Sat 1pm
DOCUMENTING THE U.S. MEDIA’S COMPLICITY IN THE GENOCIDE OF
GAZA WITH ROBIN ANDERSEN
In Robin Andersen’s new book, she chronicles how the U.S. media utilized their massive reach to help shield Israel from scrutiny as it perpetrated a genocide in Gaza.
Chris Hedges, a former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief, is certain about at least one thing regarding Israeli propaganda tactics: “If there is one indisputable fact, it is that Israel lies like it breathes.” The task of professional journalists and media outlets is to review evidence and verify the information they are reporting, but when it comes to Israel, Western establishment media function as stenographers, echoing their lies globally.
In this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Hedges explores the mechanisms by which Western media function as propaganda outlets for Israel with media scholar Robin Andersen, who documented these practices in her new book, “The Complicit Lens.” They begin with a discussion of the ways media corporations control the narrative through omissions of historical context, dehumanization of Palestinians and censorship of specific words, such as “massacres.” Journalists who work for these commercial outlets are aware of their complicity — a fact corroborated by leaks detailing the propagandistic guidelines editorial departments force their journalists to follow — but sacrifice their integrity and honesty for access to those in power and to protect themselves from retaliation.
Hedges and Andersen explain the ways that media outlets manipulate language to cover up war crimes being committed by the Israelis and shift the blame for Israeli attacks on civilians and infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, onto the victims, Palestinians themselves. Outlets engage in ‘atrocity propaganda,’ amplifying horrific lies about sexual assault and “beheaded babies” told by the Israeli State without factchecking them to generate public support for the genocide of Palestinians, who are characterized as ‘terrorists’ and members of the demonized national resistance organization, Hamas. Andersen reports, “The Israelis were presented in their whole humanity… and the Palestinians are dead bodies, and that’s it.”
Another method of information control is by limiting access. Foreign journalists are restricted from entering Gaza, and those who are allowed in are vetted by Israel in advance. In violation of international law, the Palestinian press is censored through murder. Over 270 Palestinians, including those who work for major media outlets, and their families have been targeted and killed by the Israeli military. The price that we all pay for this complicity by the media is the legitimization of genocide, the absence of accountability and the lack of reliable news sources. As Andersen concludes, our loss is that there are “fewer and fewer voices, fewer and fewer documentation [that] can make sense of this and bring it to global publics.”
