Western media has blood on its hands as Israel slaughters more Palestinian journalists

Mourners have carried out the funerals of assassinated Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Horrifying footage has shown journalists ripped to pieces, covered in blood and body parts, and later in white funeral shrouds stained with blood. Israel’s repeated attacks on journalists are the height of impunity, and a brutal attempt to remove the people reporting on the genocide of their own people.

However, in remarks that are characteristic of a bloated and rotting Western media system, veteran journalist John Simpson said last week:

The world needs honest, unbiased eyewitness reporting to help people make up their minds about the major issues of our time. This has so far been impossible in Gaza. Journalists around the world should support calls for reporters to be allowed into Gaza.

Anyone who is yet to ‘make up their minds’ about Israel’s genocide in Gaza is an ignorant and immoral fuckwit. How many more internationally renowned organisations need to declare genocide? How many UN experts need to explain over and over again that Israel is committing war crimes? That it is purposely targeting journalists and their families?

Palestinian journalists are journalists

Of course, we all know what Simpson means when he calls for:

honest, unbiased eyewitness reporting.

He means Western journalists – those unbiased and diligent reporters who’ve….erm…ignored Israel’s genocide for years now. Simpson implicitly rejects the Palestinian journalists who’ve risked their lives to livestream the genocide of their own people. And, in doing so, he upholds the rotting edifice of Western journalism: objectivity.

It should be understood as a standard of a bygone time, but, Westerners cling to the facade of objectivity with the desperation of children grasping for certainty and meaning. After all, who could understand the behemoth of a killing machine that Israel has built, without understanding settler colonialism, white supremacy, and the military industrial complex? In that situation, who wouldn’t cling to the lie of Western objectivity as some kind of standard for reporting? A comforting lie, if nothing else.

It takes a truly evil – and colonial – outlook to consider that Palestinian journalists who have been killed for their journalistic efforts are somehow ‘biased.’ Simpson’s dismissal of Palestinian journalism is an implicit demand for anyone who isn’t Palestinian – and therefore ‘biased’ – to report on the genocide.

Neutrality

Why? Who could be trusted more than the people who are being exterminated to report on what they see? Simpson’s remarks are the sometimes unspoken but always heavy assumptions about who can be trusted. Who can be believed? Being white and from the West are synonyms for neutrality and being unbiased: for trust. After all, how could the East ever spit out a decent journalist from a population of savages and uncivilised brutes?

Just yesterday, Palestinians in Gaza carried out the funerals of the journalists who have pushed through unimaginable trauma and bloodshed to do their jobs. Along with Anas Al-Sharif, Al Jazeera reported that the funerals of more of their reporters were carried out:

The strike late on Sunday killed seven people, including correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, along with camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammed Noufal. Freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khaldi was also among those killed. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said three more journalists were wounded in the attack.

At least 238 journalists have been killed since late 2023. As the Canary’s Palestinian correspondent, Alaa Shamali wrote, journalists like Anas Al-Sharif are more than just reporters:

Anas Al-Sharif was not just a reporter conveying cold news, but a messenger of truth from Gaza to the world. He knew that the camera could be a reason for him to be targeted, but he believed that the lens was the most powerful weapon to break the wall of silence. He climbed rooftops, searched for internet signals in the corners of hospitals, and cut through destroyed streets to film hungry children and mothers searching for bread amid the rubble.

Shamali continued:

With his execution at the hands of Israel, Gaza has lost more than a journalist; it has lost a witness who carried its pain on his shoulders, and a bridge connecting its alleys to the eyes of the world. His reports remain in the archives, but they are not mere media material; they are fragments of the spirit of a city that continues to struggle for life.

Heartbreaking losses

Simpson’s comments represent a prevailing belief across Western countries that Palestinians cannot speak for themselves, and certainly cannot do so to the lofty standards of Western corporate media. It is unspeakably horrific to see Anas’ lifeless body covered in ashes, deformed by the blast that killed him, his flesh still glowing from the embers of his slaughter. The screams of bystanders as they realise more of their people are assassinated by the Zionists. The stillness of Anas’ body as his head flops to the side, weighted and weightless. His press vest reduced to bloody tatters.

The world is used to seeing him reporting on the genocide of his people, both in spite of and because of his fear, heartbreak, grief, and terror of Israel’s genocide. And, the world is too used to seeing Palestinians torn limb from limb, and doing nothing. It’s not enough for a bloodthirsty West that Palestinians are seen in their most terrifying moments, bodies and bodies and bodies piling up. So extensive is the dehumanisation of Palestinians that Western standards of truth, honesty, and good journalism are so warped as to twist the knife of Palestinians whether dead, alive, or dying.

Anyone who can be ‘objective’ or ‘unbiased’ about this is fucking lying.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/ABC News (Australia)