THE British mainstream media has again come under fire for its biased reporting on Gaza since the start of Israel’s aggression on October 7 last year. The latest criticism comes in relation to Israel’s killing of a newborn baby in the Gaza Strip last month.
Media ethics have again come into the spotlight since the October 7, 2023 attacks, with many criticizing the mainstream media as Israeli officials and supporters continue to make controversial statements about the disastrous situation in Gaza, where the death toll has reached more than 40,700.
Faisal Hanif, a media analyst at the Center for Media Monitoring (CfMM), told Anadolu Agency that the reporting on Gaza has several striking features, including misleading information and inaccurate facts. Last month, newborn twins were killed in an Israeli attack on the besieged territory when their father went to collect their birth certificates.
Four-day-old twins, born in Deir al-Balah, were killed in an airstrike on their parents’ apartment in central Gaza. However, several mainstream media outlets, including the BBC and Sky News, chose not to mention the Israeli strike in their headlines on social media, prompting a backlash from many users who questioned the killers.
“The news about Gaza has several striking characteristics. There have been several publications of misleading information and inaccurate facts over the past 10 months,” Hanif said, as reported by Anadolu, Tuesday (3/9).
He noted that some commentators still refer to the claim that the Palestinian group Hamas beheaded babies, which has been debunked as a lie. Hanif highlighted that when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue in his speech to the US Congress in July, the BBC reported it verbatim without providing the necessary context for readers that it was in fact untrue and had been found to be a fabrication by investigative journalists.
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He said omissions were also a glaring feature of mainstream British media coverage of Gaza, adding that headlines were an example of this, particularly when Israel was the one carrying out the attack or killing. “Often we see this not mentioned, whereas in the case of Ukraine and Russia, Russia is clearly identified as the one carrying out the killing,” he said.
He criticized not only the media but also others, including politicians who defended Ukraine against Russian attacks but failed to take a similar stance when it came to Gaza. Many readers have noticed this double standard from some of the most prominent publishers and news outlets.
He also added that the selective use of language or word choice is a “very problematic area” and reveals the bias of news outlets. “The way October 7 is described with emotional and alarmist terms such as ‘brutal,’ ‘barbaric,’ and ‘massacre’ stands in stark contrast to the killing of over 40,000 Gazans, which is sometimes only mentioned as a footnote or described as an ‘accident,’” he added. (I-2)
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The British mainstream media has again come under fire for its biased reporting on Gaza since the start of Israel’s aggression on October 7 last year. The latest criticism comes in relation to Israel’s killing of a newborn baby in the Gaza Strip last month.
Media ethics have again come into the spotlight since the October 7, 2023 attacks, with many criticizing the mainstream media as Israeli officials and supporters continue to make controversial statements about the disastrous situation in Gaza, where the death toll has reached more than 40,700.
Faisal Hanif, a media analyst at the Center for Media Monitoring (CfMM), told Anadolu Agency that the reporting on Gaza has several striking features, including misleading information and inaccurate facts. Last month, newborn twins were killed in an Israeli attack on the besieged territory when their father went to collect their birth certificates.
Read also: Indonesia Urges UK to Use Authority at UNSC to Monitor Ceasefire in Gaza
Four-day-old twins, born in Deir al-Balah, were killed in an airstrike on their parents’ apartment in central Gaza. However, several mainstream media outlets, including the BBC and Sky News, chose not to mention the Israeli strike in their headlines on social media, prompting a backlash from many users who questioned the killers.
“The news about Gaza has several striking characteristics. There have been several publications of misleading information and inaccurate facts over the past 10 months,” Hanif said, as reported by Anadolu, Tuesday (3/9).
He noted that some commentators still refer to the claim that the Palestinian group Hamas beheaded babies, which has been debunked as a lie. Hanif highlighted that when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue in his speech to the US Congress in July, the BBC reported it verbatim without providing the necessary context for readers that it was in fact untrue and had been found to be a fabrication by investigative journalists.
He said omissions were also a glaring feature of mainstream British media coverage of Gaza, adding that headlines were an example of this, particularly when Israel was the one carrying out the attack or killing. “Often we see this not mentioned, whereas in the case of Ukraine and Russia, Russia is clearly identified as the one carrying out the killing,” he said.
He criticized not only the media but also others, including politicians who defended Ukraine against Russian attacks but failed to take a similar stance when it came to Gaza. Many readers have noticed this double standard from some of the most prominent publishers and news outlets.
He also added that the selective use of language or word choice is a “very problematic area” and reveals the bias of news outlets. “The way October 7 is described with emotional and alarmist terms such as ‘brutal,’ ‘barbaric,’ and ‘massacre’ stands in stark contrast to the killing of over 40,000 Gazans, which is sometimes only mentioned as a footnote or described as an ‘accident,’” he added. (I-2)
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