “lopsided” in favour of Tel Aviv.

He said New Zealand media was too dependent on American and British news services, which were based in two of the countries most committed to Israel and in denial of the genocide that was happening.

New Zealand media were tending to treat the conflict as “just another war” instead of the reality of a “horrendous” series of massacres with a long-lasting impact on Western credibility and commitment to a global rules-based order.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: Israel accused of ‘AI-assisted genocide’ in Gaza
• David Robie’s Earthwise interview on the Pacific

Dr Robie was interviewed on Plains FM 96.9 community radio by Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths.

Lois asked: “What is happening to Gaza now is a nightmare, very disturbing, or should be, and yet are we, the public, in New Zealand and other countries, are we getting the true picture from journalists?”

Dr Robie replied, “No, we are getting a very sanitised version through our media, particularly in New Zealand, less so in Australia, but it’s pretty bad there . . .”

He explained the reasons for his criticism.

Praise for AJ and TRT coverage
During the half-hour interview, Dr Robie praised television coverage of the “real war” by independent news services such as the Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Turkey-based TRT World News, which have had Arabic-speaking Palestinian journalists on the ground in Gaza throughout the six-month-old war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Al Jazeera this week with closure of the network’s operations in Israel — under the powers of a new law — because of its graphic and uncensored coverage from the besieged enclave.

Al Jazeera called Netanyahu’s attack “slanderous” and managing editor Mohamed Moawad said: “What we are doing is trying to give voice to the voiceless and try and make sure that the suffering of civilians on the ground is heard by the entire world.”

Almost 33,000 Palestinians and more than 75,000 others have been wounded as outrage grows globally following Israel’s strike and killing of aid workers in Gaza this week.

Dr Robie is the founding director of the Pacific Media Centre and is pioneering editor of Pacific Journalism Review.

• The earlier Earthwise interview with David Robie on the Pacific is here

Plains FM’s Earthwise talks to journalist David Robie.   Video/Audio: Plains FM

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

Janine Jackson interviewed Media Matters’ Evlondo Cooper about climate coverage for the March 22, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Media Matters (3/14/24)

Janine Jackson: Climate disruption is, of course, one of the most disastrous phenomena of today’s life, affecting every corner of the globe. It’s also one of the most addressable. We know what causes it, we know what meaningful intervention would entail. So it’s a human-made tragedy unfolding in real time before our eyes.

To understate wildly, we need to be talking about it, learning about it, hearing about it urgently, which is why the results of our next guest’s research are so alarming. I’ll just spoil it: Broadcast news coverage of the climate crisis is going down.

Evlondo Cooper is a senior writer with the Climate and Energy Program at Media Matters for America. He joins us now by phone from Washington state. Welcome to CounterSpin, Evlondo Cooper.

Evlondo Cooper: Thank you for having me. I’m excited about our conversation today.

JJ: We’re talking about the latest of Media Matters’ annual studies of climate crisis coverage. First of all, just tell us briefly what media you are looking at in these studies.

EC: So we’re looking at corporate broadcast network coverage. That’s ABC, CBS and NBC. And for the Sunday morning shows, we also include Fox Broadcasting—Fox News Sunday.

JJ: All right. And then, for context, this decline in coverage that you found in the most recent study, that’s down from very little to even less.

Media Matters (3/14/24)

EC: Yeah, so a little context: 2021 and 2022 were both record years for climate coverage, and that coverage was a little bit more than 1%. This year, we saw a 25% decrease from 2022, which brought coverage to a little bit less than 1%. We want to encourage more coverage, but even in the years where they were doing phenomenal, it was only about 1% of total coverage. And so this retrenchment by approximately 25% in 2023 is not a welcome sign, especially in a year where we saw record catastrophic extreme weather events, and scientists are predicting that 2024 might be even worse than ’23.

JJ: Let’s break out some of the things that you found. We’re talking about such small numbers—when you say 1%, that’s 1% of all of the broadcast coverage; of their stories, 1% were devoted to the climate crisis. But we’ve seen, there’s little things within it. For example, we are hearing more from actual climate scientists?

EC: That was a very encouraging sign, where this year we saw 41 climate scientists appeared, which was 10% of the featured guests in 2023, and that’s up from 4% in 2022. So in terms of quality of coverage, I think we’re seeing improvements. We’re seeing a lot of the work being done by dedicated climate correspondents, and meteorologists who are including climate coverage as part of their weather reports and their own correspondents’ segments, a bigger part of their reporting.

So there are some encouraging signs. I think what concerns us is that these improvements, while important and necessary and appreciated, are not keeping up with the escalating scale of climate change.

Media Matters (3/14/24)

JJ: It’s just not appropriate to the seriousness of the topic. And then another thing is, you could say the dominance of white men in the conversation, which I know is another finding, that’s just kind of par for the elite media course; when folks are talked to, they are overwhelmingly white men. But it might bear some relation to what you’re seeing as an underrepresentation of climate-impacted populations, looking at folks at the sharp end of climate disruption. That’s something you also consider.

EC: Yeah, we look at coverage of, broadly, climate justice. I think a lot of people believe it’s representation for representation’s sake, but I think when people most impacted by climate change—and we’re talking about communities of color, we’re talking about low-income communities, we’re talking about low-wealth rural communities—when these folks are left out of the conversation, you’re missing important context about how climate change is impacting them, in many cases, first and worse. And you’re missing important context about the solutions that these communities are trying to employ to deal with it. And I think you’re missing an opportunity to humanize and broaden support for climate solutions at the public policy level.

So these aren’t communities where these random acts of God are occurring; these are policy decisions, or indecisions, that have created an environment where these communities are being most harmed, but least talked about, and they’re receiving the least redress to their challenges. And so those voices are necessary to tell those stories to a broad audience on the corporate broadcast networks.

JJ: Yes, absolutely.

CBS (7/17/23)

Another finding that I thought was very interesting was that extreme weather seemed to be the biggest driver of climate coverage, and that, to me, suggests that the way corporate broadcast media are coming at climate disruption is reactive: “Look at what happened.”

EC: Totally.

JJ:  And even when they say, “Look at what’s happening,” and you know what, folks pretty much agree that this is due to climate disruption, these houses sliding into the river, it’s still not saying, “While you look at this disaster, know that this is preventable, and here is who is keeping us from acting on it and why.”

EC: Yeah, that is so insightful, because that’s a core critique of even the best coverage we see, that there is no accountability for the fossil fuel industry and other industries that are driving the crisis. And then there’s no real—solutions are mentioned in about 20% of climate segments this year. But the solutions are siloed, like there are solution “segments.”

But to your point, when we’re talking about extreme weather, when you have the most eyeballs hearing about climate change, to me, it would be very impactful to connect what’s happening in that moment—these wildfires, these droughts, these heat waves, these hurricanes and storms and flooding—to connect that to a key driver, fossil fuel industry, and talk about some potential solutions to mitigate these impacts while people are actually paying the most attention.

CNN (3/3/23)

JJ: And then take it to your next story about Congress, or your next story about funding, and connect those dots.

EC: Exactly. I mean, climate is too often siloed. So you could see a really great segment, for instance, on the Willow Project, at the top of the hour—and this is on cable, but the example remains—and then later in the hour, you saw a story about an extreme weather event. But those things aren’t connected, they’re siloed.

And so a key to improving coverage in an immediate way would be to understand that the climate crisis is the background for a range of issues, socioeconomic, political. Begin incorporating climate coverage in a much broader swath of stories that, whether you know it or not, indirectly or directly, are being impacted by global warming.

JJ: It’s almost as though corporate media have decided that another horrible disaster due to climate change, while it’s a story, it’s basically now like a dog-bites-man story. And if they aren’t going to explore these other angles, well, then there really isn’t anything to report until the next drought or the next mudslide. And that’s just a world away from what appropriate, fearless, future-believing journalism would be doing right now.

Evlondo Cooper: “It doesn’t have to be about just showing the destruction and carnage. There are ways that you can empower people to take action.”

EC: It’s out of step, right? Pull up the poll showing bipartisan support for government climate action, because, whether people know it or not, as far as the science, —and there’s some deniers out there, but anecdotally, people know something is happening, something is changing in their lives. We’re seeing record-breaking things that no one’s ever experienced, and they want the government to do something about it.

And so it’s important to cover extreme weather and to cover these catastrophes. And I know there’s a range of thought out there that says if you’re just focusing on devastating impacts, it could dampen public action. But to me, to your point, report on it and connect it to solutions, empower people to call their congressperson, their representative, their senator, to vote in ways that have local impacts to deal with the local climate impacts.

It doesn’t have to be about just showing the destruction and carnage. There are ways that you can empower people to take action in their own lives, and to galvanize public support.

And the public wants it. The public is asking for this. So I think just being responsive to what these polls are showing would be a way to immediately improve the way that they cover climate change right now.

JJ: All right, then. We’ve been speaking with Evlondo Cooper of Media Matters for America. You can find this work and much else at MediaMatters.org. Evlondo Cooper, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

EC: Thank you for having me.

The post ‘In Even the Best Coverage There Is No Accountability for the Fossil Fuel Industry’<br></em><span class='not-on-index' style='color:#000000; font-size: 23px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 25px; font-family: 'Open Sans','sans-serif'; padding-bottom: -10px;'>CounterSpin interview with Evlondo Cooper on climate coverage appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Janine Jackson interviewed Media Matters’ Evlondo Cooper about climate coverage for the March 22, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Media Matters (3/14/24)

Janine Jackson: Climate disruption is, of course, one of the most disastrous phenomena of today’s life, affecting every corner of the globe. It’s also one of the most addressable. We know what causes it, we know what meaningful intervention would entail. So it’s a human-made tragedy unfolding in real time before our eyes.

