LETTERS: When it came to covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before the era of social media, the reporting was mostly skewed towards the Zionist regime. This continues today.
I refer to the late British correspondent Robert Fisk on why journalists should side with victims and not their oppressors.
"I always say that reporters should be neutral and unbiased on the side of those who suffer. If you were covering the 18th-century slave trade, you would not give equal space to the slave-ship captain."
Fisk said: "At the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut in 1982, I did not give equal time to the Israeli army who watched the killings and whose Lebanese allies committed the atrocity."
His stance, sadly, is not shared by many, if not most, Western media companies and journalists.
His absence is most felt because if he was still alive, he would most probably be reporting from The Hague, condemning the west for continuing to support Israel after the International Court of Justice ruling had urged Israel to refrain from acts under the Genocide Convention,
But he and us, those who differentiate between the occupied and the occupier, will appreciate a recent report by The Guardian, a British publication, about the reasons behind the heavily one-sided coverage of the Gaza tragedy by CNN.
"The majority of news since the war began, regardless of how accurate the initial reporting, has been skewed by a systemic and institutional bias within the network towards Israel.
"Ultimately, CNN's coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice," said one CNN staffer to the publication.
Among the points of the one-sidedness of coverage include:
THE CNN headquarters in Atlanta sets the guidelines on reporting this issue. There are tight restrictions on quoting Hamas and reporting other Palestinian perspectives while Israeli government statements are taken at face value;
EVERY story on the conflict must be cleared by the Jerusalem bureau before broadcast or publication and approved by Israeli censors;
A MEMO to staff said: "We must continue always to remind our audiences of the immediate cause of this current conflict, namely the Hamas attack and mass murder and kidnap of civilians;
CNN news desks and reporters have been instructed not to use video recorded by Hamas "under any circumstances unless cleared by the Triad and senior editorial leadership". Triad refers to news standards and practices, legal and fact-checking departments; and,
THE "beheaded babies" claim, attributed to the Israeli government, made it to air for roughly 18 hours, even after the White House walked back on United States President Joe Biden's statement that he had seen the non-existent photos.
It is a revealing report. Those interested can check this link: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/04/cnn-staff-pro-israel-bias
I will end with a question. Will the international community, or at least pro-Palestine countries, make a stand against CNN's, reporting, which its own staff described as "journalism malpractice"?
Is a boycott possible or effective against CNN for siding with the oppressor of Palestinians?
WAN AHMAD HUSSEIN
Bangi, Selangor
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times