Gaza journalist award reinstated
JVL Introduction
It is good to be able to post some good news. On Saturday, March 15th, the Royal Television Society reversed its decision to withdraw an award it had made to journalists in Gaza. (See our post from Thursday 13th March). The award has been reinstated and we sincerely hope to see this award publicly acknowledged at the ceremony being held on 25th March.
This news has been covered most thoroughly in The Telegraph (to which this article refers) which headlined their article “Royal Television Society U-turns on Gaza award despite BBC controversy” (my emph Ed). It was also covered by Middle East Eye as well as in this New Arab article. However, online searches show little interest in UK media outlets that have not, so far, reported the news. This makes it even more important that we all share this information; campaigning does work and the very least the heroic journalists in Gaza deserve is recognition of their work and their courage.
LL
This article was originally published by The New Arab on Sat 15 Mar 2025. Read the original here.
Royal Television Society restores special award for Gaza journalists after controversial u-turn
The Royal Television Society faced backlash in the UK after abruptly cancelling a special recognition award for journalists in Gaza.
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I`m delighted for the makers of the documentary for recognition of their work. The U-turm itself, no matter how they phrase it, represents two fingers up to the zionist lobby, who will no doubt wheel out the usual smears that the RTS are “anti-semitic”, “Khamas-supporters”, blah, blah. But, given those established television “dignitaries” who stuck their heads above the parapet, in support of the documentary, it represents a significant land-mark and turning point against the dominant Establishment pro-zionist lobby in the media. What may seem a small step, is the result of challenging the dominant media narrative. Of shouting up for Palestinian human rights and an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine. All the marching, protesting, fighting against the arrest of journalists for doing their jobs, police violence, arresting peaceful protesters on spurious charges, etc, cant be ignored, and we have learnt that the longer the struggle continues, the more hardened, organised, and less intimidated we feel. Let them come for us, whether its the zionist thugs and provocatures, the media or the self-appointed organs of British “Judaism”. Lets hope this “U-turn” is the first of many. We are many, they are few, and we will not be silenced!
Good news. Will we ever get answers to the important questions that all those leading TV journalists asked in their protest letter? We need to know where the pressure came from for the RTS to drop the award .
Great news… and talking of heroic journalists/writers:
Came across this earlier on Al Jazeera:
Gaza’s silent epidemic
Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita and has been rendered incapable of taking care of them.
Hadeel Awad
A writer and a nurse based in Gaza.
Published On 15 Mar 2025
Thank you for this – I saw this and plan to post it asap. Appreciate the reminder
So glad the RTS saw sense. I am sickened by the lobbying against any support for Gaza or the Palestinians, such that media coverage is horribly biased in favour of the Israeli government’s opinions and their control of the narrative has unbalanced everything we see or hear.
I don’t know if JVL posted something about it at the time, and I only just came across it earlier this evening, and it was the first I’d heard about it – ie that the BBC was questioned by the Media Committee in March last year about their decision to only show parts of S. Africa’s submission to the ICJ, but showed Israel’s defence in full the next day. Turns out it was all a ‘mistake’ you see, which explains it all of course. NOT!:
BBC ‘made mistake’ in coverage of ICJ genocide case against Israel
THE BBC made a “mistake” in choosing to broadcast Israel’s defence of genocide charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in full – but only show clips of South Africa’s submission arguing the opposite, a top official has said.
David Jordan, the director of editorial policy and standards at the BBC, told MPs on Westminster’s Media Committee that the news team may have “done it differently” if they were covering the ICJ case again.
Jordan was asked to speak after Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, repeatedly declined to say whether he thought it had been fair for the corporation to broadcast the Israeli defence in full while South Africa’s counter-arguments were only shown in part….
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24197886.bbc-made-mistake-coverage-icj-genocide-case-israel/
The reason they didn’t show it in full is because it included numerous examples of genocidal rhetoric by Israeli politicians and officials and commentators etc, the vast majority of which had been blanked by the MSM. The following article from the end of November, 2023, includes quite a few, but there have been many, many more since then of course, and literally hundreds altogether:
‘Erase Gaza’: How genocidal rhetoric became normalised in Israel
https://www.newarab.com/analysis/erase-gaza-how-genocidal-rhetoric-normalised-israel