To understate wildly, we need to be talking about it, learning about it, hearing about it urgently, which is why the results of our next guest’s research are so alarming. I’ll just spoil it: Broadcast news coverage of the climate crisis is going down.

Evlondo Cooper is a senior writer with the Climate and Energy Program at Media Matters for America. He joins us now by phone from Washington state. Welcome to CounterSpin, Evlondo Cooper.

Evlondo Cooper: Thank you for having me. I’m excited about our conversation today.

JJ: We’re talking about the latest of Media Matters’ annual studies of climate crisis coverage. First of all, just tell us briefly what media you are looking at in these studies.

EC: So we’re looking at corporate broadcast network coverage. That’s ABC, CBS and NBC. And for the Sunday morning shows, we also include Fox Broadcasting—Fox News Sunday.

JJ: All right. And then, for context, this decline in coverage that you found in the most recent study, that’s down from very little to even less.

Media Matters (3/14/24)

EC: Yeah, so a little context: 2021 and 2022 were both record years for climate coverage, and that coverage was a little bit more than 1%. This year, we saw a 25% decrease from 2022, which brought coverage to a little bit less than 1%. We want to encourage more coverage, but even in the years where they were doing phenomenal, it was only about 1% of total coverage. And so this retrenchment by approximately 25% in 2023 is not a welcome sign, especially in a year where we saw record catastrophic extreme weather events, and scientists are predicting that 2024 might be even worse than ’23.

JJ: Let’s break out some of the things that you found. We’re talking about such small numbers—when you say 1%, that’s 1% of all of the broadcast coverage; of their stories, 1% were devoted to the climate crisis. But we’ve seen, there’s little things within it. For example, we are hearing more from actual climate scientists?

EC: That was a very encouraging sign, where this year we saw 41 climate scientists appeared, which was 10% of the featured guests in 2023, and that’s up from 4% in 2022. So in terms of quality of coverage, I think we’re seeing improvements. We’re seeing a lot of the work being done by dedicated climate correspondents, and meteorologists who are including climate coverage as part of their weather reports and their own correspondents’ segments, a bigger part of their reporting.

So there are some encouraging signs. I think what concerns us is that these improvements, while important and necessary and appreciated, are not keeping up with the escalating scale of climate change.

Media Matters (3/14/24)

JJ: It’s just not appropriate to the seriousness of the topic. And then another thing is, you could say the dominance of white men in the conversation, which I know is another finding, that’s just kind of par for the elite media course; when folks are talked to, they are overwhelmingly white men. But it might bear some relation to what you’re seeing as an underrepresentation of climate-impacted populations, looking at folks at the sharp end of climate disruption. That’s something you also consider.

EC: Yeah, we look at coverage of, broadly, climate justice. I think a lot of people believe it’s representation for representation’s sake, but I think when people most impacted by climate change—and we’re talking about communities of color, we’re talking about low-income communities, we’re talking about low-wealth rural communities—when these folks are left out of the conversation, you’re missing important context about how climate change is impacting them, in many cases, first and worse. And you’re missing important context about the solutions that these communities are trying to employ to deal with it. And I think you’re missing an opportunity to humanize and broaden support for climate solutions at the public policy level.

So these aren’t communities where these random acts of God are occurring; these are policy decisions, or indecisions, that have created an environment where these communities are being most harmed, but least talked about, and they’re receiving the least redress to their challenges. And so those voices are necessary to tell those stories to a broad audience on the corporate broadcast networks.

JJ: Yes, absolutely.

CBS (7/17/23)

Another finding that I thought was very interesting was that extreme weather seemed to be the biggest driver of climate coverage, and that, to me, suggests that the way corporate broadcast media are coming at climate disruption is reactive: “Look at what happened.”

EC: Totally.

JJ:  And even when they say, “Look at what’s happening,” and you know what, folks pretty much agree that this is due to climate disruption, these houses sliding into the river, it’s still not saying, “While you look at this disaster, know that this is preventable, and here is who is keeping us from acting on it and why.”

EC: Yeah, that is so insightful, because that’s a core critique of even the best coverage we see, that there is no accountability for the fossil fuel industry and other industries that are driving the crisis. And then there’s no real—solutions are mentioned in about 20% of climate segments this year. But the solutions are siloed, like there are solution “segments.”

But to your point, when we’re talking about extreme weather, when you have the most eyeballs hearing about climate change, to me, it would be very impactful to connect what’s happening in that moment—these wildfires, these droughts, these heat waves, these hurricanes and storms and flooding—to connect that to a key driver, fossil fuel industry, and talk about some potential solutions to mitigate these impacts while people are actually paying the most attention.

CNN (3/3/23)

JJ: And then take it to your next story about Congress, or your next story about funding, and connect those dots.

EC: Exactly. I mean, climate is too often siloed. So you could see a really great segment, for instance, on the Willow Project, at the top of the hour—and this is on cable, but the example remains—and then later in the hour, you saw a story about an extreme weather event. But those things aren’t connected, they’re siloed.

And so a key to improving coverage in an immediate way would be to understand that the climate crisis is the background for a range of issues, socioeconomic, political. Begin incorporating climate coverage in a much broader swath of stories that, whether you know it or not, indirectly or directly, are being impacted by global warming.

JJ: It’s almost as though corporate media have decided that another horrible disaster due to climate change, while it’s a story, it’s basically now like a dog-bites-man story. And if they aren’t going to explore these other angles, well, then there really isn’t anything to report until the next drought or the next mudslide. And that’s just a world away from what appropriate, fearless, future-believing journalism would be doing right now.

Evlondo Cooper: “It doesn’t have to be about just showing the destruction and carnage. There are ways that you can empower people to take action.”

EC: It’s out of step, right? Pull up the poll showing bipartisan support for government climate action, because, whether people know it or not, as far as the science, —and there’s some deniers out there, but anecdotally, people know something is happening, something is changing in their lives. We’re seeing record-breaking things that no one’s ever experienced, and they want the government to do something about it.

And so it’s important to cover extreme weather and to cover these catastrophes. And I know there’s a range of thought out there that says if you’re just focusing on devastating impacts, it could dampen public action. But to me, to your point, report on it and connect it to solutions, empower people to call their congressperson, their representative, their senator, to vote in ways that have local impacts to deal with the local climate impacts.

It doesn’t have to be about just showing the destruction and carnage. There are ways that you can empower people to take action in their own lives, and to galvanize public support.

And the public wants it. The public is asking for this. So I think just being responsive to what these polls are showing would be a way to immediately improve the way that they cover climate change right now.

JJ: All right, then. We’ve been speaking with Evlondo Cooper of Media Matters for America. You can find this work and much else at MediaMatters.org. Evlondo Cooper, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

EC: Thank you for having me.

The post ‘In Even the Best Coverage There Is No Accountability for the Fossil Fuel Industry’<br></em><span class='not-on-index' style='color:#000000; font-size: 23px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 25px; font-family: 'Open Sans','sans-serif'; padding-bottom: -10px;'>CounterSpin interview with Evlondo Cooper on climate coverage appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

The post Corporate Climate Coverage a Washout after Storm Ciarán Impacts Tuscany appeared first on Project Censored.

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

KXAS (3/19/24)

This week on CounterSpin: 2023 was the warmest year on record. The World Meteorological Organization announced records once again broken, “in some cases smashed” (their words), for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea-level rise, Antarctic sea ice and glacier retreat.

Climate disruption is the prime mover of a cascade of interrelated crises. At the same time, we’re told that basic journalism says that when it comes to problems that people need solved, yet somehow aren’t solved, rule No. 1 is “follow the money.” Yet even as elite media talk about the climate crisis they still…can’t… quite…connect images of floods or fires to the triumphant shareholder meetings of the fossil fuel companies.

Narrating the nightmare is not enough. We’ll talk about the latest research on climate coverage with Evlondo Cooper, senior writer at Media Matters.

Also on the show: Part of what FAIR’s been saying since our start in 1986—when it was a fringe idea, that meant you were either alarmist or benighted or both—is that there is an inescapable conflict between media as a business and journalism as a public service. For a while, it was mainly about “fear and favor”—the ways corporate owners and sponsors influence the content of coverage.  It’s more bare-knuckled now: Mass layoffs and takeovers force us to see how what you may think of as your local newspaper is really just an “asset” in a megacorporation’s portfolio, and will be treated that way—with zero evidence that a source of vital news and information is any different from a soap factory.

Rick Goldsmith’s new film is called Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink. We’ll hear from him about the film and the change it hopes to part of.

Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at recent coverage of Israel’s flour massacre.

The post Evlondo Cooper on Climate Coverage, Rick Goldsmith on Stripped for Parts appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

South Africa on December 29 presented a historic case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—the highest court in the world. In an 84-page lawsuit, South Africa asserted that Israel’s deadly military campaign in Gaza—following the October 7 Hamas attacks, which killed 1,200 Israelis and foreigners—constitutes genocide. So far, more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been slaughtered, while over 71,000 have been injured in Israeli attacks.

Establishment media in the US were slow to cover South Africa’s “epochal intervention” in the ICJ—initially providing the public with thin to no reporting on the case. While the quantity of coverage did eventually increase, it skewed pro-Israel, even after the court in January found it “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and ordered Tel Aviv to comply with international law.

