by Stephanie L. Fried
Over the past two years, Israeli journalists working for international media have struggled with increasingly slanted editorial bias.
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“You know, of course, Israel targeted it,” he asserted, referencing an explosion the previous evening, October 17, 2023, in the courtyard of Gaza City’s Al-Ahli Hospital. Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) almost immediately blamed the blast on an IDF strike, and Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry concomitantly reported 500 victims.
For the most part, the international press ran with that narrative.
“Where’s the logic in that?” I countered. “Bombing a hospital hours before Biden gets here? Netanyahu humiliating him like that? It doesn’t make sense. And let’s consider the source.”
Within days, the casualty figures and explosion origin were disputed by international intelligence agencies, which cited a misfired Islamic Jihad projectile as the source of the blast.
Disputing Hamas’s narrative
Weeks later, in a CNN editorial, former Time Magazine and Christian Science Monitor award-winning journalist Ilene Prusher wrote about her experience covering Hamas in Gaza for more than a decade.“Hamas played fast and loose with facts” provided to journalists,” she acknowledged in her article.
“Yet how often did that stop us from reporting what they told us?” Prusher posed. “It’s not as if most of us in the media portrayed Hamas as innocent or moderate. But for years, too many of us treated the group more like an opposition party with occasional violent outbursts than a terrorist organization.”
Prusher was right. Seasoned journalists have consciously concealed Hamas mistruths, bad faith actions, and errant or bloated figures, knowing the information is skewed. That practice is ongoing and remains a mystery to those who question it.
That October day on the hilltop a mile from Gaza, Tareq was insistent.
“All of this is because of Israel,” he maintained.
“This” meaning Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, Israel’s ensuing Gaza campaign, hostages kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, and death tolls on both sides.
Tareq and I had worked together for years, covering aftermaths of IDF raids in Jenin and interviewing heavily armed PIJ militants lying in wait in the shadows for an opportunity to ambush Israeli soldiers.
Our relationship was easygoing, and on long drives through the West Bank’s winding hillsides we discussed the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict, religion, philosophy and visions of future endeavors.
I trusted him to have my back when we crept through Jenin’s dark alleyways at night. And on one occasion, I argued so vehemently on his behalf as IDF checkpoint soldiers disassembled his camera kit – despite the security clearance government-issued press card he held – that the soldiers suspected and searched me as well.
No support
On October 18, 2023, our relationship ended. Not because of the Al-Ahli argument; it ran deeper than that.In the aftermath of October 7’s atrocities, as friends searched for children who had disappeared from the Supernova music festival, received news of husbands, wives, and children tortured and burned alive in southern communities, and trudged to morgues in dazed fear, my text platforms and Inbox were mostly devoid of support from countless colleagues I’d collaborated with for decades. Colleagues in Gaza, the West Bank, east Jerusalem, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Ukraine, Mali, Russia, Europe, and beyond.
Initially, I was too overwhelmed by the aftermath scenes I was witnessing, revelations of unimagined depravity, and my relentless workload to notice the silence. In the weeks that followed, however, the collective journalist community’s angry outcry on social platforms accusing Israel of genocide and of targeting journalists was impossible to ignore.
An Italian photographer I’d met while covering the Ukraine war re-posted Gaza images and condemned Israel from her home in Europe. I searched back through her accounts and challenged: “Nothing from October 7? Not a word about the Hamas killings or rapes or hostage-taking or torture?”
“F*#k you. Piss off,” she shot back.
A Brazilian colleague I’d worked alongside in Mosul and parallel to in Libya changed his Facebook and Instagram profile photo to images of the Israeli flag, swapping out the Stars of David for blue swastikas. When I challenged his vulgarity, he condescended.
“Oh Stephie. You don’t understand. Netanyahu needs to go.”
“Are you seriously explaining my reality to me from 6,000 miles away?” I countered, and then got online to look back through his posts. Akin to my Italian colleague, he had also failed to publicly criticize the October 7 reign of terror.
Antisemitism confirmed
Prominent human rights leaders and internationally acclaimed journalists whose anti-Israel posts I’d observed from the sidelines for years internally pondering “Is he/she antisemitic?” were now airing grievances against Israel on a daily basis. They, too, scarcely mentioned the roles Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Iran, or the Houthis played in the region’s upheaval.On a personal level, it was getting harder to reconcile with editorial guidelines barring me from referencing Hamas as a terrorist group or October 7 acts as a brutal massacre, while colleagues repeatedly referenced Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide.”
I checked in with Israeli colleagues working for decades with the world’s leading television and print networks asking: “Are you also struggling with the current bias?”
The collective reply was a resounding “Yes!”
We’d all been through uprisings, suicide bombings, and too many wars.
But an unprecedented level of perceived asymmetry now hovered as editorial slants went seemingly unchecked, and blaring, erroneous headlines were scantly offset by fine-print apologies days later.
Reality check
While some of the discomfiture might be attributed to the collective “AI Reality” leading news consumers – and journalists – to question image veracity, truthing vs lying politicians and militants or source credibility, sophisticated technologies employed to verify images, clips, and sequences of events don’t necessarily provide concrete answers.There are atrocities, lies and truths on both sides, and there’s a lot of gray – not black and white. To a great degree, how the situation is and has been viewed boils down to choice, perception, and marketing strategies.
Any doubt around that might be challenged by the sobering story of “The Shed at Dulwich” (see Chris Bethell’s photo image “chocolate mousse” made of shaving cream, sponge, and artificial coloring) about a British journalist who, in 2017, invented a restaurant out of a garden shed; and by posting fake digital images and false reviews, he succeeded in pushing the fictitious culinary venue to Trip Advisor’s #1 London Restaurant slot.
“The Shed..” is an ultra-light version of the current reality.
October 7 and the events that followed have forced a collective re-examination of personal beliefs, lacking comprehension and bias. Subjective and shaped by experience bias is inevitable.
“If anyone ever claims to be neutral or unbiased, don’t believe it,” a mentor advised when I was starting out in the profession.
In this conflict, my role – as I see it – is to examine my beliefs, bias, and truths.
It’s messy and conflicted. But two things I’m certain of: My perception of a godly Elokeem wouldn’t sanction rampaging through villages, setting them ablaze, and killing residents. As well, I can’t accept that a benevolent Allah would condone abducting mothers and their babies and strangling them to death in his name.■
Stephanie L. Fried is an award-winning journalist who’s been covering the Middle
East, Africa, Europe and Asia for more than two decades. Her clients
include the BBC, Scripps, Voice of America, Euronews and CGTN.
Source: https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-869456
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