Transparency Needed by Mainstream Journalism in Gaza

Scott Johnson, at powerlineblog.com, points us at the Claremont Institute’s review of Stephanie Gutmann’s The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy. The full piece is available online here, and well-worth the read.

As reviewer, Joseph Tartakovsky, says:

“How do these reporters or photographers, on a quest for dramatic stories and footage, know where the "spontaneous" violence is to "erupt"? One or another foot soldier in their "small army of Palestinian fixers" is tipped off by the attackers. The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Press (which together supply 80% of news images to the world media) require the assistance of natives who speak the local language, know who's who, and can get things done. These hired locals, in turn, make decisions about where to drive and what to translate (or leave un-translated).”

The mainstream press’ reporting on what’s happening in the “occupied territories”, especially now that Gaza is no longer occupied and Western journalists have even more to fear from stepping foot there, is almost entirely dependent upon their Palestinian stringers.

Those stringers are now under even more pressure to conform to the Palestinian’s dictates. Problem is, which Palestinians to kiss up to. The various factions’ war upon each other for dominance of the chaos they’ve bred and pursue is now visited upon the stringers.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

” Several Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have received death threats from various armed groups over the past few days because of their coverage of the state of lawlessness and anarchy in Palestinian Authority-controlled area.”

Even after the proof emerges of how it is manipulated, the Western media continues to rely upon these stringers for its fabricated defamation of Israel. See, for example, the analyses of the infamous fraud of the photo of the killing of child Muhammed al-Dura at the start of the latest intifada, (now behind Commentary’s archive subscription wall, but available in full here) and the fraud of the “Jenin massacre.”

Mediacrity is a must read to keep up with the New York Times and its brethren in the major media’s kowtowing to their Palestinian sources. See here, for example, for how they engage in “Sanitizing Hamas.”

The only honest thing that these mainstream media outlets can do is to post a bold disclaimer above their stories, such as “Courtesy of what’s allowed by Palestinian propagandists to be said by us.”