Thin early coverage

In the Wall Street Journal (12/29/23), the initial accusation of genocide got second billing even in the subhead.

FAIR used the Nexis news database and WSJ.com to identify every article discussing the genocide case published in the print editions of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal for one month, from the announcement of the case on December 29 through January 28, two days after the ICJ’s preliminary ruling.

Under international law, genocide is one of the gravest charges that can be brought against a state. Since its 1948 ratification by the UN, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide has only been presented to the ICJ on a handful of occasions, and the historic nature of the complaint was not lost on its applicant: “South Africa is acutely aware of the particular weight of responsibility in initiating proceedings against Israel for violations of the Genocide Convention.”

Unfortunately, the two most widely circulating newspapers in the US cannot say the same. In the lead-up to the hearing (12/29/23–1/10/24), the New York Times only published three articles focused on the case (1/8/24, 1/9/24, 1/10/24), while another Times piece (1/10/24) included a brief mention of the genocide charges.

The Wall Street Journal ran no pieces focused on the charges prior to the hearing. The Journal‘s only mention of the genocide case in the pre-trial period came in a broader article about the war (12/29/23), which included six paragraphs about South Africa’s application. The paper did not reference the case again until the trial began.

‘Without any basis in fact’

The New York Times (1/11/24) seemed to feel that the accusation of genocide was so serious that it should offer readers as few clues as possible as to whether it was true or not.

During the two-day hearing, each paper ran two articles about it in their print editions. Each published an overview of the case (New York Times, 1/11/24; Wall Street Journal, 1/11/24). For their second piece, the New York Times (1/11/24) looked at both Israeli and Palestinian reactions, while the Journal (1/12/24) focused only on Israeli reactions; the one Palestinian it quoted was identified as an Israeli citizen.

After the trial’s January 12 conclusion, and through January 27, two days after the court’s announcement of its preliminary ruling, the Times ran five more articles in its print edition primarily about the case, while the Journal ran only one.

Experts have said that “all countries have a stake” in South Africa’s application, and that the case “has broad implications” (OHCHR, 1/11/24), but the papers’ thin coverage suggested to their readership that it is of little consequence.

US news outlets’ dismissive reaction to the hearing was consistent with the Israeli narrative surrounding the genocide charges. Israel’s denunciations of Pretoria’s accusation were widely reported—they were “blood libel” (CNBC, 12/30/23); “nonsense, lies and evil spirit” (The Hill, 1/31/23); and “outrageous” (Jerusalem Post, 1/5/24). US officials followed suit, brushing off the allegations as “meritless” (The Hill, 1/9/24) and “without any basis in fact whatsoever” (VoA, 1/3/24).

So while the ICJ case was met with spirited support from the global human rights community, establishment media’s initial choice to treat it as unnewsworthy may have convinced some audiences to believe what Israel and its allies want them to believe—that South Africa’s application has no basis in reality.

Uneven sourcing

The coverage the two papers did offer largely perpetuated US media’s longstanding tradition of skewing pro-Israel (FAIR.org, 8/22/23; Intercept, 1/9/24 ). Though Palestinians are at the center of the case, they often seemed to be an afterthought in the newspapers' coverage of it.

The papers were mirror images in terms of their frequency of quoted pro-Israeli and pro–South African positions in their coverage. The Wall Street Journal’s three articles that focused on the ICJ case included 23 quoted sources. Of these, 11 (48%) expressed or supported Israeli government positions, and 8 (35%) expressed or supported South African government positions. (Four were not clearly aligned with either party.) In the Times' 10 articles focused on the case, the paper featured 65 quoted sources. Those taking a clear position on one side or the other expressed or supported the South African position more often, with 30 sources (46%), compared to 23 expressing or supporting the Israeli stance (35%). (The remainder did not have a discernible stance.)

Palestinian voices, however, were marginalized in both papers. Fourteen of the 65 Times sources were Palestinian (22%); 22 (34%) were Israeli. Five of its 10 articles on the genocide case that appeared in print quoted no Palestinian sources. By contrast, only one—a piece about South African domestic politics (1/27/24)—quoted no Israeli sources.

Of the Journal's 23 sources, five (22%) were Palestinian, and 9 (39%) were Israeli. Two of its articles were evenly balanced between Palestinian and Israeli sources, while one (1/12/24) quoted five Israelis and only one Palestinian—the citizen of Israel mentioned above.

The lack of Palestinian representation is consistent with establishment media trends, which often neglect Palestinian voices in Israel/Palestine coverage. In fact, a 2018 study conducted by 416Labs, a Canadian research firm, found that, in five major US newspapers’ coverage of Israel/Palestine between 1967 and 2017, Israeli sources were cited 2.5 times more often than Palestinian ones.

Consequently, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association’s media resource guide advises reporters: “Interview Palestinians. Your story is always incomplete without them."

Unchallenged Israeli talking points

The only independent legal expert quoted in this New York Times article (1/10/24) suggested that it was impossible to say whether a genocide was going on while there was still time to stop it.

While the New York Times' sourcing was somewhat more balanced, that did not reflect the absence of a pro-Israel skew. The paper failed at the basic task of evaluating arguments, reducing the grave charge of genocide to an unresolvable he said/she said back-and-forth.

In the Times' most extensive pre-trial article (1/1o/24), Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner and Johannesburg bureau chief John Eligon provided an overview of the hearing. Of 11 quoted sources, only a single independent legal expert was included: William Schabas of Middlesex University, London, who averred that it would be months before South Africa assembled all of its evidence, and "only then can we really assess the full strength of the South African case." Meanwhile, four Israeli sources and a US official were quoted in support of Israel, against three South African sources and one Palestinian source.

The Times piece also uncritically presented easily refutable Israeli claims about the legality of the IDF military campaign in Gaza:

Israel’s military insists that it is prosecuting the war in line with international law. Officials point to the millions of messages, sent by various means, telling Gaza’s civilians to evacuate to safer areas ahead of bombings, and say they are constantly working to increase the amount of aid entering Gaza.

Israel's insistence that it follows international law is contradicted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, all of which have documented evidence of war crimes committed by Israel in this conflict, as well as in past conflicts. Journalists' job is to hold the powerful to account, not to simply relay their claims, no matter how flimsy. Yet the Times offered no hint of pushback to Israel's assertions.

Moreover, those “millions of messages” are often inaccessible to Gazans under rocket fire. The designated “safe zones” are usually announced on social media posts or via leaflets dropped over Gaza containing QR codes to maps (Guardian, 12/2/23). As the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, “It is unclear how those residing in Gaza would access the map without electricity and amid recurrent telecommunications cuts.” Since October 7, Israel has purposely cut Gaza’s electricity and internet supply—another violation of international law (Human Rights Watch, 10/21/23; Al Jazeera, 12/4/23).

Even if Gazans make their way to the designated zones, there is no guarantee that they will find safety; many of the areas that Israel allotted as civilian safe zones have been targeted and bombed by the army (New York Times, 12/21/23). As UNICEF spokesperson, James Elder, told the BBC (12/5/23): “There are no safe zones in Gaza.”

Unscrutinized statements

The Wall Street Journal (1/12/24) provided no questioning of the claim that "Israel’s inherent right to defend itself" required the killing of thousands of children.

The idea that the Israeli military is “constantly working to increase the amount of aid entering Gaza” is also patently incorrect. A Human Rights Watch report (12/18/23) found that

Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel, while willfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas, and depriving the civilian population of objects indispensable to their survival.

Nearly the exact same paragraph about Israel sending "millions of messages" and "constantly working to increase the amount of aid" appeared in the Times the next day (1/11/24), without any analysis.

Another Times piece, by Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley (1/12/24), offered a brief explanation of the accusations leveled by South Africa, followed by Israel's rebuttal that it is taking “significant precautions to protect civilians.” Again, the Times offered no evaluation of such claims.

The Wall Street Journal (1/12/24) advanced a similar assertion from Tal Becker, chief lawyer for Israel’s Foreign Ministry: “Israel…recognizes its obligation to conduct military operations in line with international humanitarian law, which requires efforts to minimize civilian casualties.”

With no scrutiny of Israeli officials’ statements, US news becomes little more than a bullhorn for government propaganda.

Research assistance: Xenia Gonikberg, Phillip HoSang

The post Establishment Papers Fell Short in Coverage of Genocide Charges appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Lara-Nour Walton.

On Monday, a court sentenced Kustov, chief editor of local broadcaster Bars, to 10 days imprisonment on charges of disobeying a police officer, according to his outlet, multiple media reports, and a court statement.

Police detained Kustov, who was reporting on the crash of a Russian military aircraft in Ivanovo, a region northeast of the capital, Moscow, on March 12, for four hours before releasing him; his phone was also briefly confiscated.

“The arrest of journalist Sergey Kustov, who was covering a plane crash, is yet another attempt by Russian authorities to stifle any independent reporting,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities should immediately release Kustov, drop all charges against him, and let members of the press work freely and without fear of being detained.”

According to the court statement, Kustov “showed disobedience to military police officers, namely, he did not comply with repeated lawful demands of military police officers to leave the area of the IL-76 [Russian military aircraft] crash site.”

Kustov denied that the military police made any demands, saying that “if they had, he would certainly have complied with them,” his outlet reported. CPJ’s messages to the outlet for comment did not receive a reply.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on March 12 that one of the aircraft’s engines caught fire, resulting in the death of all 15 people aboard, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Separately, on Sunday, March 17, police in Saint-Petersburg detained Fyodor Danilov, a correspondent with local news outlet Fontanka, while he was covering the election at a polling station, according to his outlet.

