Who Knew What When?

By David M. Friend

There was a huge hullabaloo this past week over what the New York Times, Reuters, CNN and the Associated Press allegedly knew, or didn’t know, of the 10/7 attack.

An organization called Honest Reporting, showed several Gazan photojournalists on scene during the first moments of the assault, taking pictures of Israelis being beaten and hauled off to Gaza as hostages.

They weren’t wearing any press identification.  As it turns out, one of them, who worked for the AP and CNN, had his picture taken at some point in the past with the Hamas boss who was planting a kiss on his cheek.

The implication is, with these freelancers on their payrolls, that somehow the news organizations knew of the attack in advance.

They’ve all denied any prior knowledge and frankly, I believe them.  There are lots of ways those photogs could have been tipped off to show up at the border on 10/7, without knowing the scale and scope of the attack.

So what does all this mean and why do we care?

Obviously, they had contacts within Hamas.  By all accounts, the terror group kept the plans of the 10/7 attack to a small circle.  Someone could have whispered to the photographers to show up because something big was going to happen, but to blow up the attack, that was years in the making, to let four photogs know about it in advance?  I don’t buy it.

But let me tell you.  Even if they did know about what was going to go down on 10/7, and they told the Times, CNN, Reuters and the AP about it, those news organizations were not under any obligation to let Israel or the US know about it.

For some perspective, take a few minutes and try to watch all 3:54 of this socratic exercise with legendary journalists Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace.  They’re discussing a hypothetical scenario where Jennings is reporting from an enemy unit that comes upon US soldiers and the question is, would he warn the Americans of the attack?

That’s pretty heavy.  I understand where Jennings and Wallace are coming from.  It’s not a journalist’s job to do the work of the US government or military.  But for me, knowing I could have broken out of my role as a reporter to help save US lives, I would have put my citizenship ahead of my profession.  But that’s just me.

So, even if those news organizations had prior knowledge of the 10/7 massacre, they did not have to warn the Israelis.

But, but, but…the old expression of if you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas (which, BTW as a dog lover, I resent), is very relevant to this issue with the Gazan photographers.

The Times, AP, Reuters and CNN are deluding themselves if they think they’re hiring journalists steeped in the western traditions of impartiality, objectivity and fairness.

Everything that goes on in Gaza is controlled by Hamas.  Hamas terrorists are bloodthirsty liars.  You either tell their side of the story, or die.  There is no freedom of the press in Gaza.  Real reporters are threatened with expulsion or worse.

The pictures taken by those so-called journalists are biased from the first shutter click.

We see lots of human suffering, and it’s awful.  We hear from grieving Gazans, and it’s heartbreaking.

But do we ever see Hamas gunmen shooting their own people that are trying to flee from the war?

Do we ever see rocket launchers smack in the middle of playgrounds and schools?

Have you ever seen an investigative report out of Gaza on the rule of Hamas?

Sorry for all the rhetorical questions.

The Gaza death toll that is widely quoted by western news organizations sometimes carries with it the disclaimer that it is from the Hamas controlled ministry of health, but what does that really mean?

Are any combatants included in that number?  Not that I’ve heard.  If communications are so tenuous and the situation on the ground so chaotic, how does the ministry have such precise numbers?  Hamas must have amazing data gathering abilities.

Certainly, I’m not questioning the large number of deaths amongst Gaza’s civilians, but to put a precise number on it, like the media are doing?  I’m not buying it.

So, even though I will uphold the innocence, for lack of a better word, of CNN, AP, the New York Times and Reuters about the prior knowledge issue, they and the others are certainly not innocent when it comes to the way they gather and report facts from inside Gaza.

For sure, democracies with a free press, are at huge disadvantages in the information war against terrorist groups that manipulate public opinion through tightly controlled and highly filtered images and videos.

Add to that the leftist lean in most news organizations, that see conflicts through a woke lens, where wars are between oppressor and oppressed, between colonialists and indigenous peoples, and you have a dangerous brew of built in bias in favor of insurgents and against the establishment.

The reporting fiasco of the explosion at the Al Ahli hospital and the rush to blame Israel, is perhaps the most egregious example so far in this war.

An engaged citizenry needs to keep the media’s feet to the fire, so to speak, and demand that responsible journalists are diligent in filtering fact from fiction, truth from lies.

But I will say I got a chuckle this past week when I saw pro-Palestinian demonstrators stage a sit-in at the New York Times.  They say they’re angry that the Times coverage of the war in biased in favor of Israel. Can you imagine?

I know many people who’ve canceled their Times subscriptions due to the opposite, that the Times, in its coverage, shows a distinct anti-Israel bias.

Oh well, poor New York Times.  You just can’t seem to win.  But, hey, I love what you’ve done with the Sunday wedding announcements. You’re good there, because there’s rarely another side to tell.