Experts assess media coverage of situation in Gaza on Ray Hanania show

Ray Hanania was joined by Ignacio Miguel Delgado (L), Mohammed Najib (C) and Andrew Friedman (R). (Screenshot/Supplied)
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Updated 20 May 2021
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Experts assess media coverage of situation in Gaza on Ray Hanania show

  • ‘So far we have documented the destruction of at least 18 media outlets’ by Israeli forces, says specialist from Committee to Protect Journalists
  • Palestinian and Jewish reporters agree they have to deal with censorship, and public pressure to promote one side of the story at the expense of objectivity

CHICAGO: The office of the Associated Press (AP) in Gaza City, which was destroyed by the Israeli bombing of Al-Jalaa tower last weekend, is just one of 18 media sites attacked by Israel during its current conflict with the Palestinians.

The shocking figure was given on Wednesday, during a discussion on a US radio show sponsored by Arab News, by Ignacio Miguel Delgado, a specialist on the Middle East and North Africa with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The non-profit global organization promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.

In addition, an Israeli and a Palestinian journalist who also took part in the discussion said they are forced to work under oppressive restrictions that include censorship of their reports by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or the Palestinian National Authority.

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Delgado said that while journalists in many countries in the region, including Syria and Iraq, face great risks, those who are covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict face the greatest personal danger.

“The situation right now for journalists in the Gaza Strip is very dire,” he said. “Right now they are either covering the news and covering the air strikes and military operations, or running for cover because they have nowhere to hide.

“So far we have documented the destruction of at least 18 media outlets. There may be more but, so far, that is what we documented. Three buildings hosting and housing these media outlets, production companies and broadcast services were bombed to the ground.

“The justification for that by the IDF is that Hamas was using these buildings for military purposes but so far we haven’t seen any evidence of that activity and we would like to see that if that is the case.”

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Israeli forces intentionally targeted and destroyed Al-Jalaa tower on May 15. In addition to the AP offices, the building also housed Al Jazeera and several other media operations. The IDF said it was also used by Hamas militants but the AP and the CPJ said there is no evidence of this.

Delgado said there is evidence, however, that Israel is targeting journalists who report on the destruction by Israeli forces of civilian targets, as well as alleged military targets.

“A few days before the bombing of Al-Jalaa building there were two (other) buildings (destroyed): the Jawhara building and Al-Sharouk building, which were housing several local media outlets — Al-Mamlaka channel from Jordan, for example,” Delgado said. “Others were housing the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV. There were plenty of local-media outlets.

“And the problem is that with the destruction of these buildings, many journalists have lost their equipment. They were given some time to evacuate the buildings but they of course couldn’t take everything with them — all their broadcasting equipment, cameras and such. So many journalists are now deprived of the tools to do their jobs properly.”

The Israeli military contacted the 18 targeted media locations to give them advance warning of the attacks and a chance to evacuate. However, several journalists have been killed or injured during the current and previous conflicts.

“In Gaza we have seen at least 18 journalists killed since the CPJ started to keep records in 1992,” Delgado said. “In this conflict, we woke up today to the news of the killing of a journalist. We have had another three journalists killed who were covering air strikes in Gaza. The region is one of the most dangerous regions for journalists.”

Israeli journalist Andrew Friedman, from Efrat, and Palestinian journalist Mohammed Najib, from Ramallah, told Hanania that they are forced by the Israeli and Palestinian governments to censor their reports on the conflict.

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“In this ongoing mini-war, the IDF didn’t allow the international media to enter Gaza since the start of the mini-war for nine days; today (Wednesday) was the first day that they allowed foreign correspondents to enter the Gaza to cover this war,” Najib said from his offices in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where he has worked as a freelance reporter for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other major publications.

“More than that, everyone saw the bombing of Al-Jalaa Tower in Gaza (which was based) on allegations that Hamas is based at that tower — but all the reports from Gaza deny that.”

Friedman, a former op-ed editor at the Jerusalem Post and former editor of Yedioth Aharonoth, acknowledged that like Palestinian reporters, Israeli journalists are also faced with official censorship and an audience that is hostile to the opposing viewpoint. But he said he does not think the IDF is intentionally targeting the news media in Gaza or anywhere else.

