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Opinion

CONCHA: 'A War’s Brutality Invades Our Screens'

posted by Hannity Staff - 10.12.23

The war in Israel is dominating the news cycle —but how has the coverage been? For the most part, fair —but Joe Concha addresses a few media missteps in a recent op-ed for The Messenger.

From The Messenger:

Media coverage in the U.S. has been appropriately wall-to-wall since Hamas began killing civilians last Saturday. As a whole, the coverage has been solid, with war correspondents showing bravery and focus in reporting facts on the ground at their own peril, deserving of praise and awe. But there have been some missteps and media malfeasance worth noting, including:

  • The decision to provide Mustafa Barghouti, the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, a West Bank political party, with an unchallenged national and international platform.

This began in earnest Sunday morning on Fareed Zakaria’s CNN program. At one point, Zakaria pointedly and appropriately asked Barghouti about attacks on civilians by Hamas but then allowed him two straight minutes to tell what can only be called lies.

“Hamas mainly attacked military establishments, military installations,” Barghouti falsely claimed. “And most of the people they have arrested and taken as war prisoners are military people. I do not accept [they are] attacking any civilian.”

Zakaria, despite his own network’s vivid reporting and video to the contrary, mistakenly allowed this propaganda to go unchallenged. Other outlets also booked Barghouti, including ABC News Australia, where he made another stunning claim, saying that “nobody will be executed” by Hamas — even though Hamas said it will execute hostages on video if Israel bombs Gazans’ homes.

  • There has been pointed criticism and argument over Hamas being described as a “militant group” rather than as a terrorist organization. This criticism came to a noteworthy head on MSNBC during an exchange between the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, and MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

“I am angry with a world that allowed the dehumanization of Israelis and sanitized the terrorism of Hamas,” Greenblatt said. “I must say, I love this show, and I love this network, but I’ve got to ask: Who’s writing the scripts? Hamas — the people who did this — they are not fighters, they are not militants, and I’m looking right at the camera: They are terrorists.”

Read the full op-ed over at The Messenger: