Disputing some of the mainstream western media’s reportage from Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war, N. Ram, Director, The Hindu Group Publishing Private Limited, on Sunday said that they were “censored” and “being shamefully used without vetting by their media organisations”.
Some of those who reported for western media organisations including The New York Times, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times were “embedded in the Israeli defence forces”, Mr. Ram said, citing a recent content analysis by The Intercept, which said that their coverage heavily favoured Israel.
Speaking at a session on ‘Israel’s War on Gaza and the Palestine Problem: Role of Media in Building the Narrative’, during a colloquium organised by the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), Mr. Ram referred to reports that over 100 journalists had been killed while covering Gaza, of whom an overwhelming majority were Arab and not western journalists.
Though it was claimed that the media in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom were free, independent and respectful of the diversity and pluralism of views, “there is also a propaganda model at work”, Mr. Ram said, citing the book, Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman.
The claims of liberal democratic theorising stood exposed when it came to the media. That line of thinking about the media dated back much earlier than Chomsky, and was by Walter Lippmann, who was one of the most influential journalists of the 20th Century.
Mr. Ram cited two of Lippman’s works – Liberty and the News published in 1920 and another work co-authored with Charles Merz, A Test of the News – and said that the latter pointed to the coverage by The New York Times of the Russian Revolution and underlined how the coverage contradicted evidence.
“This kind of analysis of the propaganda model of coverage in presenting narratives is well established in the literature,” he said.
Mr. Ram said that ACJ could undertake a content analysis of a particular time period to see how the English language press or television or those of any major Indian language covered the issue and see if any significant coverage took place of what was happening in Gaza or whether they were merely following western narratives.
Citing an article by Newslaundry on what it described as the “selective coverage syndrome” of the India media, Mr. Ram appreciated Frontline’s cover story, ‘Genocide in Gaza’, that was published in the November 17 issue, and recalled how Frontline Editor Vaishna Roy was trolled on social media.
It was a “war crime” that Israel targeted Palestinians and civilians, civilian infrastructure and hospitals, killing women and children, paramedics and journalists and cutting off food, water and fuel supplies in Gaza, he said.
War crimes were a matter to be determined through a thorough, impartial or independent investigation, he said, and added that accusations of war crimes were serious and complex legal matters.
“Targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure, hospitals and other protected entities is considered a violation of international humanitarian law. These actions can potentially constitute war crimes,” Mr. Ram said.
