to the cowards who cosplay as journalists.

the year journalism lost its spine.

i remember watching the fallout of hurricane katrina on tv.

i couldn’t have been older than nine or ten. a tall, white-haired anderson cooper was stood with one hand clutching a microphone, his other wrapped tight around the waist of the woman he’d been interviewing, as if to stop her from collapsing. he had asked her what she was going to do next, how she would go on. i remember watching her face crumple under the weight of her grief. she- like many- had lost everything in the wake of the hurricane: her home, family members, her belongings. her only reply was a broken sob.

i remember being surprised by how cooper treated her. he looked visibly moved by her testimony and gave her the space to talk, uninterrupted. at one point, he himself looked close to tears; after all, american journalism does not have a better performer of empathy than anderson cooper.

his behavior used to sit starkly in contrast with all the other suited journalists who sat behind desks, relaying the most heartbreaking news in the same robotic, monotonous tones. he was warm, funny, stern, and firm when he needed to be. i was a child, naive and idealistic. he seems fair, i used to think. that’s the kind of journalist i want to be.

he went to dangerous places and reported on global issues. this was, of course, before i had the language to diagnose this brand of ‘white savior’ reporting,’ where international (usually western, usually white) journalists gain acclaim for playing progressive knights in shining armor in ‘third world countries.’ now i see that he is one of many rich kids who spent his life fetishizing the suffering of black and brown communities, moved only by a need to be on scene with no moral responsibility to make the communities he interacts with safer or better.

we’ve seen the reports, and recognize this kind of ‘brave in the action journo’ archetype; bare faced, perfectly attractive white journos, skin now tan from the exotic suns they have so graciously trekked under. they’ll film a child who is begging on the streets of Somalia before they’ll ever drop a dollar into his outstretched hand.

it has, therefore, been alarming but not surprising to watch him- and all he represents- melt into a puddle of professional hypocrisy these last few months.

western media has a moral superiority complex rooted in the upholding of what they call ‘news values.’

in journalism school, we were taught that they served as a quiet manifesto and guideline to help shape the process of news production: you cannot platform one side of a political debate without also platforming the other, you may not make assertions morally, the language you use must remain neutral, you must cross-examine all sources and their claims, checking and counter-checking any information that they are given, you cannot act as the stenographer to a state and must reserve all rights to determine your agenda as a news organization, free from the interference of hostile states.

what an endlessly astonishing thing it has been, then, to watch the same media who brag about how diligent their reporting is break every single one of their own rules as they refuse to follow the parameters and ethical codes they’ve set for themselves. the BBC, the New York Times, and others published uncorroborated propaganda claims about Hamas raping women and beheading babies, with the IDF themselves having to come forward and clarify that there was no proof of such claims. sky news had to apologize after insinuating on several occasions that a Palestinian politician was a Hamas sympathizer.

decolonizers and Palestinians who are talking about losing loved ones to israel’s bombardment are presented with the same unoriginal, barely coded question on air: ‘Do you condemn Hamas?’ while the same journalists refuse to ask allies of the israeli government if they condemn the continued violation of international law netanyahu and his cabinet have been found guilty of. CNN and Sky News both admitted that any reporting they’re doing in the region is corroborated and controlled by the IDF, their coverage, and what they can film editorially restricted by the entity they are meant to hold accountable.

reporting that israelis were killed while Palestinians simply died, as if 45,000 people simply committed mass suicide instead of being bombarded, told to flee and then hunted like dogs. as if little children’s bodies aren’t on video, riddled with bullet holes. so eager are my colleagues to remove the weight of responsibility off israel’s shoulders, they’ve started to refer to Palestinian children as ‘young adults’. we have stripped them even of their childhood. it is not systemic government policy that is responsible for these deaths, it seems, but some inexplicable force.

gone is the soft, human touch of anderson cooper, who now tries to ensnare guests into calling Palestinians barbaric, who currently sits exclusively behind a desk in a suit, calling a genocide anything but the words ‘conflict,’ ‘war,’ and ‘unrest’ roll from him and his colleague’s lips with alarming, shameless ease.

where is the truth they claimed to worship?

because when it comes to Palestine, the truth is profoundly uncomplicated.

