{"id":281611,"date":"2024-02-11T08:35:30","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T08:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=281611"},"modified":"2024-02-13T08:21:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T08:21:32","slug":"cnns-israel-bias-has-been-laid-bare-but-cnn-is-the-norm-not-the-exception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=281611","title":{"rendered":"CNN\u2019s Israel bias has been laid bare. But CNN is the norm, not the exception"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Cook \u2013 The Unz Review February 10, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Leaks from within CNN reveal that for months its executives have been actively imposing an editorial line designed to reinforce Israel\u2019s framing of events in Gaza, to the point of obscuring atrocities by the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

The dictates, say insiders, have resulted in senior staff refusing to accept assignments to the region \u201cbecause they do not believe they will be free to tell the whole story\u201d. Others\u00a0suspect<\/a>\u00a0they are being kept away by editors who fear they will fight the restrictions.<\/p>\n

Internal memos insist that stories be approved by the station\u2019s Jerusalem bureau, where staff are widely seen as partisans who slant reports in Israel\u2019s favour. Palestinian perspectives are tightly restricted.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, CNN\u2019s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice,\u201d\u00a0one staffer told an\u00a0investigation<\/a>\u00a0by the Guardian newspaper.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Former BBC Director General Mark Thompson. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

According to staff accounts, CNN\u2019s pro-Israel directives come from the very top \u2013 Mark Thompson, a TV executive who was hired from the BBC.\u00a0Thompson, the Guardian article notes, was remembered by BBC staff for \u201cbowing to Israeli government pressure on a number of occasions\u201d \u2013 presumably one of the qualifications that won him the job heading CNN.<\/p>\n

It was he who notoriously championed in 2009 the BBC\u2019s controversial\u00a0decision<\/a>\u00a0for the first time not to air the annual fundraising appeal of the Disasters Emergency Committee,\u00a0which is a group of major British charities,\u00a0because the monies were going to Gaza after Israeli bombing had devastated it.<\/p>\n

Alongside the unhappiness at CNN, there is reported to be\u00a0disquiet at the BBC<\/a>. Staff, including senior presenters, held a meeting last month with Director General Tim Davie, one of Thompson\u2019s successors, to accuse the corporation of anti-Palestinian bias.<\/p>\n

They expressed concerns about the \u201cdehumanising\u201d\u00a0language used to describe Palestinians killed in Gaza and the\u00a0BBC\u2019s failure<\/a>\u00a0to cover important stories reported by Al Jazeera and other networks.<\/p>\n

A source told the Deadline website that the group of dissenters was surprised by Davie\u2019s candour. He is said to have admitted that the pro-Israel lobby \u201cwas more organised than Palestinian supporters in its dealings with the BBC\u201d.<\/p>\n

Skewed agendas<\/strong><\/h2>\n

None of this should come as a surprise.<\/p>\n

Middle East Eye has\u00a0highlighted<\/a>\u00a0the clearly skewed priorities of western news agendas since Hamas broke out of Gaza on 7 October \u2013 some 17 years after Israel began imposing a military siege that had already left the enclave barely habitable.<\/p>\n

In the carnage that day caused by Hamas\u2019 attack \u2013 as well as Israel\u2019s indiscriminate violent response \u2013 some 1,139 people in Israel were killed.<\/p>\n

As MEE has\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0previously, the entire western press corps, not just CNN and the BBC, has failed in its basic duty to present a balanced picture of what has been going on over the past four months.<\/p>\n

It has also\u00a0failed<\/a>\u00a0to treat Israeli claims with the scepticism they deserve, especially since Israel has a long track record of being caught out in lies and deceptions.<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, given its exposure of concerns at CNN, many of the accusations of journalistic failure levelled at CNN and the BBC could be directed at the Guardian newspaper too \u2013 or any other establishment media organisation.<\/p>\n

Following Hamas\u2019 7 October break-out, Israel unleashed\u00a0a devastating assault<\/a>\u00a0on Gaza\u2019s population \u2013 so far leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians dead or missing under rubble.<\/p>\n

Yet all western media misleadingly continue to frame Israel\u2019s rampage in Gaza \u2013 including the collective punishment inflicted on civilians by denying them food and water \u2013 variously as \u201cretaliation\u201d, \u201ca war with Hamas\u201d, and \u201can operation to eliminate Hamas\u201d.<\/p>\n