“It’s certainly true that many Israelis feel an unrepentant hostility toward the media,” he said. “I find it difficult to believe the army is going after the media intentionally.

“First of all I think the army has better things to do. But … with all due respect to Ignacio, who is a very good reporter, if the building was under the use of Hamas, I don’t think he would be free to report that. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to go back to Gaza and report that anymore.”

However, Friedman added: “I don’t have a lot of confidence in the military’s justification, and I don’t have a lot of confidence in the Palestinian side’s accusations.

“For Israelis and their supporters, the story is absolutely clear: small Jewish country attacked by rockets — what do you want them to do? From the perspective of Palestinians and their supporters, it is equally clear: an occupied country under attack in Jerusalem and in Gaza — what do you want them to do?”

Najib agreed that the public in both Palestine and Israel expect journalists to promote their side of the conflict, rather than remain objective.

“I can say after (many) years in journalism, the most difficult job is to be a journalist,” he said. “According to the Palestinian culture and the Israeli culture, (the people) ask, ‘Are you for us or against us?’

“And I tell them, why I should be classified or defined to be with you or against you. I am not against anyone. We must be professional journalists.”

* The Ray Hanania Radio Show is broadcast live on WNZK AM 690 Radio in Detroit and on WDMV AM 700 Radio in Washington DC on the US Arab Radio Network, and is sponsored by Arab News. For more information about the show and to listen to previous episodes, visit ArabNews.com/RayRadioShow.


Trump freezes US-funded media outlets including Voice of America

Updated 16 March 2025
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Trump freezes US-funded media outlets including Voice of America

  • VOA director Michael Abramowitz said he was among 1,300 staffers placed on leave Saturday

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday put journalists at Voice of America and other US-funded broadcasters on leave, abruptly freezing decades-old outlets long seen as critical to countering Russian and Chinese information offensives.
Hundreds of staffers at VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email saying they will be barred from their offices and should surrender press passes and office-issued equipment.
Trump, who has already eviscerated the US global aid agency and the Education Department, on Friday issued an executive order listing the US Agency for Global Media as among “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary.”
Kari Lake, a firebrand Trump supporter put in charge of the media agency after she lost a US Senate bid, said in an email to the outlets that federal grant money “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”
The White House said the cuts would ensure “taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda,” marking a dramatic tone shift toward the networks established to extend US influence overseas.
White House press official Harrison Fields wrote “goodbye” on X in 20 languages, a jab at the outlets’ multilingual coverage.
VOA director Michael Abramowitz said he was among 1,300 staffers placed on leave Saturday.
“VOA needs thoughtful reform, and we have made progress in that regard. But today’s action will leave Voice of America unable to carry out its vital mission,” he said on Facebook, noting that its coverage — in 48 languages — reaches 360 million people each week.
The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which started broadcasting into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, called the cancelation of funding “a massive gift to America’s enemies.”
“The Iranian ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years,” its president, Stephen Capus, said in a statement.

US-funded media have reoriented themselves since the end of the Cold War, dropping much of the programming geared toward newly democratic Central and Eastern European countries and focusing on Russia and China.
Chinese state-funded media have expanded their reach sharply over the past decade, including by offering free services to outlets in the developing world that would otherwise pay for Western news agencies.
Radio Free Asia, established in 1996, sees its mission as providing uncensored reporting into countries without free media including China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam.
The outlets have an editorial firewall, with a stated guarantee of independence despite government funding.
The policy has angered some around Trump, who has long railed against media and suggested that government-funded outlets should promote his policies.
The move to end US-funded media is likely to meet challenges, much like Trump’s other sweeping cuts. Congress, not the president, has the constitutional power of the purse and Radio Free Asia in particular has enjoyed bipartisan support in the past.

