US Corporate Media Outlets Allow IDF to Vet ‘All Materials’ from Embedded Reporters in Gaza
MEDIA, 13 Nov 2023
Brett Wilkins | Common Dreams - TRANSCEND Media Service
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond points toward Israeli military hardware in a field near Israel’s border with Gaza. (Photo: CNN screen grab)
“Israel is killing the journalists that expose their crimes, then bribing the journalists that cover for them,” said one critic.
6 Nov 2023 – U.S. corporate media outlets have granted Israeli military commanders pre-publication review rights for “all materials and footage” recorded by their correspondents embedded with the Israel Defense Forces during the invasion of Gaza, a precondition condemned by press freedom advocates.
“Journalists embedded with the IDF in Gaza operate under the observation of Israeli commanders in the field, and are not permitted to move unaccompanied within the Gaza Strip,” Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” explained in a segment on Sunday.
CNN's @FareedZakaria on journalists who have embedded with the IDF in Gaza:
"As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF air support, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication. CNN has agreed to these terms…." pic.twitter.com/r4GGPiCtmJ
— Arif Rafiq (@ArifCRafiq) November 5, 2023
“As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF escort, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication,” he added. “CNN has agreed to these terms in order to provide a limited window into Israel’s operations in Gaza.”
In a clip featuring correspondent Raf Sanchez — who is embedded with an IDF unit tasked with finding and destroying Hamas tunnels in Gaza — NBC News also acknowledged that it has “agreed to share raw footage” as “an operational security requirement.”
Responding to Zakaria’s admission, U.S. journalist Dan Cohen asserted that “CNN is explicitly acting as a propaganda mouthpiece for the genocidal Zionist regime.”
U.S. photojournalist Zach D. Roberts said on social media that “what CNN is doing here is creating a b-roll for the IDF. It’s nothing resembling news and the CNN employees that participated in it aren’t anything resembling journalists.”
Omar Suleiman, founder and president of the Texas-based Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, said Sunday on social media that “Israel is killing the journalists that expose their crimes, then bribing the journalists that cover for them.”
Beware of any reporting out of Gaza in which news organizations are embedded with the IDF as CNN and ABC just did. They’re not allowed to release or broadcast any of it without the IDF signing off on it which is not journalism. It’s propaganda.
— Laila Al-Arian (@LailaAlarian) November 5, 2023
Israel does not allow foreign journalists into Gaza unless they’re embedded with IDF units under the aforementioned preconditions, placing almost all of the responsibility — and danger — of reporting on Palestinian correspondents.
As Common Dreams reported Friday, at least 31 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza since Israel began bombarding the densely populated strip in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks that left more than 1,400 Israelis and others dead in southern Israel, with another 240 or so people taken hostage.
One Lebanese journalist was also killed in Gaza, while four Israeli media professionals were slain during the Hamas attacks.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the past month has been the deadliest four-week period for media professionals since the U.S.-based group started keeping records in 1992. CPJ has also documented at least eight injuries, three missing people, eight arrests and “multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.”
“We are waiting for our turn, one after the other.”
A Palestinian journalist from Gaza ripped off his protective gear during a live report after one of his colleagues was killed in an Israeli attack. pic.twitter.com/6SgOg0vkg6
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 3, 2023
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Tags: Corporate Media, Gaza, Genocide, Israel, Mainstream Media MSM, Official Lies and Narratives, Palestine, War Economy, War Journalism, West Bank
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