We got to those whose work was ‘immoral’ and made them change ‘one way or another,’ says spokeswoman, also acknowledging booting out journalists who sought to ‘film places where missiles were launched’
Hamas official inadvertently acknowledged on Thursday that the group had strong-armed journalists in Gaza into a reporting style that suited its narrative, keeping many under surveillance and kicking out of the territory those who sought to film the launching of rockets at Israel.
In an interview with Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen TV on Thursday, relayed and translated Friday by the Middle East Media Research Institute, the head of foreign relations in Hamas’s Information Ministry, Isra Al-Mudallal, complained that “the coverage by foreign journalists in the Gaza Strip was insignificant compared to their coverage within the Israeli occupation (Israel).”
“Moreover,” she said, “the journalists who entered Gaza were fixated on the notion of peace and on the Israeli narrative.” She asserted that the foreign press was focused “on filming the places from where missiles were launched. Thus, they were collaborating with the occupation.” (The Israeli army said last week that 600 of the 3,300 rockets fired into Israel over recent weeks were launched from residential areas, including schools, mosques and homes.)
“These journalists were deported from the Gaza Strip,” al-Mudallal said. “The security agencies would go and have a chat with these people. They would give them some time to change their message, one way or another.
“We suffered from this problem very much,” she added. “Some of the journalists who entered the Gaza Strip were under security surveillance. Even under these difficult circumstances, we managed to reach them, and tell them that what they were doing was anything but professional journalism and that it was immoral."
From the same report above:
THE MEDIA ISSUES A STRONG CONDEMNATION OF HAMAS INTIMIDATION TACTICS AND INTERFERENCE WITH THEIR REPORTING
On Monday, the Foreign Press Association, an umbrella group representing foreign journalists working in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, issued a strongly worded condemnation of Hamas’s intimidation tactics and its interference with their reporting in Gaza.
“The FPA protests in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month,” the statement said. “The international media are not advocacy organizations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground.”
As well as targeting journalists in Gaza, the press organization said it was aware that Hamas had been taking steps to vet those media personnel it did not approve of and to prevent them from reporting in Gaza.
“Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA,” the statement said.
The FPA asserted that “in several cases, foreign reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned over stories or information they have reported through their news media or by means of social media.”
In an article for Haaretz on Wednesday that highlighted the FPA condemnation, reporter Matthew Kalman said “Hamas repeatedly demanded a list of the names of correspondents” who were using a specially-chartered bus via a safe passage route into Gaza, “in order to draw up a blacklist of individuals and networks.”
Kalman wrote that “Some reporters received death threats. Sometimes, cameras were smashed. Reporters were prevented from filming anti-Hamas demonstrations where more than 20 Palestinians were shot dead by Hamas gunmen.”
In what Kalman called “perhaps the most serious incidents considered by the FPA,” he said, “Hamas began firing mortars right next to the location of foreign reporters, in what may have been an effort to draw Israeli retaliatory fire.”
Kalman noted that New York Times correspondent Jodi Rudoren disputed and criticized the FPA statement: “‘Every reporter I’ve met who was in Gaza during war says this Israeli/now FPA narrative of Hamas harassment is nonsense,’ Rudoren tweeted, referring to Israeli accusations that Hamas pressure on foreign reporters had helped massage the messages coming out of Gaza in the last month.” And he said Rudoren’s Tweet “was followed by a furious email exchange with the FPA, in which Rudoren denounced the statement as ‘dangerous.’”
A numbers of reporters working in Gaza reported on Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure for military means, but said they were only able to do so once out of the Strip, for fear of Hamas reprisals.
A report by India-based NDTV last week on Hamas assembling and firing a rocket next to a hotel used by journalists was filed hours after the reporter left Gaza, because “Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired,” NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain wrote.
Source - http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-admits-intimidating-foreign-press-who-reported-wrong-message/
Watch video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVjDiI1xm4U&list=UUpBvIBfZ-foo5ZbLH5O0N4g
RELATED
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| Fernando Gutierrez |
In Spanish, Gutiérrez, who is writing for Melilla Hoy, tweeted, “On Saturday, 9th of August, Hamas launched a battery of rockets from the press hotel. What was their intent? To provoke Israel to kill us?#SaveGazaFromHamas.”
The journalist later said he recorded audio of the rockets being launched.
Read more - http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/12/spanish-journalist-in-gaza-hamas-launched-rockets-from-press-hotel/
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Alan Johnson on The Telegraph:
Hamas manipulated and intimidated the media in Gaza. Why was that kept from us?
The Foreign Press Association (FPA) issued an astonishing protest yesterday about "blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox" intimidation of journalists in the Gaza Strip by Hamas. "In several cases," they complained, "foreign reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned over stories."
The FPA said this amounted to "denying readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground," adding "we are also aware that Hamas is trying to put in place a 'vetting' procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific journalists. Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA." The statement raises a lot of questions. Here is one: why have British broadcasters not mentioned any of this to their viewers?
