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Media Hides Truth After International Group Says No ‘Famine’ in Gaza
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
It’s embarrassing to admit a mistake. But it’s worse to try and hide it.
Sadly, media outlets opted for the latter in their coverage of a revised report that contradicted their narrative on a Gaza “famine.”
The June 25 report, by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), included two main points:
Contrary to the IPC’s widely-covered estimates from March 18, the report stated that “the available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently occurring” in northern Gaza.
A “high risk” of famine persists across the whole of the Gaza Strip, as long as conflict continues.
Any journalist reading the report should have immediately noticed that its authors have buried the first point — which is new and proves that they were wrong — while leading with the second point, which is repetitive and speculative.
But instead of critically calling out their source and reporting what’s new in the report, media outlets were happy to copy-paste it, effectively burying, distorting, or altogether omitting the news that would have embarrassed them and the IPC alike for spreading false information.
Omission and Distortion
In March, media headlines were quick to parrot the IPC’s “famine” forecast, and in early June, they ignored the monitor’s admission of several flaws in its original data-gathering.
Ideally, these journalistic sins should have been corrected by now, with headlines about the revised report that look like this:
Global monitor announces no evidence of Gaza famine
Global monitor lowers estimate of Gazans facing “catastrophic” hunger from 1.1 million to 495,000
IPC admits March report on Gaza famine was faulty
Aid deliveries alleviated hunger conditions in Gaza – report
Instead, media outlets buried this information, as well as omitted or distorted it, to hide the truth from their audience.
CNN buried the no-famine point in the 10th paragraph of its text story. On Instagram, it’s been completely omitted with a reframed headline:
The report stated its previous assumptions were wrong on the amount of food entering Gaza and said, “In this context, the available evidence does not indicate that Famine is currently occurring.”
But that would’ve ruined @CNN‘s narrative… pic.twitter.com/8sNznK2Rkx
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) June 26, 2024
The Guardian went further, not only burying the news (in the 3rd paragraph), but distorting it with an agenda-driven headline:
The British paper also had no qualms about publishing an op-ed that falsely claims Israel is deliberately starving Gazans the same way the Nazis starved Jews in the Holocaust.
“The idea that we can somehow put what is happening in Gaza at a distant remove from the history of the Warsaw ghetto is grotesque.”
No, @guardian, what’s grotesque is publishing an op-ed that falsely claims Israel is deliberately starving Gazans the same way the Nazis starved… pic.twitter.com/MCEqTKnYp4
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) June 26, 2024
Distortion also plagued The New York Times’ report, which framed the entire story with comments from aid groups, and avoided mentioning the no-famine point by stating (in the 3rd paragraph) that the IPC has “stopped short of saying that a famine had begun.”
The BBC, the Telegraph, and The Independent almost copy-pasted the IPC report verbatim, with headlines about the risk of famine:
These three outlets also uncritically parroted the report’s assessment that almost half a million Gazans now face “catastrophic” hunger — without mentioning that it’s down from the original estimate of 1.1 million, and that no actual famine was found.
Media Cop Out
Admittedly, news outlets must cover what bodies like the IPC report. And it’s true that the report sneakily started with the words: “A high risk of famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip.”
But journalists should read between the lines, understand the background, and not just take the IPC’s word as gospel, especially if its previous reports have been proven wrong.
Unfortunately, media outlets avoided this inconvenience and chose to perpetuate the false famine narrative.
After all, it’s an easy cop-out that hides their own faults of parroting unreliable sources.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Media Hides Truth After International Group Says No ‘Famine’ in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations
Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) was a Polish-Jewish artist whose work reflected the historic times he lived: the two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the birth of the State of Israel. In 1940, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he visited Canada to popularize the struggle against Nazism. […]
The post Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
President Joe Biden embarks on a series of fundraising events across two states on Saturday as he works to stamp out a crisis of confidence in his re-election campaign following a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit the upscale New York beach enclave known as the Hamptons for a campaign fundraiser hosted by hedge-fund billionaire Barry Rosentein. Later in the day, he will travel to New Jersey for a fundraiser hosted by wealthy New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Fellow hedge-fund founder Eric Mindich and his Tony Award-winning producer wife Stacey, celebrity couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and actor Michael J. Fox are all listed as members of the host committee at the New York event, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
Biden told a rally in North Carolina on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would heed calls from Democrats who want him to drop out of the race.
Biden‘s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses during Thursday night’s debate heightened voter concerns that the 81-year-old might not be fit to serve another four-year term.
The Biden campaign on Saturday boasted it had raised more than $27 million between debate day through Friday evening, but questions remain about whether the debate performance will hurt fundraising, at least in the short term.
The post Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world’s largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.
“The League’s member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body “does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner.”
Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.
The post Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.