Advocacy group Reporters Without Borders condemned the decision, saying it “threatens press freedom worldwide and negates 80 years of American history in supporting the free flow of information.”
Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and senior Democratic congresswoman Lois Frankel said in a joint statement that Trump’s move would “cause lasting damage to US efforts to counter propaganda around the world.”
One VOA employee, who requested anonymity, described Saturday’s message as another “perfect example of the chaos and unprepared nature of the process,” with VOA staffers presuming that scheduled programming is off but not told so directly.
A Radio Free Asia employee said: “It’s not just about losing your income. We have staff and contractors who fear for their safety. We have reporters who work under the radar in authoritarian countries in Asia. We have staff in the US who fear deportation if their work visa is no longer valid.”
“Wiping us out with the strike of a pen is just terrible.”
 


Miami Beach mayor threatens cinema closure over screening of Oscar-winning film ‘No Other Land’

Updated 14 March 2025
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Miami Beach mayor threatens cinema closure over screening of Oscar-winning film ‘No Other Land’

  • Documentary is propaganda, attack on Jews, says Steven Meiner
  • Cinema’s CEO Vivian Marthell stands by decision to screen film

LONDON: The mayor of Miami Beach, Florida, has threatened to shutter a cinema that screened “No Other Land,” the Oscar-winning film that tells the story of Palestinian displacement in the West Bank.

Steven Meiner has proposed terminating O Cinema’s lease and withdrawing $40,000 in promised grant funding, following a series of requests to cancel the documentary screening.

Meiner’s proposal to terminate the cinema’s lease is scheduled for a city commission vote next Wednesday.

Critics of the film claim it unfairly criticizes Israeli and German officials and contains antisemitic content.

“The City of Miami Beach has one of the highest concentrations of Jewish residents in the United States,” Meiner said in a newsletter sent to residents on Tuesday.

He described the documentary as “a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residents.”

Meiner also claimed that O Cinema’s CEO, Vivian Marthell, initially agreed to cancel the screening but later reversed her decision and added additional dates after the film sold out.

Marthell said she stood by her decision.

“We understand the power of cinema to tell stories that matter, and we recognize that some stories — especially those rooted in real-world conflicts — can evoke strong feelings and passionate reactions. As they should.

“Our decision to screen ‘No Other Land’ is not a declaration of political alignment. It is, however, a bold reaffirmation of our fundamental belief that every voice deserves to be heard.”

The production, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature this month, was filmed between 2019 and 2023 by Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers.

It follows the destruction of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank by Israeli military forces and chronicles the unlikely friendship between Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who co-directed the film.

Abraham said in a statement: “When the mayor uses the word antisemitism to silence Palestinians and Israelis who proudly oppose occupation and apartheid together, fighting for justice and equality, he is emptying it out of meaning.

“I find that to be very dangerous.”

While the film has received critical acclaim, it has also sparked controversy, highlighting ongoing tensions over free speech and Palestinian activism both in the US and internationally.

“Freedom of expression is an important value, but defamation of Israel into a tool for international promotion is not art,” Israel’s Culture Minister Miki Zohar said in a social media post after the Oscars.

Despite its success, “No Other Land” has struggled to secure US distribution, with the filmmakers self-releasing the film through mTuckman Media.

The directors — particularly Abraham and Adra — have blamed political backlash fears as the reason for US distributors’ reluctance to acquire the rights.

The controversy comes amid heightened tensions over Palestinian activism in the US.

Earlier this week, Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia student activist and green-card holder who led the Palestinian solidarity movement during campus protests last year, was detained by immigration authorities.

President Donald Trump has alleged, without evidence, that Khalil has links to “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity.”

The incident has sparked an international outcry, with rights groups and media condemning Khalil’s detention as “a dangerous moment” and “a flagrant assault on free speech” that violates the First Amendment.

 


Trump adviser seeks to cut AFP, other news agency contracts

Updated 14 March 2025
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Trump adviser seeks to cut AFP, other news agency contracts

  • “We should not be paying outside news companies to tell us what the news is,” Kari Lake said on X

WASHINGTON: A senior adviser to President Donald Trump said Thursday she was moving to cancel long-established contracts between three international news agencies and the federal body that oversees US government-funded news organizations.
In a post on X announcing the move to cut the contracts with Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters and The Associated Press, former journalist-turned-politician and staunch Trump loyalist Kari Lake said: “We should not be paying outside news companies to tell us what the news is.”