countless human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Save the Children, and the World Health Organization, hundreds of genocide experts, including the former head of the United Nations New York office (who resigned over his agency’s handling of Israel’s crimes), historians, and journalists have come forward and condemned israel as a genocidal state. israel has been under investigation by the International Criminal Court since 2014, and this year found that israel had met the heinous standards needed to be classified as a genocide. there is even an arrest warrant out for netanayhu.

if the endless videos of hospitals and mosques and churches and bakeries and libraries and schools being bombed by Israel (actions that are again illegal), if the statements being made by government officials who said, outright, that they were enacting the next stage of ‘ethnic cleansing,’ if the IDF did not brag about bombing Al Shifa hospital on Facebook, if netanyahu had not held up a map of israel that no longer had East Jerusalem, The West Bank or Gaza on it in front of the General Assembly early last year, the lack of definitive position on Palestine in western media would make sense.

but this evidence does exist, and the choice to ignore it is an editorial one that speaks to a concerning inability to hold oppressors accountable if it isn’t profitable- or popular- to do so.

they haven’t just betrayed their professional responsibility, the ideals and standards they promised to uphold as media workers. these news organizations have also betrayed their colleagues internationally.

according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel has killed more than 137 journalists since October 7th. the organization also reported that journalists are being targeted with tear gas and unidentified bullets while reporting from areas they were told were ‘media safe zones.’ covering the Israeli apartheid government has been the deadliest assignment for journalists since records began, and what has the response been by the media here?

silence.

despite it being a dangerous precedent to set for future regimes and a clear violation of the Geneva Convention (which states that ‘journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians’), the papers and publications with the most power in the West have made no unified statement to condemn Israel for their crimes against their profession.

american news organizations crossed even political lines to condemn donald trump when he revoked one of their colleague’s press passes, rebuking it as an attempt to silence a free press. they do not seem in such a hurry to condemn a genocidal state’s continued assault on the media, perhaps because the people being killed are brown journalists.

if they are not dead, these reporters live in fear for their lives, like Al Jazeera’s Anas Al Shareef, whom israeli officers directly threatened to stop his coverage in the region. Plestia Alaqad, a young Palestinian journalist, has fled her home because of the systemic targeting of media workers, with another famous journalist, Motaz, also being forced to flee after being hunted by the state for months.

israel is going out of their way to intimidate the media organizations doing vital reporting on their crimes because to silence those collecting proof is to stifle the global uprising. they’re issuing threats in broad daylight, with Israel’s Communication minister shlomo karhi referring to independent media organization haaretz as publishing ‘lying defeatist propaganda’ that ‘undermines Israel at a time of war.’ we all know what they did to Shireen Abu Akleh and how they disrespected her even in death.

this is simple to understand. every single journalist operating in the west who refuses to use their position in the newsroom to condemn this apparent attack on our profession is arming israel- and other oppressive states- with the knowledge that there are two tiers of journalists: ones who the West cares to defend, and disposable ones. this moment has served as a clearing of the mist for many of us journalists of color.

we see you clearly now. we see that the ideals you preach and the ‘bravery’ you speak of are a façade, an egotistical over-evaluation of your convictions and morality. because when it matters, you are all aligned with the oppressive powers you were supposed to question. your colonial roots overtook your respect for our profession, for your beloved ‘news values.’

you will never know what it is like to be heroes.

being a hero is having the people you are investigating kill your entire family like they did to Wael Dahdouh, praying salah over their dead bodies still in your press vest and helmet, and then coming back to work the next day with tears in your eyes and a promise to keep going. bravery is Motaz Azaiza, Plestia Alaqad, and Hind Khoudary, who have watched their entire lives catch fire, their schools and universities, the neighborhoods they grew up in all reduced to dust and still choosing to pick up a camera and relay to us the truth because you refuse to.

