Former UN official says news outlets could face penalties for slanted Gaza coverage

People walk outside CNN Center in Atlanta. | Ron Harris / AP

A human rights lawyer and former United Nations official recently argued news outlets can be held legally accountable for disseminating disinformation about the war in Gaza, which many around the world condemn as an Israeli genocide of Palestinians.

Craig Mokhiber said news outlets such as CNN, Fox News, the BBC, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal “have recklessly crossed the boundaries of ethical journalism” in their coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.

“In the face of the first live-streamed genocide in history unfolding on the screens of people from Boston to Botswana, it is simply not credible to suggest that Western media companies are not aware of the realities on the ground and of what they are doing to obscure them,” Mokhiber wrote in an opinion piece published by Mondoweiss.

“They have indisputably made conscious choices to hide the genocide from their audiences, to systematically dehumanize the Palestinian victims, and to insulate the Israeli perpetrators from accountability.”

Mokhiber cited precedent in the Nuremberg Tribunal’s conviction of Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Stürmer, for crimes against humanity. The court ruled the newspaper published anti-Semitic articles that included “incitement to murder and extermination” during Nazi Germany’s genocide of European Jews. Streicher was executed in 1946.

Mokhiber also cited precedent in the 2003 conviction of the three media leaders for their respective roles in inciting the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Mokhiber said Western news outlets have “doubled down on running cover for Israel” even after the ICJ found that charges of genocide are plausible and an ICC prosecutor requested that arrest warrants be issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

“[F]ree speech guarantees do not protect incitement to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide,” Mokhiber wrote.

“Those acts can and must be subject to criminal accountability. Both defamation and incitement can also bring accountability in civil courts. Action in international tribunals for Israel’s crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine has already begun, and more is certain to follow. It is not inconceivable that, just as in the cases of the Nuremberg and Rwanda tribunals, some media companies or individuals might face real legal accountability in the months and years to come.”

Mokhiber is far from the only voice who has been critical of news outlets’ Gaza coverage.

In April, dozens of American journalism professors signed a public letter calling for an independent review of The New York Times’ reporting process for a story alleging Hamas soldiers committed mass sexual violence on Oct. 7, 2023.

The NYT story, titled “‘Screams Without Words’: Sexual Violence on Oct. 7,” relies largely on second-hand accounts of alleged rapes from sources whose credibility has come into question.

The NYT published a story in March featuring video evidence that undercuts the claim of an unnamed Israeli military paramedic cited in “Screams Without Words.” The paramedic claimed to have seen two partially clothed teenage girls at a house in Kibbutz Be’eri “who bore signs of sexual violence.” The Times cited an Israeli source who looked into the sexual assault claim and flatly said: “This story is false.”

As well, one of the authors of “Screams Without Words,” Anat Schwartz, is an Israeli filmmaker who’s been accused of bias based on her social media activity. This includes her liking a post that called for Gaza to be turned “into a slaughterhouse.” It appears that Schwartz did not have any journalistic experience prior to her bylines in the NYT in 2023. The Times has since cut ties with Schwartz, per a report from the Israeli news website Ynet.

“The impact of The New York Times story is impossible to fathom,” the journalism professors’ letter states. “This is wartime, and in the minds of many people, the Times’ story fueled the fire at a pivotal moment when there might have been an opportunity to contain it before, as the International Court of Justice has ruled, the situation devolved into the ‘plausible’ realm of genocide. Considering these grave circumstances, we believe that the Times must waste no time in extending an invitation for an independent review.”

In their letter, the journalism professors also said they were “alarmed” by comments made by Jeffrey Gettleman, an NYT staff reporter who contributed to the “Screams Without Words” story.

During an onstage conversation with Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Meta, Gettleman said of the “Screams Without Words” story: “I don’t want to even use the word evidence because evidence is almost like the legal term that suggests you’re trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court.”

Furthermore, CNN staff members voiced their criticisms earlier this year about the news outlet’s coverage of the war in Gaza. They alleged CNN’s editorial policies restrict quoting Hamas and other Palestinian perspectives, while Israeli government statements are taken at face value.

“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 toward Israel,” said a CNN staffer quoted by The Guardian. “Ultimately, CNN’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice.”

More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. However, a July report from The Lancet speculated the death toll could be as high as 186,000, which would amount to 7-9% of Gaza’s population, according to a 2022 population estimate.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Brandon Chew

Brandon Chew is a journalist from northern Michigan.