What does U.S. press coverage look like in a time of genocide? One might think that the decades of championing press freedom and innovation, introducing ethical considerations, and trauma-informed reporting would somewhat aid the reporters of the 21st century in covering the most horrific, live-streamed slaughter of human beings to date. Except, it's the Palestinians being slaughtered by Israel. An exception upheld by Western institutions to deny Palestinians agency and humanity and to continuously absolve and defend the Israeli regime and its crimes.
The Press on Palestine series is an initiative by Palestine Square, the blog of the Institute for Palestine Studies-USA. It highlights bias in mainstream American reporting on Palestinian and Arab-Israeli affairs. The series specifically examines the print publications of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Bias, omission, decontextualization, stereotypes, obscuration, and uplifting Zionist narratives are recognized patterns in U.S. reporting. But, during the genocide, such patterns and editorial (mal)practices have escalated to complicity in the genocide in Gaza. U.S. media outlets have repeatedly obscured facts of Israel's bombing of hospitals in Gaza, cast doubt on Israel's vocal intent to annihilate the Palestinians, preemptively justified the blockade of aid and massacres of the displaced, and refused to retract or correct knowingly misleading and false reporting. Our writers in this series call them out and contextualize the reported events while exposing how biases, no matter how subtle, manipulate readers' perceptions and understanding of Israel's Occupation of Palestine.
Read our analysis during one year of genocide.