Western media have also largely avoided characterising as\u00a0\u201cethnic cleansing\u201d<\/a>\u00a0the Israeli military\u2019s order for Palestinians to leave their homes. As a result, 1.7 million have been trapped in a small area in southern Gaza where they face relentless bombing.<\/p>\n

Similarly, there has been almost\u00a0no mention<\/a>\u00a0of a long-held plan by Israel \u2013 which it now appears close to realising \u2013 to drive Gaza\u2019s population into the Sinai desert, in neighbouring\u00a0Egypt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And the same media outlets have refused to connect the all-too-obvious dots that Israel \u2013 in destroying most of Gaza\u2019s homes, forcibly shutting almost all of its medical facilities and cutting off food and water, while also demanding international\u00a0defunding of Unrwa<\/a>, the United Nations\u2019 main aid agency to Gaza \u2013 is pursuing an openly\u00a0genocidal policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Israel is making Gaza unlivable, just as Giora Eiland, adviser to the Israeli defence minister,\u00a0vowed<\/a>\u00a0Israel would do at the outset of its assault: \u201cGaza will become an area where people cannot live.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the media do refer to genocide, it is strictly in the context of the International Court of Justice\u2019s decision to\u00a0put Israel on trial<\/a>\u00a0for the \u201ccrime of crimes\u201d. Even then, the establishment media have largely\u00a0minimised<\/a>\u00a0the significance of the World Court\u2019s ruling, or even spun it as a victory for Israel.<\/p>\n

Astonishingly, the ICJ\u2019s panel of 17 justices has proven to be far more courageous than western media journalists.<\/p>\n

Feeble whistleblowers<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It is notable that, although the Guardian refers to a \u201cbacklash\u201d at CNN, the only meaningful evidence for that backlash is a group of journalists airing their grievances anonymously to the Guardian.<\/p>\n

The self-professed \u201cfearless truth-tellers\u201d at CNN and the BBC have, by their own admission, exposed themselves as too cowed to report truthfully about Israel\u2019s atrocities in Gaza.<\/p>\n

It is not journalists and on-the-ground reporting that is shaping the news coverage, they complain. It is well-paid media executives, looking over their shoulders at corporate advertisers, government officials and a pro-Israel lobby tightly networked into both.<\/p>\n

The journalists cited by the Guardian are too afraid even to go on the record with their criticisms. They are the very feeblest kind of whistleblowers.<\/p>\n

They lack even the minimal courage shown by the 800 US and European officials who\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0a statement condemning their governments for sidelining expert advice and risking complicity in \u201cone of the worst human catastrophes of this century\u201d.<\/p>\n

Where are the western journalists demanding that Israel stop its campaign of assassinations of Palestinian journalists? Or that Israel end\u00a0a media siege<\/a>\u00a0that prevents foreign correspondents from reaching a genocide zone unless they are embedded with Israeli soldiers?<\/p>\n

Why are journalists\u00a0not raising<\/a>\u00a0these matters in public, or putting the Israeli government officials they so regularly host on air on the spot by demanding an explanation?<\/p>\n

There is also a fundamental misunderstanding demonstrated by the comments CNN staffers have made to the Guardian.\u00a0One observed: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of internal strife and dissent. Some people are looking to get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another noted of the Jerusalem bureau\u2019s role that \u201ccritical changes \u2013 from the introduction of imprecise language to an ignorance of crucial stories \u2013 ensure that nearly every report, no matter how damning, relieves Israel of wrongdoing\u201d.<\/p>\n

But while CNN may be the worst of a rotten bunch, the simple truth is that there are no establishment media destinations where these disillusioned journalists are going to find that they can speak freely about Israel\u2019s crimes, let alone about its overarching genocidal goals.<\/p>\n

Should they really try to act as truth-tellers, they are most likely to share the fate of\u00a0Antoinette Lattouf<\/a>, a journalist fired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for reposting a report by Human Rights Watch on Israeli atrocities.<\/p>\n

Lattouf had been the focus of\u00a0a pro-Israel lobby campaign<\/a>\u00a0demanding her dismissal after she investigated the veracity of a video\u00a0purporting<\/a>\u00a0to show protest crowds in Sydney chanting \u201cGas the Jews\u201d.<\/p>\n

As usual, the story was unquestioningly\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0by much of the western media. Last week, a lengthy New South Wales police\u00a0investigation<\/a>\u00a0concluded that the audio track had been faked<\/p>\n