An AFP staff photographer aimed to appease Hamas by speaking by video to a “Day of Loyalty to the Palestinian Journalists” event organized by the terrorist group, the news agency’s global news director Phil Chetwynd told HonestReporting this week.
Journalists working for foreign media in Gaza have participated in Hamas’ annual loyalty event hosted by the terror group’s Government Media Office with the stated aim of aligning the media with Hamas’ agenda, an HonestReporting investigation revealed.
The exposure unveiled the disturbing relationship between Gaza’s rulers and the journalists tasked with covering them, calling into question their objectivity and the ethical standards of their media outlets — the Associated Press, AFP, Reuters, and The New York Times.
“Mohammed Abed is an award-winning staff photographer at AFP who has always worked according to the agency’s published rules and ethics charters,” Chetwynd said. “He did not attend the “Day of Loyalty to the Palestinian Journalists” event in 2021. However, he agreed to say a few words in a video, as the Hamas-controlled government press office effectively regulated media work in Gaza. In the video, he thanked the government press office in general terms for their support of journalists. We have journalists who work in many difficult locations around the world and in all these locations it is incumbent on them to maintain cordial and professional relations with the organization that controls the territory in which they work. It would be dishonest try to twist these anodyne words into a pledge of support for Hamas.”
While the AP and New York Times did not respond to a request for comment, a Reuters spokesperson defended the news agency’s journalists who participated in the Hamas event.
“We stand by our coverage of Gaza and our team, who operate within the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles,” the spokesman said.
However, those principles appeared to forbid joining an event organized by a terrorist organization to encourage loyalty.
“Customers across the world depend on us to provide them with reliable and objective news and information,” the principles state. “This means that we have a special need to safeguard our independence and integrity and avoid any bias which may stem from control by specific individuals or interests.”
Here are the highlights of our expose:
- AP’s staff photographer Hatem Moussa delivered a video address at Hamas’ 2014 Loyalty Day event. It appears that his message was displayed on the same screen as the message of Abu Ubaida, the terror group’s military wing spokesperson. It was also published in propaganda style by Hamas’ official news agency.
- AP’s photographer Fatima Shbair and AFP’s Mohammed Baba spoke in a promotional video for the 2021 event, in which they were also honored by Hamas for receiving international awards.
- Two journalists were honored in the 2021 event as Hamas media office’s “work partners:” Yasser Qudih, who infiltrated into Israel on October 7 and recently won the Pulitzer Prize with Reuters’ photography staff, and The New York Times’s photographer Samar abu Elouf, who recently won the prestigious Polk Award.
- At the 2022 event, two journalists were honored for serving on the judging panel of the Government Media Office’s media contest: Reuters cameraman Fadi Shanaa and AP’s Adel Hana, whom we exposed for teaching Hamas’ media courses.
- Other journalists were honored in 2021 and 2022 for winning international awards. These included Reuters photographer Ibraheem Abu Mustafa, who recently also won the 2024 Staff Photography Pulitzer, and AP photographer Khalil Hamra.
- In 2022, the terror group also gave monetary awards to two journalists who were exposed by HonestReporting for their infiltration into Israel and their links to Hamas — Hassan Eslaiah, who worked for AP and CNN, and Ashraf Amra who worked for Reuters.
Read our full story here: EXPOSED: Foreign Media Journalists in Gaza Participated in Hamas’ “Loyalty” Day
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