Lake joined the US Agency for Global Media as a special adviser last month. The agency oversees a handful of media entities dedicated to reporting news and combatting censorship abroad, such as the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia.
“I moved today to cancel expensive and unnecessary newswire contracts for US Agency for Global Media, including tens of millions of dollars in contracts with The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse,” Lake said
“We should be producing news ourselves. And if that’s not possible, the American taxpayer should know why,” she added.
AFP has a number of long-running contracts to provide text, photo and video services to USAGM outlets.
Trump has made the federal-funded agencies overseen by the USAGM a particular target of his media reforms, and close adviser Elon Musk has called for VOA and Radio Free Europe to be shut down entirely for “torching” taxpayer money.
He tapped Lake in December to become the head of VOA, but she has yet to be confirmed.

 


LIV Golf signs multi-year broadcast deal with DAZN

Updated 14 March 2025
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LIV Golf signs multi-year broadcast deal with DAZN

  • Deal with streaming site DAZN will bring its golf events to more than 200 countries
  • LIV has also already agreed a deal with Fox Sports to show its 2025 season in the US

LONDON: LIV Golf announced on Friday it had secured a multi-year exclusive broadcast deal with streaming site DAZN to show its events outside the United States.
The Saudi-backed breakaway circuit had initially struggled for TV deals during its inaugural season in 2022, briefly showing tournaments for free on YouTube.
But LIV had also already agreed a deal with Fox Sports to show its 2025 season in the US.
DAZN will broadcast the LIV tour live in “more than 200 markets,” including Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Japan.
“DAZN’s cutting-edge technology and unparalleled scale give LIV Golf a significant platform to engage a truly global audience,” said LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil.
British streaming service DAZN was also recently awarded the exclusive global rights for FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup to be held in the US in June and July.
LIV Golf has been in talks with the PGA Tour over a possible deal to reunite the game since 2023.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said earlier this week that US President Donald Trump’s intervention in negotiations had “significantly bolstered” hopes of an agreement, but admitted some hurdles remain.


Turkiye’s independent news websites face closure risk after Google changes

Updated 13 March 2025
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Turkiye’s independent news websites face closure risk after Google changes

  • Google implemented algorithm changes that led to reduction in reader traffic, outlets say
  • Spokesperson for the tech giant argues that the changes do not target individual websites and that they are designed to improve its search facility overall

ISTANBUL: Several independent media outlets in Turkiye face a potential risk of closure after algorithm changes made by Google led to a significant reduction in reader traffic, a joint statement from the outlets said on Thursday.
They said Google’s algorithm changes since the end of January had wiped out the vast majority of reader traffic to their websites, previously directed through Google’s “Discover” and “News” tools, and had harmed their finances.
Independent news websites including T24, Medyascope, Diken, and Birgun said that Google’s changes also blocked the public’s access to news, adding that they would take legal action.
“As independent media organizations operating in Turkiye, we announce that we will stand up for our corporate rights, our employees’ work and the support of our readers, which have been stolen by Google’s actions, on every platform,” they said.
They said they would apply to local and international legal bodies, notably Turkiye’s Competition Authority.
A Google spokesperson, requesting anonymity, said its changes do not target individual websites and that they are designed to improve its search facility overall.
“We don’t and would never manipulate search results, modify our products, or enforce our policies to promote or disadvantage any particular viewpoint,” the spokesperson said.
In 2024, Turkiye ranked 158th out of 180 countries in the press freedom index of the free speech advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. Its report said that with some 90 percent of Turkiye’s media under government influence, Turks recently turned to critical or independent media outlets for domestic news.
Independent media outlets in Turkiye are highly dependent on Google revenues as private companies are reluctant to advertise on independent websites.
On Wednesday, independent news outlet Gazete Duvar announced its closure, citing revenue losses triggered by Google’s algorithm changes alongside inflationary economic conditions.