Abdallah Alwan

Abdallah Iyad Breis

Abdelhalim Awad

Abdul Rahman Saima

Abdulhadi Habib

Abdullah Darwish

Adel Zorob

Adham Hassouna

Ahmad Jamal al Madhoun

Ahmed Abu Mhadi

Ahmed Al-Qara

Ahmed Bdeir

Ahmed Khaireddine

Ahmed Shehab

Akram El Shafie Safa

Alaa Al-Hams

AlHassan Hamad

Amjad Juhjouh

Amro Salah Abu Hayah

Angam Ahmad Edwan

Assem Al-Barsh Al-Rai

Assem Kamal Moussa

Ayat Khadoura

Ayman Al-Gharbawi

Ayman Al-Rafati

Bahaaddine Yassine

Bilal Jadallah

Duaa Jabbour

Duaa Sharaf

Farah Omar

Ghassan Najjar

Hamada Al-Yaziji

Hamza Al Dahdouh

Hamza Murtaja

Haneen Baroud Al Majedat

Haneen Kashtan

Hassan Farajallah

Hassouneh Salim

Heba Al-Abadla

Hisham Alnwajha

Husam Mubarak

Hussam al-Dabbaka

Ibrahim Al-Gharbawi

Ibrahim Marzouq

Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi

Ibrahim Muhareb

Imad Al-Wahidi

Ismail Al Ghoul

Issam Abdallah

Issam Bhar

Iyad El-Ruwagh

Iyad Matar

Jabr Abu Hadrous

Jamal Al-Faqaawi

Jamal Mohamed Haniyeh

Khalil Abu Aathra

Mahmoud Juhjouh

Majd Fadl Arandas

Majed Kashko

Marwan Al Sawaf

Mohamad Al-Bayyari

Mohamad Al-Iff Al-Rai

Mohamed Abu Hassira

Mohamed Adel Abu Skheil

Mohamed Azzaytouniyah

Mohamed El Sayed Abu Skheil

Mohamed El-Reefi

Mohamed Jamal Sobhi Al-Thalathini

Mohamed Khalifeh

Mohamed Manhal Abu Armana

Mohamed Mouin Ayyash

Mohamed Nabil Al-Zaq

Mohamed Naser Abu Huwaidi

Mohamed Yaghi

Mohammad Balousha

Mohammad Jarghoun

Mohammed Abed Rabbo

Mohammed Abu Daqqa

Mohammed Abu Hatab

Mohammed Abu Jasser

Mohammed Al-Salhi

Mohammed Al-Tanani

Mohammed Ali

Mohammed Atallah

Mohammed Bassam Al Jamal

Mohammed Imad Labad

Mohammed Issa Abu Saada

Mohammed Reda

Mohammed Sobh

Mohmmed Abu Sharia

Montaser Al Sawaf

Mossab Ashour Freelance

Mostafa Al Sawaf

Mostafa Bakeer Al Aqsa TV

Moussa Al-Borsh

Muhammad Salama

Mustafa Ayyad

Mustafa Thuraya

Nadia Emad Al Sayed

Nafez Abdel Jawad

Nazmi Al-Nadim

Ola Al Dahdouh

Ola Atallah

Rabih Al Maamari

Rami Al Refee

Rasheed Albably

Rizq Abu Shakian

Rizq Al-Gharabli

Roee Idan

Roshdi Sarraj

Saadi Madoukh

Saed Al-Halabi

Saed Radwan

Saeed al-Taweel

Saher Akram Rayan

Salam Mema

Salem Abu Toyour

Sameeh Al-Nady

Samer Abu Daqqa

Sari Mansour

Shaima El-Gazzar

Shareef Okasha Freelance

Tamim Abu Muammar

Tarek El Sayed Abu Skheil

Tareq AlSalhi

Tariq Al-Maidna

Wafa Al-Udaini

Wafaa Abu Dabaan

Wissam Kassem Al-Manar TV

Yacoup Al-Borsh

Yahya Abu Manih

Yasser Abu Namous

Yasser Mamdouh El-Fady

Yazan al-Zuweidi

Yousef Maher Dawas

Zayd Abu Zayed

as the dana scott’s of the world spread israeli propganda, 137 martyrs were laid to rest because they chose death over professional spinelessness.

western journalists had better remember their names. their blood is on your hands too.

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i wrote a version of this piece almost a year ago for 1202 magazine. at the time, 57 journalists had been killed. every single name i had to add made me feel nauseous. i’m aware that rent free has always had a culture first, politics as critique focus but sometime we need to be explicit in our condemnation of evil. i have not stopped thinking about Palestine since the israeli attack on Al Aqsa mosque in 2021. i’ve pitched this essay multiple times to multiple publications- 1202 was the only magazine that had the balls to take it on. this spinelessness is not only present among the politics lot, it’s everywhere. i refuse to be one of those writers who stays silent because it is convenient; in fact, i pray to be as much of an inconvenience to these systems as i can be.

i pray that you’ll join me in being inconvenient and loud. may those who have been killed be granted jannah. may we see a free Palestine in our lifetimes.

until next time loves,

aa x