I recently saw this headline...
...and it got me thinking of something.
WHEN JEWS BRING UP MEDIA BIAS...
Since the October 7 massacre, anti-Zionists have often mocked us when we bring up anti-Israel or pro-Hamas media bias. When we bring up that many of the journalists reportedly killed in the Gaza Strip have verifiable ties to Hamas or other Palestinian terrorist groups, for example, anti-Zionists often sarcastically retort, “Oh, so everyone is Hamas?”
Yet, as I’ve tried to explain time and time again, there is simply no such thing as independent media under totalitarian regimes. Hamas is one such example; the repression and intimidation of journalists – both Palestinian and foreign – has long been documented in the Palestinian Territories.
In 2014, former Associated Press correspondent Matti Friedman admitted, for example: “There has been much discussion recently of Hamas attempts to intimidate reporters. Any veteran of the press corps here knows the intimidation is real, and I saw it in action myself as an editor on the AP news desk. During the 2008-2009 Gaza fighting I personally erased a key detail—that Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians and being counted as civilians in the death toll—because of a threat to our reporter in Gaza...Earlier this month, the AP’s Jerusalem news editor reported and submitted a story on Hamas intimidation; the story was shunted into deep freeze by his superiors and has not been published.”
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS UNBIASED MEDIA
First and foremost, it’s imperative to recognize that there is simply no such thing as “unbiased media” or an “unbiased source.” Every single source has bias, and every media report has some sort of angle, because every single source is documented by a human being who is interpreting the world through the lens of their own experiences, values, and more.
The key is to recognize that some sources are more biased than others, and some sources are more nefarious than others. Under totalitarian regimes where there is no freedom of the press, it’s the government that controls what the media does or does not publish. This important to understand because this means that such totalitarian regimes will utilize the media to advance a narrative that suits their interests.
Under Nazi Germany, for example, the Nazi Party exercised complete control over the German press. But what of the international media reporting on Nazi Germany? Let’s look at the Associated Press as a case study...
THE NAZIS EXPEL FOREIGN JOURNALISTS
Shortly after Hitler’s rise to power, the Nazis began the process of taking absolute control over the German media. The regime shut down Jewish publishing houses, while SS officers broke into opposing political party offices, where they destroyed their printing presses, newspapers, and more. The Nazis also purchased competing press at below market value, and many conservative newspapers began self-censoring to avoid government backlash.
In 1934, the Nazis started expelling foreign journalists from the country, beginning with Dorothy Thompson of the New York Post, who had written a number of critical articles of Adolf Hitler.
By the outbreak of World War II, the Associated Press was the only remaining Western news agency in all of Germany. Why and how did that happen?
- THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MAKES A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL
“Journalism is all about access. To get the scoop, reporters must first get in. But some access comes with a price—and when totalitarian states hold the keys, ethical lines can be crossed,” wrote Erin Blakemore for Smithsonian Magazine in 2016.
This is precisely what the Associated Press did under the Nazi regime. In order to avoid expulsion from Germany, the Associated Press agreed to the Schriftleitergesetz law, ceding editorial control to the Nazis by promising never to publish any articles “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home.”
Their collusion went even further. Per the Schriftleitergesetz law, the AP was obligated to hire photographers who worked in the Nazi Party’s Ministry of Propaganda (if this sounds eerily familiar...it’s because it is). Among these hired photographers was Franz Roth, an SS member whose photographs were personally selected by Adolf Hitler.
HARMFUL REPORTING
In cooperating with the Nazis, the Associated Press helped whitewash the crimes of the Nazi regime to a western audience.
Some examples:
- The Associated Press allowed the Nazis to use its photographs for its antisemitic propaganda. AP photos were used in an SS brochure titled “Der Untermensch” (“The Subhuman) and in the pamphlet “Die Juden in USA” (“The Jews in the USA”).
- After the Nazis occupied Lviv, Ukraine in 1941, they organized a series of “revenge” pogroms (massacres) against the Jewish community. The AP, however, did not report on these massacres against unarmed Jewish civilians. Instead, it only published photos of Soviet army brutality against Germans in Lviv.
TO THIS DAY, THE AP TAKES NO ACCOUNTABILITY
In 2016, German historian named Harriet Scharnberg uncovered the links between the Associated Press and the Nazis, publishing a detailed article in the academic journal Studies in Contemporary History. “[The AP’s cooperation with the Nazis allowed the Nazis to] portray a war of extermination as a conventional war,” Scharnberg has argued.
Yet, the Associated Press, like the Red Cross and the Catholic Church, both of which have long evaded accountability for their role in propping up and whitewashing the Nazi regime, rejected the accusations, despite extensive evidence.
“As we continue to research this matter, AP rejects any notion that it deliberately ‘collaborated’ with the Nazi regime. An accurate characterization is that the AP and other foreign news organizations were subjected to intense pressure from the Nazi regime from the year of Hitler’s coming to power in 1932 until the AP’s expulsion from Germany in 1941. AP management resisted the pressure while working to gather accurate, vital and objective news in a dark and dangerous time,” an AP spokesperson told The Guardian.
"Which events were made visible and which remained invisible in AP's supply of pictures followed German interests and the German narrative of the war."
- German historian Harriet Scharnberg
WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?
To be clear: this does not mean that every single reporter or media outlet is irredeemably biased, acting nefariously, and/or untrustworthy. It certainly does not mean that every single report that paints Israel in an unfavorable light is inherently wrong. It also doesn’t mean reporters can’t exhibit bias towards other groups, such as Palestinians.
It does mean, however, that historically institutional antisemitic bias has clouded the judgment of even the most seasoned reporters and respectable media outlets. Addressing such bias is not “paranoia,” a “conspiracy,” or a laughing matter, and those that treat it as such could stand to learn a bit more about the role that the media has long played in the marginalization of Jewish people.
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