Why the media have failed Gaza
JVL Introduction
What follows below is a transcript of Jonathan Cook’s speech for the Bristol Palestine Alliance’s March Against Media Bias at College Green, Bristol, on Saturday May 4.
In it he argues that western media, foremost of which he singles out the BBC, have “utterly betrayed their Palestinian colleagues by failing to properly report the destruction of Gaza, or name it as a genocide”.
The BBC in particular is very good at performing its real role – not holding power to account but rather protecting the political establishment from being held to account for its complicity in genocide.
It does so by creating uncertainty and doubt where the reality is crystal clear and Cook give examples of how it performs their task. Would you know from watching the BBC, for example, that Israel is daily bombing the refugee camps of Rafah that are supposedly a “safe zone”, or that Israel continues to engineer a famine by blocking aid, and that Palestinians continue to die of hunger…
RK
This article was originally published by Jonathan Cook's blog on Sun 5 May 2024. Read the original here.
Why the media have failed Gaza
The media’s job is to create the impression of uncertainty, doubt and confusion. Our job is to explode that lie, denying them and the political class they protect an alibi
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Terrific Al Jazeera analysis by Marwan Bishara on Israel’s banning of if in Israel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWyoaoARqZ0 About 19 minutes — very helpful.
Jonathan Cook is absolutely right to point out that the BBC’s job, in particular, is to protect the establishment and pedal its line on domestic and foreign policy. It’s nothing more than a State Broadcaster, much like RT or Press TV. It’s no surprise they lie by omission and propagandise by the selective use of “wording” and “headlines”. They don’t comment on the 140+ journalists murdered in Gazza since 7th October, or even explain “why” that is the case. The issue with suppressing dissenting voices in favour of peace for the Palestinians, contradicts the “official” narrative. Framing the struggle in Palestine is conducted in a way which reinforces the Zionist agenda and the Western Colonialist World View. Journalist have been made to cower for fear of losing their jobs and being smeared with the anti-Semitic brush. It began with the USA being exposed by Julian Assange and people like Mark Curtis and John Pilger. The BBC are doing the dirty business of their Establishment Masters. We have to remain vocal and support those who report the truth. As John Pilger used to say: a journalist doesn’t just relay the message, but explains the message and what is behind it.
An awful lot of people are quite simply not fooled any more. We can only hope the anger becomes focused on the real culprits as described here. I could not agree with his conclusions more.