Danilov, who was accredited to cover the elections, arrived at the polling station around 11:30 a.m. and was arrested after 5 to 10 minutes for allegedly waving his arms and using obscene language, which he denied. Danilov was released after two hours without charge, he told CPJ, adding on March 18 that he was “continuing” his work.

At noon on that day, thousands of people, led by the Russian opposition, turned up at polling stations in Russia and abroad to peacefully protest the re-election of Vladimir Putin.

CPJ did not receive a response to emails sent to the Saint Petersburg police and Ivanov district court requesting comment on the journalists’ detentions.

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

Surveillance and better vaccine coverage is needed to prevent another measles outbreak in the Pacific, says the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Western Pacific regional director.

Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala said many children missed out on routine vaccinations — including measles and rubella — during the covid-19 pandemic.

According to WHO, measles cases jumped by 225 percent — from just over 1400 cases in 2022 to more than 5000 last year — in the Western Pacific region.

“I think the health workforce were concentrating on covid-19 vaccinations and forgot about routine vaccinations, not only for measles, but other routine immunisation schedule,” Piukala told RNZ Pacific.

“People are going back to fill the gaps.”

From 2022 to 2023, 11 countries in the Western Pacific, including Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and Papua New Guinea, conducted nationwide measles and rubella vaccination campaigns.

Catch-up successful
Piukala said the catch-up campaigns had been successful.

“That will definitely reduce the risk,” he said.

“No child should get sick or die of measles.”

In 2019, Samoa had an outbreak that killed 83 people off the back of an outbreak in Auckland.

Piukala said the deaths made people understand the importance of measles and rubella vaccinations for their children.

Fiji, Guam, French Polynesia and New Caledonia are the only countries or territories that have local testing capacity for measles, with most nations sending samples to Melbourne for testing.

Piukala said WHO plans for Samoa, the Cook Islands, and the Solomon Islands to have testing capacity by 2025.

“The PCR machines that were made available in Pacific Island countries during the covid pandemic can also be used to detect other respiratory viruses, including the flu, LSV, and measles and rubella.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

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

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.

CNN employees, including the renowned international news anchor Christiane Amanpour, confronted network executives over what the staffers described as myriad leadership failings in coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, according to a leaked recording of a recent all-hands meeting obtained by The Intercept.

In the hourlong meeting at CNN’s London Bureau on February 13, staffers took turns questioning a panel of executives about CNN’s protocols for covering the war in Gaza and what they describe as a hostile climate for Arab reporters. Several junior and senior CNN employees described feeling devalued, embarrassed, and disgraced by CNN’s war coverage.

The panelists — CNN Worldwide CEO and CNN Editor-in-Chief Mark Thompson, CNN U.S. Executive Editor Virginia Moseley, and CNN International General Manager Mike McCarthy — responded with broad assurances that the employees’ concerns were being heard, while also defending CNN’s work and pointing to the persistent obstacle of gaining access inside the Gaza Strip.

One issue that came up repeatedly is CNN’s longtime process for routing almost all coverage relating to Israel and Palestine through the network’s Jerusalem bureau. As The Intercept reported in January, the protocol — which has existed for years but was expanded and rebranded as SecondEyes last summer — slows down reporting on Gaza and filters news about the war through journalists in Jerusalem who operate under the shadow of Israel’s military censor.

“You’ve heard from me, you’ve heard my, you know, real distress with SecondEyes — changing copy, double standards, and all the rest,” said Amanpour, who was identified in the recording when an executive called her name. “So you’ve heard it, and I hear what your response is and I hope it does go a long way.”

CNN spokesperson Jonathan Hawkins declined to comment on the meeting and pointed The Intercept to the network’s previous statement about SecondEyes, which described it as a process to bring “more expert eyes” to coverage around the clock. “I would add to this that the staff members on this group include Arab staff based outside Israel, and have done since the group was established,” Hawkins said. 

Amanpour did not respond to a request for comment.

Like other mainstream news organizations, CNN has faced a flood of internal and external criticism of its coverage of Israel and Gaza since October 7, accused of minimizing Palestinian suffering and uncritically amplifying Israeli narratives. Just this week, CNN described an Israeli massacre of more than 100 starving people who were gathered to get food as a “chaotic incident.” Earlier this month, The Guardian published an extensive story sourced to multiple CNN staffers who described the network’s Gaza coverage as “journalistic malpractice.”

During the February meeting, a half-dozen staffers spoke candidly about concerns with CNN’s war coverage. They said the coverage has weakened the network’s standing in the region and has led Arab staffers, some of whom entered lethal situations to cover the war, feeling as though their lives are expendable.

“I was in southern Lebanon during October and November,” one journalist said. “And it was more distressing for me to turn on CNN, than the bombs falling nearby.”

The meeting began as an effort for leadership to discuss editorial priorities. Thompson, in his opening remarks, spoke at length about his vision for evenhanded journalism and reiterated his personal openness to critical exchange and inquiry. “There’s something about the essence of CNN — its brand, what it stands for — which to me is great breaking news, with, right in the middle of the frame, a human being, someone you trust and whose background you know, acting as your guide to what’s happening,” he said.

As soon as the C-suite opened the discussion up to staff questions, the interrogation began.

“My question is about our Gaza coverage,” said the journalist who worked from Lebanon in the fall. “I think it’s no secret that there is a lot of discontent about how the newsgathering process — and how it played out.”

Instead of finding solace in CNN’s coverage of the war, the staffer continued, “I find that my colleagues, my family, are platforming people over and over again, that are either calling for my death, or using very dehumanizing language against me … and people that look like me. And obviously, this has a huge impact in our credibility in the region.”

The journalist posed a question to the executives: “I want to ask as well, what have you done, and what are you doing to address the hate speech that fills our air and informed our coverage, especially in the first few months of the war?”

Thompson responded that he’s generally satisfied with how the network has covered Israel’s war on Gaza, while conceding that “it is impossible to do this kind of story where there are people with incredibly strong opinions on both sides,” without “sometimes making mistakes.” He added that CNN has gotten better at admitting mistakes and trying to correct them and suggested, in response to the staffer’s concerns over dehumanization, that holes in coverage are a consequence of limited access to Gaza.

“I think the fact that it’s been very difficult for us until relatively recently, and even today, to get fully on the ground inside Gaza, has made it hard for us to deliver the kind of individualized personal stories of what it’s been like for the people of Gaza, in the way it has been more possible for us with the story of the families of those murdered and kidnapped by Hamas in the original Hamas attack on Israel,” said Thompson, who answered most of the questions.

If the network had the same access to Gaza as it does to the families of Israeli hostages, he continued, “I believe we would have done the same,” citing a story the network ran about one of its own producers caught in Gaza. “I think that we have for the most part tried very hard to capture the … our job is not to be moral arbiters, it is to report what’s happening.”

Another newsroom staffer chimed in to object to the network’s uncritical coverage of statements by Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. “I think a lot of us felt very strongly about the fact that there were very senior anchors not challenging people like, comments like, the defense minister using what is considered under international law, genocidal language, ‘human animals,’ all of those things that made up the first seven pages of the South African legal case at the ICJ,” referring to the International Court of Justice.

The employee then turned to SecondEyes: “If we want a culture that truly values diversity, we need to be really honest about, nobody gets it right. But we did not have our key Jerusalem producers on that Jerusalem SecondEyes — we didn’t have an Arab on it for some time.”

The staffer went on to say that Muslim or Arab journalists at CNN were made to feel that they must denounce Hamas to clear their names and be taken seriously as journalists. “I’ve heard this, where a number of younger colleagues now feel that they didn’t want to put their hands up to speak up even in the kind of the local Bureau meeting,” the staffer said. “People were taking their names off bylines.”

Thompson interjected, saying that people seemed to be speaking up now and that he welcomes editorial discussions.

Another staffer disputed that characterization and noted that Arab and Muslim journalists walk a difficult line between feeling proud of working for CNN while facing pressure from their families and communities over working for a network with a pronounced pro-Israel bias. 

“I think it’s very important for you to know that the degree of racism that those of us of Arab and Muslim descent face inside Israel, covering Israel, was disproportionate — the targeting of us by pro Israeli organizations, and what we had to hear,” another staffer added.

Amanpour chimed in toward the end of the meeting. She praised the reports of Clarissa Ward, Nada Bashir, and Jomana Karadsheh and suggested that CNN should have more experts like them on the ground and in the field, especially at the start of a conflict.

“Bottom line, we do actually have to send experts to these unbelievably difficult, contentious, you know, game-changing stories,” said Amanpour, a veteran war reporter. “It isn’t a place, with due respect, to send people who we want to promote or whatever, or teach. Maybe in the second wave, maybe in the third wave — but in the first wave, it has to be the people who know, through experience, what they’re seeing, and how to speak truth to power on all sides. And how to recognize the difference between political or whatever or terrorist attack, and the humanity, and to be able to put all of that into reporting.”

“For me, video is not a talking head on a balcony in a capital,” Amanpour said. “It just isn’t. To me, video is reportage.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Daniel Boguslaw.

Newshub, one of the key media companies in Aotearoa New Zealand, is to close its newsroom on June 30, reports RNZ News.

Staff were told of the closure at an emergency meeting today.

Newshub is owned by US-based global entertainment giant Warner Bros Discovery which also owns Eden, Rush, HGTV and Bravo.

• READ MORE: Other Newshub reports

In 2020, it took over the New Zealand channel’s assets which had been then part of Mediaworks.

