CNN admitted that the Israeli government censors its coverage of the war on Gaza. Is it any wonder that trust in the media continues to plummet?
CNN confirmed to The Intercept that it submits its coverage of the war for review to CNN’s Jerusalem bureau. That bureau is “subject to the rules of the Israel Defense Forces’s censor, which dictates subjects that are off-limits for news organizations to cover, and censors articles it deems unfit or unsafe to print,” according to The Intercept.
Israel has strict rules for media censorship. Critics of Israel have historically turned to poetry and theater to criticize the government because they know that their channels of communication are sparse and heavily policed.
But CNN doesn’t have to do censor itself for U.S. audiences. Why would they elect to? This violates journalistic ethics of independent coverage.
Another example of media manipulation is this Wall Street Journal article on why the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed. It is chock-full of lies. It says that Ukraine repelled a Russian assault on Kyiv. That’s false. Russia did not attack Kyiv but voluntarily withdrew in early 2022 due to peace negotiations that Ukraine would later renege. It also indicates that Ukraine may have won the counteroffensive but did not “because the West had dithered for months over the provision of tanks and other armored vehicles, [so] the Russians were ready.” That is also misleading. Ukraine never had a prayer of retaking the Donbas region, and the article fails to note that the region that Ukraine wants back voted to join Russia because they had been under attack by the Ukrainian army prior to the 2022 Russian operation since 2014.
