Israeli forces and wounded more than 700 on February 29, during a distribution of food aid in Gaza city, pushing the Palestinian death toll to since October 7.
The food aid massacre was straightforward in its deadliness as armed Israeli forces aimed weapons at desperate, hungry Palestinian civilians and killed many of them. It was also plausible within the context of who has firepower and who doesn’t, and wholly consistent with Israeli atrocities, especially those committed since October 7.
And yet, Western media headlines went out of their way to obscure and protect the perpetrators of this awful crime. CNN reported there was a “”, as if the victims had little to do with the gunfire. The outlet didn’t even bother to mention Palestinians.
The Washington Post was worse, declaring that, “”. The use of the word “chaotic” suggests things were out of everyone’s control. And, either Israeli or Gazan authorities could be to blame.
The New York Times took a poetic approach, listing a series of events seemingly unconnected, with its headline, “”. If sentences had shoulders, this one practically shrugged in helpless ignorance at the curious mystery behind the massacre.
Some news outlets left Israelis and Palestinians out of the headline altogether to seemingly avoid placing blame. Reuters reported, “,” and the supposedly liberal NBC News claimed, “.” Even PBS couldn’t bring itself to identify the perpetrators or victims with its headline, “.”
The use of the passive voice, of language designed to obscure and give the perpetrator the benefit of the doubt, is a popular trick employed by major news outlets when reporting on Israeli atrocities. When contrasted with how the media reported Hamas’ attack on Israelis in early October by using the active voice and clearly naming perpetrator and victim, it becomes even more embarrassingly apparent that Western corporate media have a powerful political allegiance to Israel in spite of claims of objectivity.
Take the NYT as an example. In three reports on three separate days about the same October 7 incident, the paper’s editors showed that they do indeed know how to write simple and straightforward headlines. “” (October 7), “” (October 8), and “” (October 10). There is use of the active voice and clear identification of perpetrator and victim.
There is a strong parallel between news coverage of Palestinian victims of Israel and Black and Brown victims of racism, white vigilantism and policing in the United States. In my 2023 book, , I analysed the dominant narratives that media outlets perpetuate when covering race and racism. A failure to center the humanity of people of colour has been a standard weakness in US media coverage.
The Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery, in a scathing in the NYT in July 2020 pointed out that, “the mainstream has allowed what it considers objective truth to be decided almost exclusively by white reporters and their mostly white bosses”.
It’s not surprising that white supremacy, which continues to infect newsrooms, finds common cause with pro-Israel bias. The state of Israel is built on . The added weight of the US government’s long-term political means that we have been in a proxy war against Palestinians. And so, US newsrooms are loathe to identify Israel as an overt perpetrator of death, destruction and genocide.
The media watchdog group, , has for years pointed out the media’s double standards on Israelis and Palestinians. Writing in early February, the NYT’s and WP’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, showing exactly how pro-Israel both papers are and how both “leaned heavily toward a conversation dominated by Israeli interests and concerns”.
While the recent Israeli massacre of Palestinians at the food aid distribution is merely one example of how news outlets skew their coverage, research shows that this is indicative of a broad trend. of news media bias, including large-scale surveys conducted using artificial intelligence, point to a persistent anti-Palestinian strain across major outlets. In that sense, not only is the US in a proxy war against Palestinians, but is an active participant in perpetuating genocidal propaganda.
Thankfully the US public is not having it. Hollar wrote in , “Clear calls for an unconditional ceasefire, while widespread in the real world, were vanishingly rare at the papers.” It is striking that in spite of this clear attempt at skewing the debate, Americans are largely in favour of a ceasefire. Data for Progress’s found “Around two-thirds of voters (67%) — including majorities of Democrats (77%), Independents (69%), and Republicans (56%) — support the US calling for a permanent ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza.” The news media are shaped by, and shape public opinion. In the case of Israel’s war on Gaza, media outlets appear to be starkly out of step with the American public.
Lowery wrote in his that in order for newsrooms to rise above dehumanising bias, “it will take moral clarity, which will require both editors and reporters to stop doing things like reflexively hiding behind euphemisms that obfuscate the truth, simply because we’ve always done it that way”.
Just as changing demographics in the nation and its newsrooms have initiated a reckoning in how media outlets cover racial justice, there is a slow sea-change transpiring in media coverage of Palestinians. In December, more than a thousand US journalists signed on to an calling for “moral clarity,” urging their colleagues “to tell the full truth without fear or favour,” and to “use precise terms that are well-defined by international human rights organisations, including ‘apartheid’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, and ‘genocide’.”
Obscuring the criminality of elites and giving cover to genocide requires effort and a commitment to the power of elites. How much easier would it be to call a spade a spade and simply tell the truth?
[This article was produced by , a project of the Independent Media Institute. Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist.]