Staff were called to a meeting at Newshub at 11am, RNZ News reported on its live news feed.

They were told that the US conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery, owners of Newshub, was commencing consultation on a restructuring of its free-to-air business

This included the closure of all news operations by its Newshub operation

All local programming would be made only through local funding bodies and partners.

James Gibbons, president of Asia Pacific for Warner Bros Discovery, said it was a combination of negative events in NZ and around the world. The economic downturn had been severe and there was no long hope for a bounce back

Revenue has ‘disappeared quickly’
“Advertising revenue in New Zealand has disappeared far more quickly than our ability to manage this reduction, and to drive the business to profitability,” he said.

He said the restructuring would focus on it being a digital business

ThreeNow, its digital platform, would be the focus and could run local shows

All news production would stop on June 30.

The consultation process runs until mid-March. A final decision is expected early April.

“Deeply shocked’
Interviewed on RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme, a former head of Newshub, Mark Jennings, said he was deeply shocked by the move.

Other media personalities also reacted with stunned disbelief. Rival TVNZ’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver said: “Thinking of my friends and colleagues from Newshub.

“So many super talented wonderful people. Its a terrible day for our industry that Newshub [will] close by June, we will be all the much poorer for it. Much aroha to you all.”

Newshub has broken some important Pacific stories over the years.

Jennings told RNZ a cut back and trimming of shows would have been expected — but not on this scale.

“I’m really deeply frankly shocked by it,” said Jennings, now co-founder and editor of Newsroom independent digital media group.

He said he expected all shows to go, including AM Show and investigative journalist Patrick Gower’s show.

Company ‘had no strategy’
“I think governments will be pretty upset and annoyed about this, to be honest.”

“Unless they have been kept in the loop because we’re going to see a major drop in diversity.

“Newshub’s newsroom has been, maybe not so much in recent times, but certainly in the past, a very strong and vibrant player in the market and very important one for this country and again as [RNZ Mediawatch presenter] Colin [Peacock] points out, who is going to keep TVNZ’s news honest now?

“I think this is a major blow to media diversity in this country.”

“First of all, Discovery and then Warner Bros Discovery, this has been an absolute shocker of entry to this market by them. They came in with what I could was . . . no, I couldn’t see a strategy in it and in the time they owned this company, there has been no strategy and that’s really disappointing.

“If this had gone to a better owner, they would have taken steps way sooner and maybe we wouldn’t be losing one of the country’s most valued news services.”

Loss of $100m over three years
Jennings said his understanding was the company had lost $100 million in the past three years, which was “really significant”.

“I wonder if it had been a New Zealand owner, whether the government might have taken a different view around this, but I guess because it’s owned by a huge American, multi-national conglomerate, they would’ve been reluctant to intervene in any way.”

He said Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee, a former journalist who ran the Asia Down Under programme for many years, faced serious questions now.

“It’ll be her first big test really, I guess, in that portfolio.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

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

The Rodong Sinmun, the North’s state-run daily, for instance, has not reported anything about Cuba since Feb. 15 when it briefly covered the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez’s condemnation of Israel’s attack on Palestinians, as part of a summary of international news items.

Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency has also not mentioned Cuba for more than a week. 

Cuba was not even mentioned in KCNA reports on Feb. 23 and 24 on celebrations at diplomatic missions and U.N. representations in 26 countries and a series of congratulatory visits by dignitaries to mark the 82nd birthday of the former leader Kim Jong Il. 

It is usual for North Korean media to omit Cuba when reporting national events such as the former leader’s birthday. 

South Korea’s presidential office said on Feb. 15 that the country’s move to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba would deal a “political and psychological blow” to Pyongyang, whose diplomatic footing is largely dependent on a small number of Cold War allies.

South Korea did not have diplomatic ties with Cuba for 65 years.

Meanwhile, Cuba continues to maintain close relations with North Korea, which were established in 1960, with their shared socialist ideology and their hostility towards the United States. Cuba maintains an embassy in Pyongyang.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro a “comrade-in-arms,” as cited by its state media. North Korea even observed three days of official mourning in 2016 when Castro died at the age of 90.

Edited by Elaine Chan.

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

Under the tailpipe emissions proposal unveiled last April, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projected that EVs could account for 67% of all new light-duty vehicle sales by model year 2032. Citing three unnamed sources, The New York Timesreported Saturday that officials finalizing the plan are adjusting it "so that electric vehicle sales would increase more gradually through 2030 but then would have to sharply rise."

The reporting comes after the Democratic president last month secured the crucial endorsement of the United Auto Workers, which followed a monthslong delay partly related to EV policy and came despite criticism from the UAW and residents of Michigan—the heart of the U.S. auto manufacturing industry—about Biden backing Israel's devastating war on the Gaza Strip.

Ali Zaidi, Biden's senior climate adviser, "declined to discuss the details of the final regulation" and a UAW spokesperson "declined multiple requests to interview" union president Shawn Fain, according to the Times.

Others suggested Biden's concession may be worth it to beat former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee. David Victor, co-director of the Deep Decarbonization Initiative at the University of California, San Diego, told the newspaper that "you have more emissions for a few years but you raise the odds that the rule will stick."

However, Hodgkins argued that "with climate change fast accelerating, this is no time to capitulate to corporate demands."

The campaigner continued:

For decades, Big Auto has employed the same playbook as Big Oil to delay and prevent progress on rules that would clean our air, fight climate change, and save lives. Study after study, including the administration's own annual reporting, shows that the technology to reduce emissions and electrify fleets is not only available, but it will save automakers money in compliance fees and consumers money on fueling and overall costs. Yet, decades of the auto industry dragging its feet to take action means that it is further behind the curve.

Automakers have had decades to drive forward the transition to electric vehicles. They have failed time and again. The only factor that will usher in the needed transition to electric vehicles is firm and specific government requirements. Consumers will embrace electric vehicles when automakers make them the attractive option—which they will only do when the government requires them to do so.

"There's still time for the Biden administration to avoid this epic error and recommit to science-backed actions it has started," she stressed. "The world is on fire. We need the Biden administration to maintain strong emissions rules that are one of the biggest extinguishers."

Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous similarly pressured the administration in a Tuesday statement, arguing that "strong EPA vehicle standards are essential to protecting clean air for communities across the country."

"Lobbying by auto manufacturers to stall the transition to electric vehicles could have severe consequences: Millions of Americans breathing deadly car pollution, suffering from the impacts of climate change, and spending too much on volatile gas prices," Jealous warned. "Enough excuses from the auto industry."

"Automakers have had more than enough time to prepare for the EV transition, and funding from the Inflation Reduction Act is rolling out the infrastructure necessary to support it," he added. "We can and must have union-made clean vehicles. We urge the EPA to remain steadfast in finalizing a strong rule that will improve public health and protect our future."

While Biden campaigned as a clear climate-friendly alternative to Trump in 2020, the Democrat has come under fire during his presidency for various decisions—including supporting certain oil and gas projects, continuing fossil fuel lease sales, skipping last year's United Nations summit, and declining to declare a national climate emergency.

Nearly two dozen Sunrise Movement campaigners were arrested at the president's campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware last week and the youth-led climate group held dozens of actions across the country on Monday, warning that "Biden can either follow the lead of the young people who helped elect him in 2020 and declare a climate emergency or he's going to lose in November; backing a genocide and giving up our last chance to avert the worst of the climate crisis will be his legacy."

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

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the ruling Awami League party returned to power for her fifth term amid an opposition boycott and low voter turnout. The U.S. State Department said the elections were “not free or fair.”

Mujib Mashal, South Asia bureau chief for The New York Times, told CPJ that the newspaper was denied prior approval by the Bangladesh government to report on the polls.

Separately, on Saturday, January 6, the day before the election, the Daily Manab Zamin newspaper’s website was blocked in Bangladesh following its critical reporting on the government, according to Matiur Rahman Chowdhury, the outlet’s editor-in-chief.

Chowdhury said the outlet did not receive a government notice detailing why the website was blocked, and access was restored on Monday, January 8.

At around 1 p.m. on election day, around 15 to 20 men wearing Awami League badges attacked seven journalists– MA Rahim, a correspondent for the broadcaster Ananda TV, Rimon Hossain, a camera operator with Ananda TV; Masud Rana, a correspondent with the online news portal enews71; Sumon Khan, a correspondent with the broadcaster Mohona TV; Elias Bosunia, a correspondent with the broadcaster Bangla TV; Minaj Islam, a correspondent with the newspaper Daily Vorer Chetona; and Hazrat Ali, a correspondent with the newspaper Dainik Dabanol, during their coverage of an assault on independent candidate Ataur Rahman outside a polling station in northern Lalmonirhat district, according to Rahim and Rana.

The men beat several of the journalists with iron rods and bamboo sticks, beat and pushed others, and broke and confiscated multiple pieces of equipment including cameras and microphones—according to those sources and a complaint filed at the Hatibandha Police Station by Rana, which alleged the perpetrators were led by brothers Md. Zahidul Islam and Md. Mostafa, nephews of the incumbent parliamentarian contested by Rahman.

Md. Zahidul Islam told CPJ that he denied involvement in the attack. Islam did not respond to CPJ’s follow-up question about Mostafa’s alleged involvement in the attack.

Saiful Islam, officer-in-charge of the Hatibandha Police Station, did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment.

