How Media Bias Endorses Genocide
And how I’m guilty of it
All I was told was I was reporting on a student’s experience studying abroad. All I was told was there was a protest. All I was told was there was some sort of war in the Middle East.
My editors never mentioned “Palestine” or “Gaza.”
In January 2009, I was a 22-year-old senior in college at Indiana University-Bloomington, studying journalism and political science. I was also a reporter for the college newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student. If you search my name on the newspaper’s Website, you can still find every article I wrote, many cringe-worthy. However, none were as cringe-worthy as the three articles I wrote about the Gaza War.
The three-week-long Gaza War started in December 2008 when Hamas refused to extend an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, which Israel violated. After Hamas refused the extension, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead on December 27, 2008. The assault resulted in between 1,385 and 1,419 Palestinian deaths, the greater majority of which were civilians and included more than 300 children. The war also resulted in thirteen Israeli deaths, including three civilians. The conflict ended with a unilateral ceasefire on January 18, 2009.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into when my editors assigned me articles about the war. I…
