Understanding Media’s Deadly Double Standards on Gaza
Hundreds of journalists signed on to a statement saying they condemn “Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians.” United States media coverage of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza appears blatantly lopsided, taking claims of the Israeli state at face value, while requiring “independent” verification of the atrocities that Palestinians are reporting.
It’s a familiar pattern, according to longtime peace and justice activist Medea Benjamin, who sees a strong link between uncritical media acceptance of the United States’ misdeeds in Iraq in the early 2000s and coverage of what’s happening today in Gaza. Benjamin, who is co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace spoke with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about the connection.
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Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.
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