Separately, at around 2:40 p.m., around 25 men surrounded Sirajul Islam Rubel, a correspondent for The Daily Star newspaper, and Arafat Rahaman, a reporter for The Daily Star, as they tried to leave a polling station in the capital Dhaka after covering an alleged ballot stuffing attempt by Awami League supporters, Rubel told CPJ.

The men grabbed the journalists’ phones, deleted their video footage and photos of the incident, and blocked their exit from the center along with Daily Star reporter Dipan Nandy, who subsequently joined Rubel and Rahaman to report from the station. The trio managed to leave with the assistance of police at around 3:05 p.m., Rubel said.

Separately, at around 2:45 p.m., around 20 to 25 men beat Mosharrof Shah, a correspondent for the daily newspaper Prothom Alo, after he photographed and filmed alleged ballot stuffing by Awami League supporters at a polling station in southeast Chittagong city, the journalist told CPJ.

Shah said that while speaking to an electoral officer about the incident, the men approached the journalist, took his notebook where he wrote what he observed, and deleted footage from his mobile phone in the presence of police. The men repeatedly slapped and punched Shah before he managed to flee the scene after around 30 minutes, the journalist told CPJ, adding that he received his phone back around one hour later with the assistance of his journalist colleagues.

Shah identified one of the perpetrators as Nurul Absar, general secretary of a local unit of the Chhatra League, the student wing of the Awami League. Absar did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment.

Previously, on September 24, alleged members of the Chhatra League attacked Shah on the University of Chittagong campus.

Separately, at around 4 p.m., a group of 20 to 30 men surrounded and assaulted Saif Bin Ayub, a sub-editor for the Daily Kalbela newspaper, and took his laptop, phone, other personal items while he was photographing alleged ballot stuffing by Awami League supporters inside a polling center in Dhaka, the journalist told CPJ.

The men pushed Bin Ayub against a wall and punched him, kicked him in the abdomen, and scratched him while forcibly removing his press identification card from around his neck. The perpetrators then dragged him out of the building as he requested help from police present at the scene, the journalist said. 

Officers did not intervene and the beating continued outside for around 15 minutes, the journalist said, adding that he received his phone and broken laptop back later that day but not his wallet, wristwatch and other items.

Separately, at around 4:30 p.m., around eight to 10 men—including electoral officials and teenagers wearing Awami League badges—pushed Sam Jahan, a Reuters video journalist, out of a vote counting room in a polling station in Dhaka. Two of the teenagers then chased Jahan out of the station, he told CPJ.

Separately, Awami League supporters surrounded and obstructed the work of four journalists with the New Age newspaper—correspondent Muktadir Rashid, photojournalist Sourav Laskar, and reporters Nasir Uz Zaman and Tanzil Rahaman—during their coverage of polling stations in Dhaka, Rashid told CPJ.

Separately, unidentified perpetrators threw bricks from behind at Mohiuddin Modhu, a news presenter and correspondent for the broadcaster Jamuna Television, after the journalist tried to speak to a young teenager who attempted to cast a ballot in the Nawabganj sub-district of Dhaka district.

Biplab Barua, Awami League office secretary and special aide to Prime Minister Hasina, told CPJ that law enforcement took swift action regarding all attacks on journalists on election day. Barua added that the government is committed to launching investigations into all such incidents and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

The Age has revealed the dismissal of ABC broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf last December 20 was the nasty fruit of a campaign waged against chair Ita Buttrose and managing director David Anderson.

The official reason for Lattouf’s dismissal was ordinary: she shared a post by Human Rights Watch about Israel “using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza”, calling it “a war crime”.

It also noted the express intention of Israeli officials to pursue this strategy. Actions were also documented: the deliberate blocking of food, water and fuel “while wilfully obstructing the entry of aid”.

• READ MORE: Which Australian journalists and politicians have gone on trips to Israel and Palestine?
• Journalists need to ‘take a stand’ over the Gaza carnage after latest killings – David Robie
• RSF condemns Israel over ‘silencing of media’ – 31 Palestinian journalists in jail, 80 plus killed

Lattouf shared it after management directed staff not to post on “matters of controversy”.

Prior to The Age revelations, much had been made of Lattouf’s fill-in role as a radio presenter — which was intended for five shows.

The Australian, owned by News Corp, had issues with Lattouf’s statements on various online platforms. It found it strange in December that she was appointed “despite her very public anti-Israel stance”.

She was accused of denying that some protesters had called for Jews to be gassed outside the Sydney Opera House on October 7. She also dared to accuse the Israeli Defence Forces of committing rape.

Leaked messages from a WhatsApp group called ‘Lawyers for Israel’ indicate that Australia’s public broadcaster – ABC – might have been lobbied into firing journalist Antoinette Lattouf.@meenakshirv reports. pic.twitter.com/1Nfl2kEDx6

— The Listening Post (@AJListeningPost) January 19, 2024

‘Lot of people really upset’
It was considered odd that she discussed food and water shortages in Gaza and “an advertising campaign showing corpses reminiscent of being wrapped in Muslim burial cloths”. That “left a lot of people really upset’,” The Australian said.

If war is hell, Lattouf was evidently not allowed to go into quite so much detail about it — at least concerning the fate of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli war machine.

What has also come to light is that the ABC’s managers were not targeting Lattouf on their own. Pressure had been exercised from outside the media organisation.

According to The Age, WhatsApp messages by a group called “Lawyers for Israel” had been sent to the ABC as part of a coordinated campaign.

Sydney property lawyer Nicky Stein told members of that group to contact the federal Minister for Communications asking “how Antoinette is hosting the morning ABC Sydney show” the day Lattouf was sacked.

They said employing Lattouff breached Clause 4 of the ABC code of practice on “impartiality”.

Stein went on to insist that: “It’s important ABC hears from not just individuals in the community but specifically from lawyers so they feel there is an actual legal threat.”

No ‘generic’ response
She goes on to say that a “proper” rather than “generic” response was expected “by COB [close of business] today or I would look to engage senior counsel”.

Did such threats have any basis? Even Stein admits: “There is probably no actionable offence against the ABC but I didn’t say I would be taking one — just investigating one. I have said that they should be terminating her employment immediately.”

It was designed to attract attention from ABC chairperson Ita Buttrose, and it did.

Robert Goot, deputy president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and part of the same group, boasted of information he had received that Lattouf would be “gone from morning radio from Friday” because of her “anti-Israeli” stance.

There has been something of a journalistic exodus from the ABC of late.

Nour Haydar, a political reporter in the ABC’s Parliament House bureau and another journalist of Lebanese descent, resigned on January 12 citing concern about the ABC’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.

There had been, for instance, the creation of a “Gaza advisory panel” at the behest of ABC news director Justin Stevens, ostensibly to improve coverage.

Journalists need to ‘take a stand’ over the Gaza carnage after latest killings

Must not ‘take sides’
“Accuracy and impartiality are core to the service we offer audiences,” Stevens told staff. “We must stay independent and not ‘take sides’.”

This pointless assertion can only ever be a threat because it acts as an injunction on staff and a judgment against sources that do not favour the line, however credible they might be.

What proves acceptable, a condition that seems to have paralysed the ABC, is to never say that Israel massacres, commits war crimes and brings about conditions approximating genocide.

Little wonder then that coverage of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice does not get top billing on the ABC.

Palestinians and Palestinian militias, however, can always be described as savages, rapists and baby slayers. Throw in fanaticism and Islam and you have the complete package ready for transmission.

Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the mainstream media of most Western countries, as the late Robert Fisk pointed out, repeatedly asserts these divisions.

After her resignation, Haydar told the Sydney Morning Herald: “Commitment to diversity in the media cannot be skin deep.  Culturally diverse staff should be respected and supported even when they challenge the status quo.”

#NoFearNoFavour https://t.co/JXq9TiI6Zu

— Antoinette Lattouf (@antoinette_news) January 16, 2024

Sharing divisive topics
Haydar’s argument about cultural diversity should not obscure the broader problem facing the ABC: policing the way opinions and material on war, and any other divisive topic, is shared with the public.

The issue goes less to cultural diversity than permitted intellectual breadth.

Lattouf, for her part, is pursuing remedies through the Fair Work Commission and seeking funding through a GoFundMe page, steered by Lauren Dubois.

“We stand with Antoinette and support the rights of workers to be able to share news that expresses an opinion or reinforces a fact, without fear of retribution.”

Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, expressed his displeasure at Lattouf’s treatment, suggesting the ABC had erred.

ABC’s senior management, via a statement from Anderson, preferred the route of craven denial. He rejected “any claim that it has been influenced by any external pressure, whether it be an advocacy group or lobby group, a political party, or commercial entity”.

Dr Binoy Kampmark is a senior lecturer in global studies at RMIT University, Melbourne. This article was first published by Green Left Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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

Photo of Antoinette Lattouf. Photograph Source: Penguin Random House – CC BY-SA 2.0

What a cowardly act it was.  A national broadcaster, dedicated to what should be fearless reporting, cowed by the intemperate bellyaching of a lobby concerned about coverage of the Israel-Gaza war.  The investigation by The Age newspaper was revealing in showing that the dismissal of broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf last December 20 was the nasty fruit of a campaign waged against the corporation’s management.  This included its chair, Ita Buttrose, and managing director David Anderson.

The official reason for that dismissal was disturbingly ordinary.  Lattouf had not, for instance, decided to become a flag-swathed bomb thrower for the Palestinian cause.  She had engaged in no hostage taking campaign, nor intimidated any Israeli figure.  The sacking had purportedly been made over sharing a post by Human Rights Watch about Israel that mentioned “using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza”, calling it “a war crime”.  It also noted the express intention by Israeli officials to pursue this strategy.   Actions are also documented: the deliberate blocking of the delivery of food, water and fuel “while wilfully obstructing the entry of aid.”  The sharing by Lattouf took place following a direction not to post on “matters of controversy”.

