Jerusalem Post columnist Anshel Pfeffer on the state of the proverbial “fourth estate” in Gaza. Is the MSM reporting everything it knows?
Since Yasser Arafat’s death almost three years ago, the story has moved from the Jerusalem-Ramallah area to Gaza. Disengagement, the rise of Hamas, the capture of Gilad Schalit, the IDF operations and the bloody showdown between Hamas and Fatah over the last year all happened in the South. But during this very period, Western news organizations scaled down their Gaza presence. To all but the tutored eye, these changes were imperceptible, as photographs and footage continued to come out of Gaza. But they were produced exclusively by local cameramen, who – if not Hamas sympathizers – definitely are under orders not to show any undesirable scenes. Print journalists, including those working for the most prestigious newspapers and see themselves as bastions of ethics, also had to rely increasingly on copy from their Palestinian stringers, all of whom were being closely monitored by Hamas and other armed groups.
When the kidnappings of foreign journalists began about a year and a half ago, they went largely unreported. In private, a number of reporters and those who work with them have admitted they preferred not to mention the fact so as not “to stir things up” and endanger their ties with the local potentates. Nor has the daily intimidation of Palestinian journalists who were interested in bringing out the real story received anything near sufficient attention….
Even after the kidnapping, out of concern for Johnston’s safety, many reports obscured details that were widely known about the captors and their ties to Hamas.
See also Newsweek, which finds that Palestinian journalists are still cowed by Hamas.