Let's review what we know.
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Media pretends to wake up on Gaza coverage...too little, too late
The BBC just published a cautionary article about Gaza, pointing out what bloggers have been saying for weeks:
[I]f the Israeli attacks have been "indiscriminate", as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women.
Matthias Behnk, from OHCHR, told BBC News that the organisation would not want to speculate about why there had been so many adult male casualties, adding that because they were having to deal with a lot of casualties in a short time, they had "focused primarily on recording the casualties".
Matthias Behnk, from OHCHR, told BBC News that the organisation would not want to speculate about why there had been so many adult male casualties, adding that because they were having to deal with a lot of casualties in a short time, they had "focused primarily on recording the casualties".
An analysis by the New York Times looked at the names of 1,431 casualties and found that "the population most likely to be militants, men ages 20 to 29, is also the most overrepresented in the death toll. They are 9% of Gaza's 1.7 million residents, but 34% of those killed whose ages were provided." "At the same time, women and children under 15, the least likely to be legitimate targets, were the most underrepresented, making up 71% of the population and 33% of the known-age casualties."
Better late then never? Hardly.
After weeks of headlines blaring "indiscriminate bombings" and photos of dead babies, the world has been conditioned to believe Israel is evil and murders children wantonly. Even if there was a month of headlines showing that the original assumptions were wrong, it is too late - people internalize the first thing they read and it is very difficult to dislodge them of their initial beliefs.
The world has already been brainwashed by news media that made sweeping, false generalizations and tugged on heartstrings to take IDF actions way, way out of context. A few tiny articles several weeks later are more geared towards the news organizations pretending to assert their objectivity after the fact, knowing quite well that they have already poisoned the minds of millions with their irresponsible reporting.
The media should not be let off the hook this easily. Every single tactic that Hamas did to manipulate the media has been done before, in 2009 and 2012. There were the same threats against reporters, the same false statistics, the same manipulated photos, the same hiding among civilians, the same rockets from school and hospital and mosque grounds, the same lie about civilian casualties that were from terror rockets and explosives, the same collaborator murders being hidden as civilian casualties. There was nothing new here.
The media willingly ignored any lessons from history and happily took pages from a playbook written by terrorist organizations.
Now they are pretending to be daring and bold by questioning the lies that they have been in the forefront of pushing - lies that any news professional should have been quite aware of (if they weren't, then they should not be in that business.)
The media is not engaging in a re-evaluation of their coverage. They are engaging in the deception that they are being objective after the fact. Articles like this - while welcome - are more cynical than they are an admission of four weeks of unquestioning reporting of official lies. The skepticism should have occured in real time, not weeks after when the world has moved on.
The damage has been done, and the news media is what caused the damage.
After weeks of headlines blaring "indiscriminate bombings" and photos of dead babies, the world has been conditioned to believe Israel is evil and murders children wantonly. Even if there was a month of headlines showing that the original assumptions were wrong, it is too late - people internalize the first thing they read and it is very difficult to dislodge them of their initial beliefs.
The world has already been brainwashed by news media that made sweeping, false generalizations and tugged on heartstrings to take IDF actions way, way out of context. A few tiny articles several weeks later are more geared towards the news organizations pretending to assert their objectivity after the fact, knowing quite well that they have already poisoned the minds of millions with their irresponsible reporting.
The media should not be let off the hook this easily. Every single tactic that Hamas did to manipulate the media has been done before, in 2009 and 2012. There were the same threats against reporters, the same false statistics, the same manipulated photos, the same hiding among civilians, the same rockets from school and hospital and mosque grounds, the same lie about civilian casualties that were from terror rockets and explosives, the same collaborator murders being hidden as civilian casualties. There was nothing new here.
The media willingly ignored any lessons from history and happily took pages from a playbook written by terrorist organizations.
Now they are pretending to be daring and bold by questioning the lies that they have been in the forefront of pushing - lies that any news professional should have been quite aware of (if they weren't, then they should not be in that business.)
The media is not engaging in a re-evaluation of their coverage. They are engaging in the deception that they are being objective after the fact. Articles like this - while welcome - are more cynical than they are an admission of four weeks of unquestioning reporting of official lies. The skepticism should have occured in real time, not weeks after when the world has moved on.
The damage has been done, and the news media is what caused the damage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read more - http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2014/08/gaza-archbishop-tells-media-that-hamas.html
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GAZA TERRORISTS' GUIDELINES FOR MANIPULATION OF MEDIA REPORTING
What words to use to make Hamas look good - Always call Gaza casualties "innocent civilians," even when they are jihadis
This is how the public are being manipulated by terrorists and a compliant and even sympathetic world media.
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More on media issues in Gaza on this blog
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Middle%20East%20-%20Gaza%20-%20Media
Cartoon - http://elderofziyon.blogspot.ca/2014/08/media-pretends-to-wake-up-on-gaza.html#.U--GTcog-M8
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