Human Rights Watch might be accused of many things: the dolled up corporate face of human rights activism; the activist transformed into fundraising agent and boardroom gaming strategist.  But to share material from the organisation on alleged abuses is hardly a daredevil act of dangerous hair-raising radicalism.

Prior to the revelations in The Age, much had been made of Lattouf’s fill-in role as a radio presenter, a stint that was to last for five shows.  The Australian, true to form, had its own issue with Lattouf’s statements made on various online platforms.  In December, the paper found it strange that she was appointed “despite her very public anti-Israel stance.”  She was also accused of denying the lurid interpretations put upon footage from protests outside Sydney Opera House, some of which called for gassing Jews.  And she dared accused the Israeli forces of committing rape.

It was also considered odd that she discuss such matters as food and water shortages in Gaza and “an advertising campaign showing corpses reminiscent of being wrapped in Muslim burial cloths”.  That “left ‘a lot of people really upset’.”  If war is hell, then Lattouf was evidently not allowed to go into quite so much detail about it – at least when concerning the fate of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli war machine.

What also transpires is that the ABC managers were not merely targeting Lattouf on their own, sadistic initiative.  Pressure of some measure had been exercised from outside the organisation.  According to The Age, WhatsApp messages had been sent to the ABC as part of a coordinated campaign by a group called Lawyers for Israel.

The day Lattouf was sacked, Sydney property lawyer Nicky Stein buzzingly began proceedings by telling members of the group to contact the federal minister for communication asking “how Antoinette is hosting the morning ABC Sydney show.”  Employing Lattouff apparently breached Clause 4 of the ABC code of practice on impartiality.

Stein cockily went on to insist that, “It’s important ABC hears from not just individuals in the community but specifically from lawyers so they feel there is an actual legal threat.”  She goes on to read that a “proper” rather than “generic” response was expected “by COB [close of business] today or I would look to engage senior counsel.”

Did such windy threats have any basis?  No, according to Stein.  “I know there is probably no actionable offence against the ABC but I didn’t say I would be taking one – just investigating one.  I have said that they should be terminating her employment immediately.”  Utterly charming, and sufficiently so to attract attention from the ABC chairperson herself, who asked for further venting of concerns.

Indeed, another member of the haranguing clique, Robert Goot, also deputy president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, could boast of information he had received that Lattouf would be “gone from morning radio from Friday” because of her anti-Israeli stance.

There has been something of a journalistic exodus from the ABC of late.  Nour Haydar, an Australian journalist also of Lebanese descent, resigned expressing her concerns about the coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict at the broadcaster. There had been, for instance, the creation of a “Gaza advisory panel” at the behest of ABC News director Justin Stevens, ostensibly to improve the coverage of the conflict.  “Accuracy and impartiality are core to the service we offer audiences,” Stevens explained to staff.  “We must stay independent and not ‘take sides’.”

This pointless assertion can only ever be a threat because it acts as an injunction on staff and a judgment against sources that do not favour the accepted line, however credible they might be.  What proves acceptable, a condition that seems to have paralysed the ABC, is to never say that Israel massacres, commits war crimes, and brings about conditions approximating to genocide.  Little wonder that coverage on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice does not get top billing on in the ABC news headlines.

Palestinians and Palestinian militias, on the other hand, can always be written about as brute savages, rapists and baby slayers.  Throw in fanaticism and Islam, and you have the complete package ready for transmission.  Coverage in the mainstays of most Western liberal democracies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as the late Robert Fisk pointed out with pungency, repeatedly asserts these divisions.

After her signation Haydar told the Sydney Morning Herald that, “Commitment to diversity in the media cannot be skin deep.  Culturally diverse staff should be respected and supported even when they challenge the status quo.”  But Haydar’s argument about cultural diversity should not obscure the broader problem facing the ABC: policing the way opinions and material on war and any other divisive topic is shared.  The issue goes less to cultural diversity than permitted intellectual breadth, which is distinctly narrowing at the national broadcaster.

Lattouf, for her part, is pursuing remedies through the Fair Work Commission, and seeking funding through a GoFundMe page, steered by Lauren Dubois.  “We stand with Antoinette and support the rights of workers to be able to share news that expresses an opinion or reinforces a fact, without fear of retribution.”

Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, expressed his displeasure at the treatment of Lattouf for sharing HRW material, suggesting the ABC had erred.  ABC’s senior management, through a statement from managing director David Anderson, preferred the route of craven denial, rejecting “any claim that it has been influenced by any external pressure, whether it be an advocacy group or lobby group, a political party, or commercial entity.”  They would, wouldn’t they?

The post Cancelling the Journalist: The ABC’s Coverage of the Israel-Gaza War appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The official reason for that dismissal was disturbingly ordinary.  Lattouf had not, for instance, decided to become a flag-swathed bomb thrower for the Palestinian cause.  She had engaged in no hostage taking campaign, nor intimidated any Israeli figure.  The sacking had purportedly been made over sharing a post by Human Rights Watch about Israel that mentioned “using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza”, calling it “a war crime”.  It also noted the express intention by Israeli officials to pursue this strategy.   Actions are also documented: the deliberate blocking of the delivery of food, water and fuel “while wilfully obstructing the entry of aid.”  The sharing by Lattouf took place following a direction not to post on “matters of controversy”.

Human Rights Watch might be accused of many things: the dolled up corporate face of human rights activism; the activist transformed into fundraising agent and boardroom gaming strategist.  But to share material from the organisation on alleged abuses is hardly a daredevil act of dangerous hair-raising radicalism.

Prior to the revelations in The Age, much had been made of Lattouf’s fill-in role as a radio presenter, a stint that was to last for five shows.  The Australian, true to form, had its own issue with Lattouf’s statements made on various online platforms.  In December, the paper found it strange that she was appointed “despite her very public anti-Israel stance.”  She was also accused of denying the lurid interpretations put upon footage from protests outside Sydney Opera House, some of which called for gassing Jews.  And she dared accused the Israeli forces of committing rape.

It was also considered odd that she discuss such matters as food and water shortages in Gaza and “an advertising campaign showing corpses reminiscent of being wrapped in Muslim burial cloths”.  That “left ‘a lot of people really upset’.”  If war is hell, then Lattouf was evidently not allowed to go into quite so much detail about it – at least when concerning the fate of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli war machine.

What also transpires is that the ABC managers were not merely targeting Lattouf on their own, sadistic initiative.  Pressure of some measure had been exercised from outside the organisation.  According to The Age, WhatsApp messages had been sent to the ABC as part of a coordinated campaign by a group called Lawyers for Israel.

The day Lattouf was sacked, Sydney property lawyer Nicky Stein buzzingly began proceedings by telling members of the group to contact the federal minister for communication asking “how Antoinette is hosting the morning ABC Sydney show.”  Employing Lattouff apparently breached Clause 4 of the ABC code of practice on impartiality.

Stein cockily went on to insist that, “It’s important ABC hears from not just individuals in the community but specifically from lawyers so they feel there is an actual legal threat.”  She goes on to read that a “proper” rather than “generic” response was expected “by COB [close of business] today or I would look to engage senior counsel.”

Did such windy threats have any basis?  No, according to Stein.  “I know there is probably no actionable offence against the ABC but I didn’t say I would be taking one – just investigating one.  I have said that they should be terminating her employment immediately.”  Utterly charming, and sufficiently so to attract attention from the ABC chairperson herself, who asked for further venting of concerns.

Indeed, another member of the haranguing clique, Robert Goot, also deputy president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, could boast of information he had received that Lattouf would be “gone from morning radio from Friday” because of her anti-Israeli stance.

There has been something of a journalistic exodus from the ABC of late.  Nour Haydar, an Australian journalist also of Lebanese descent, resigned expressing her concerns about the coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict at the broadcaster.  There had been, for instance, the creation of a “Gaza advisory panel” at the behest of ABC News director Justin Stevens, ostensibly to improve the coverage of the conflict.  “Accuracy and impartiality are core to the service we offer audiences,” Stevens explained to staff.  “We must stay independent and not ‘take sides’.”

This pointless assertion can only ever be a threat because it acts as an injunction on staff and a judgment against sources that do not favour the accepted line, however credible they might be.  What proves acceptable, a condition that seems to have paralysed the ABC, is to never say that Israel massacres, commits war crimes, and brings about conditions approximating to genocide.  Little wonder that coverage on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice does not get top billing on the ABC news headlines.

Palestinians and Palestinian militias, on the other hand, can always be written about as brute savages, rapists and baby slayers.  Throw in fanaticism and Islam, and you have the complete package ready for transmission.  Coverage in the mainstays of most Western liberal democracies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as the late Robert Fisk pointed out with pungency, repeatedly asserts these divisions.

After her signation Haydar told the Sydney Morning Herald that, “Commitment to diversity in the media cannot be skin deep.  Culturally diverse staff should be respected and supported even when they challenge the status quo.”  But Haydar’s argument about cultural diversity should not obscure the broader problem facing the ABC: policing the way opinions and material on war and any other divisive topic is shared.  The issue goes less to cultural diversity than permitted intellectual breadth, which is distinctly narrowing at the national broadcaster.

