Friday, November 17, 2023

When TV reporters turn advocates for one side

 I spent a good part of the day watching American television to see and assess how the media covers the unfolding events in the Middle East. I could not divorce what I was absorbing from what I had learned about American television decades ago.

 

I must say in this regard that on the whole, the comparison yielded a positive result in the sense that most of the media showed signs indicating they want to present the events in a balanced way. Whether or not they fully succeeded is another matter.

 

Despite those signs, however, someone that watches American television for the first time, and sees its coverage of the war on Gaza, will come to believe that the broadcasts emanate in Israel, more specifically in the ministry of military propaganda of that faraway entity.

 

In fact, seeing Israelis in uniform, who speak in perfect America accent, “explain” what Israel is doing and hopes to accomplish, no one can escape the conclusion that in this case, the Judeo-Zionists of the world owned and operated the America media outlets. It is that not one television channel, and not one show that I watched was rid of Americans in Israeli uniform, who pretended to be full-blooded Israelis fighting for the survival of an imagined people at risk of being made to disappear.

 

Amid the repetitive deliveries of this kind of programing, one outlet stood then and stands now as the exception. It is not an exception to welcome, let alone to cheer about; it is an exception to weep about for, it alone seems capable of dragging America into the house of moral prostitution. That outlet is Fox News which became so desperate trying to reverse the trend of a growing antisemitism in America and the world, it committed an act that sent journalism back to the Dark Ages.

 

What the Fox News network did was force all its reporters to stop reporting on the events as they unfold, and speak instead in the language of the spin doctors whose training has given them the power to make anyone believe that an Israeli soldier who is taken prisoner by Hamas, is an act of terrorism whereas a Palestinian family that is blown to kingdom come by an Israel bomb, is an act of Jewish heroism that the world needs to learn about and emulate.

 

In fact, a lamentable example is that of a correspondent, stationed in Israel who used to give the news in a straightforward manner, you see him now and hear him perform like a cog would when placed in the massive Judeo-Israeli propaganda machine, and made to spin like a dog that’s trying to catch its tail. He spews the spun lies that misinform and disinform the audiences that trust Fox News.

 

But there again, you find the exception that makes the rule. In fact, there are more than one exception working for that network. They try everyday to render unto Cezar what is Cezar’s to remain faithful to their profession while being loyal to an employer that is more fanatic about the need to kill Palestinians than Hamas is fanatic about beating the Israeli military machine.

 

Among those exceptions, one anchor at Fox News, who is a lawyer by training, stands out as remarkable. She is Shannon Bream who is animated by a disciplined mind and a logic that’s enjoyable to follow. If I have an advice to give her, it is that her polemics are so dense, she needs to slow down when speaking to give the listeners time to savour what she is saying.