This week on CounterSpin:
US corporate news media’s initial response to Israel’s terror campaign against Palestinians, unleashed in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas, was characterized largely by legitimization, a rhetorical blank check for whatever Israel might do. Israel, the New York Times editorial board said, “is determined to break the power of Hamas, and in that effort it deserves the support of the United States and the rest of the world.”
We’re more than three months into that “effort.” The death toll for Palestinians is, conservatively, as we record on January 18, over 24,000 people. The UN secretary general calls Gaza a “graveyard for children.” So how does the Times’ assertion that “what Israel is fighting to defend is a society that values human life and the rule of law” stand up now?
We talk this week with media critic, activist, and professor Gregory Shupak. He teaches English and media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto and is author of The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, from OR Books.
First, Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at some recent press coverage of immigration.