Lattouf, for her part, is pursuing remedies through the Fair Work Commission, and seeking funding through a GoFundMe page, steered by Lauren Dubois.  “We stand with Antoinette and support the rights of workers to be able to share news that expresses an opinion or reinforces a fact, without fear of retribution.”

Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, expressed his displeasure at the treatment of Lattouf for sharing HRW material, suggesting the ABC had erred.  ABC’s senior management, through a statement from managing director David Anderson, preferred the route of craven denial, rejecting “any claim that it has been influenced by any external pressure, whether it be an advocacy group or lobby group, a political party, or commercial entity.”  They would, wouldn’t they?

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The fleet has grown steadily over the past five years, delivering Iranian crude to China as the countries work in concert to circumvent international sanctions that target Tehran's lucrative oil exports. But while the clandestine trade has buoyed Iran's budget, it also comes at tremendous cost and risk to Tehran.

Iran gives China a hefty discount to take its banned oil, taking 12 to 15 percent off the price of each barrel to make it worthwhile for Beijing to take on the liability of skirting sanctions, according to research by the data analysis unit of RFE/RL's Radio Farda.

Additional costs add up as well: ship-to-ship operations to offload the oil, middlemen, hidden-money transfers, and rebranding the oil to mask its Iranian origin and make it appear to come from a third country, said Dalga Khatinoglu, an expert on Iranian energy issues.

Altogether, said Khatinoglu, who contributes to Radio Farda's data analysis unit, Iran's budget figures and official statements indicate that 30 percent of the country's potential oil revenue was wasted last year.

And with the draft budget for the next fiscal year currently being debated by the Iranian parliament, there are no guarantees that Tehran's bet on quenching China's thirst for oil will continue to be a panacea.

With Iran almost entirely dependent on Beijing to take its oil and on other entities to facilitate the trade, Tehran has managed to inject desperately needed revenue into its economy. But Iran has also put itself at risk of seeing its main revenue stream dry up.

"There's definitely an extent to which Tehran has become more dependent on the likes of China or those who would be willing to deal with Iran in spite of Western sanctions," said Spencer Vuksic, a director of the consultancy firm Castellum, which closely tracks international sanctions regimes.

Vuksic said Iran is "definitely put in a weak position by having to depend on a single external partner who's willing to deal with and engage with Tehran."

Oily Deficit

Iran has trumpeted its foreign trade, claiming in December that oil revenue had contributed to a positive trade balance for the first eight months of the year.

But the oil and gas sector, by far the largest part of the Iranian economy, will not be enough to save the current budget of around $45 billion that was approved last year.

The Iranian fiscal year, which follows the Persian calendar and will end in March, is expected to result in a major deficit. In presenting the draft budget to parliament in December, President Ebrahim Raisi acknowledged a $10 billion deficit.

But the shortfall could be much higher -- up to $13.5 billion, the largest in Iran's history -- by the end of the fiscal year, according to Radio Farda. This is because data shows that just half of the expected oil revenues were realized, in part due to lower than expected oil prices and additional costs and discounts related to Tehran's oil trade with China.

Whereas the budget expectations were based on oil being sold at $85 per barrel, the price of crude dipped below $75 per barrel in December and has fluctuated wildly recently amid concerns that tensions in the Middle East could disrupt shipping and production.

And while Iran expected to export 1.5 million barrels of oil per day (bpd), it exported only 1.2 million bpd in the first eight months of the year, according to Radio Farda.

Altogether, Radio Farda estimates that Iran lost some $15 million per day in potential revenue through its trade with China, which accounts for more than 40 percent of the Iranian budget.

For the upcoming budget of about $49 billion, expectations for domestic and foreign oil revenue have dipped by 3 percent, according to Khatinoglu, even as the projected budget itself has risen by about 18 percent.

Accounting for the fluctuation of global oil prices, which fell far short of the average estimated for the current year, the peg has been lowered to $71 per barrel. Tehran is also expecting lower oil-export volumes -- which only briefly met forecasts of 1.5 million bpd, the highest levels seen since 2018 -- with only 1.35 million bpd forecast.

Iran is reportedly expected to plug the gap left by the lower oil revenue by increasing taxes on wealthy individuals and businesses, while Khatinoglu says Tehran will try to boost revenue by raising domestic energy prices.

Shipping Competition

Adding to the uncertainty of Iran's finances is the potential for weaker Chinese demand for its oil and competition from Russia which, like Tehran, sends banned oil to Beijing.

And international sanctions are continuously evolving to punish countries and entities that foster Iran's illegal oil trade, threatening to capsize the dark fleet that helps sustain Tehran's so-called resistance economy.

On the other hand, the mercurial nature of oil price fluctuations and demand could work to Iran's advantage. With Venezuelan oil no longer under sanctions, Russia is left as the only competitor for clandestine oil sales to China.

And Iran's capacity to export oil is greater than ever, allowing it to more easily sell its oil to Beijing when demand is high.

This is largely due to the considerable expansion of the global "dark fleet" of oil since crippling U.S. sanctions targeting Iran's oil exports were restored after the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the Iran nuclear deal that has been agreed with six world powers.

The deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), offered sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Tehran's controversial nuclear program. After the deal went into effect in January 2016, Iran more than doubled its legal oil exports in a few months, eventually reaching a high of 1.54 million bpd in 2018.

But with the U.S. withdrawal from the deal and subsequent reintroduction of sanctions that year, Iranian oil exports plummeted. And after the exceptions granted to a handful of countries -- including China -- that were allowed to continue to import Iranian oil expired in 2019, Iranian oil exports slowed to a trickle.

This was partly because Iran was not equipped to export its oil and had no immediate customers willing to defy the sanctions. But that changed with the fine-tuning of Iran’s efforts to defy sanctions, the fivefold rise in the number of dark-fleet tankers, and China's willingness to take the risk of doing business with Tehran -- although Beijing has not acknowledged unregistered imports of Iranian oil.

Today the dark fleet of often aging ships -- nearly half of them VLCCs (very large crude carriers) -- has risen to up to 1,000 vessels, according to Vortexa, which tracks international shipping. Many smaller ships are involved in Russian oil exports, which account for about 80 percent of all opaque tanker activity. But Iran had access to nearly 200 tankers, many of them supertankers, as of early 2023, according to Vortexa.

More than 20 ships, 13 of them VLCCs, joined the Iranian fleet in 2023, Vortexa reported in June, contributing to record-high Iranian oil exports under sanctions.

Vortexa attributed the rise to increased Chinese demand, the addition of the new tankers to shuttle Iranian oil after many had switched to shipping Russian oil, and the decline of Iranian inventories drawn down to boost exports amid heightened competition with Russia for the Chinese market.

While Chinese demand for Iranian oil slowed in October, Vortexa noted in a subsequent report, Washington’s removal of oil sanctions on Venezuela that month opened the possibility of higher demand for Iranian oil.

Uncertain Waters

In an October report, the global trade intelligence firm Kpler explained that tankers illegally shipping Iranian oil commonly "go dark" upon entering the Persian Gulf by turning off their transponders, technically known as the automatic identification system (AIS). After visiting Iran's main oil terminal on Kharg Island or other ports, they then reemerge after a few days indicating they are carrying a full load.

From there, the ships offload the oil with ship-to-ship transfers that take place in unauthorized zones, mostly in the Singapore Straits. Eventually the oil, rebranded as coming from Malaysia or Middle Eastern countries, enters China, where it is processed by more than 40 independent "teapot" refiners that have little exposure to international sanctions or the global financial system.

Sanctions Revisited

The challenge for those trying to halt the illicit trade in Iranian oil as a way to hold Tehran accountable for its secretive nuclear activities and dire human rights record, is how to make the negatives of dealing with Iran greater than the financial benefits.

That has put the illicit seaborne trade of oil -- both Iranian and Russian, owing to the ongoing war in Ukraine -- under greater scrutiny by the international community.

"There's continuous refining of the sanctions programs to include and expand sanctions against those involved in evasion, and that includes sanctioning so-called dark fleets," said Castellum’s Vuksic, noting that the number of targeted sanctions against Iranian individuals and entities rose by more than 1,000 last year.

The big question is enforcement, an issue that is being debated in the United States and other countries and is leading to increased calls for countries like Panama to de-flag illegal tankers and for countries to clamp down on dark-fleet ships anchored off their shores.

"My expectation is that governments, including the United States, will take action against these dark fleets, especially the facilitators and the [ship] owners when they're identified," Vuksic told RFE/RL.

Other factors, including concerns about the impact of a broader Middle East conflict potentially involving Iran, could also hurt or help Iran's financial standing.

As Kpler noted while reporting that Chinese imports of Iranian oil had dropped significantly in October, the changing global landscape can have a big effect on the independent Shandong-base refineries that purchase Iranian oil.

"Middle East tensions/threat of stricter enforcement of U.S. sanctions may have turned Shandong refiners more risk-adverse," the global trade intelligence firm wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

In the past week, supply fears also exposed the volatility of global crude prices, potentially to Iran's benefit.

Oil prices rose sharply on January 2 on news that Iran had sent a frigate to the Red Sea and was rejecting calls to end support for attacks by Tehran-backed Huthi rebels that have disrupted shipping in the important trade route.

Prices surged again following the deadly January 3 bombing attack in Iran, for which the Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibility.

But the week ended with questions about the future of Iran's cut-rate deal with the only country willing to help prop up its economy, with Reuters reporting that China's oil trade with Iran had stalled after Tehran withheld supplies and demanded higher prices.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza showed a consistent bias against Palestinians, according to an Intercept analysis of major media coverage.