Terror Group Members Are 'Journalists,' Media Leaders Insist
The Committee to Protect Journalists voted to keep up this madness.
If someone works for a terrorist organization, do they count as a “journalist?” That should be an obvious no. But the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recently voted yes. The nearly unanimous decision came after an analysis proved that most people on the organization’s list of “journalists” killed in Gaza were members of terror groups.
The CPJ published a statement attempting to justify its decision. The statement itself is packed with lies, nonsensical claims, and at least one assertion that’s physically impossible. I break it down in the new episode.
I sent detailed questions to the CPJ, and of course did not hear back. There’s a profound irony, even hypocrisy, in groups allegedly focused on journalism refusing to respond to questions.
Just about every claim in the news about Gaza has a single source: Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, known by its acronym Hamas. The claims are often laundered through respectable-sounding institutions. That’s the case here. Hamas claims “journalists” were killed by Israel; the CPJ adds them to a list; the media cites the list.
Recently, the CPJ removed some names, following terrific work by a group called Honest Reporting, which pieced through publicly available Hamas materials to find that the list included operatives, and even commanders, for terror groups. “They were terrorists, targeted as terrorists, buried as terrorists, and praised as terrorists by other terrorists,” Honest Reporting explained.
But the CPJ left most names up. In a statement, the group said it “defines journalists as people who regularly cover news or comment on public affairs through any medium to report or share fact-based information with an audience.”
“Fact-based” is murky. Many fictional movies claim to be “based” on real events. Why not say, “People who provide accurate, fact-checked information in order to help people understand a whole truth?” Under CPJ’s definition, full-time writers of political attack ads could be “journalists,” since they push bits of information about candidates.
But that’s nothing compared to what follows:
“CPJ’s longstanding policy has been to include journalists working for state-backed media and those working with media organizations affiliated with militant groups provided they are not engaging in combat or inciting violence in a manner likely to have imminent effect.”
Why not “inciting terrorist attacks” at all? And how soon is “imminent?” If a member of a terror group uses half-truths and out-of-context tidbits to incite violence that takes a little while to foment, why is that acceptable?
Then comes the physical impossibility:
“CPJ has never included, and removes from its lists, anyone found to be engaging in combat or inciting imminent violence.”
Um… It has never included them and it removes them. All righty then. It’s not our place to put words into the group’s mouth. Perhaps it meant that it never knowingly did so. But the statement doesn’t say that. And this group is supposed to represent the crème de la crème of journalism.
It gets worse. Even if that is what the group meant, it would still be false. CPJ continues to list people who engage in propaganda for terror groups, which are devoted to inciting imminent violence all over the world — including people who go on murderous rampages while screaming “Free Palestine” and “Allahu Akbar.”
Of the 18 CPJ board members who voted on this measure, 17 supported it, according to reports. They included employees of The New York Times, Reuters, the AP, and NBC. The only one who didn’t was from Fox.
Yes, in this case Fox acted on behalf of journalism. That may be hard for some people to wrap their minds around. But it speaks to what I have discussed from the beginning of this show: Right-wing media pushes big lies of the right, while “mainstream” outlets push big lies of the left. The latter played out here.
If the CPJ cared about accuracy, it would have listened to those of us who have long pointed out that it has been including terrorists. But the group didn’t pursue facts and context. In claiming to stand for journalism, it refused to engage in the basics of what journalism is supposed to be.
Let these folks know what you think. Email this to the CPJ at info@cpj.org, and to the listed organizations at the email addresses here.
You neatly dissect the weird illogical pretzel CPJ came out with to try to cover their ass. They seem to have based it on the classic defense "My dog didn't bite you, my dog is nice and doesn't bite, and I don't have a dog." (And, like a dog hiding behind a tree, something's still poking out.)
When I saw the martyr notices for these terrorists, at Honest Reporting and elsewhere (most cutting, IMO, was Times of Israel's split-screen photos of civilian/terrorist garb) I assumed it would either be ignored, or the lists quietly adjusted. But this...remove a few, then publicly double down on/deny the rest--a familiar pattern, but still revolting.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the perverse ways Law of Armed Conflict/International Humanitarian Law gets interpreted here.
Is a terrorist really only a legitimate target at the exact moment they put their pen down and pick up a sword? Is this some deadly game of red-light/green-light? It sounds like hijinks in a Warner Bros cartoon, or Buster Keaton trying to avoid being caught out-of-doors in "Our Hospitality." Only, there's nothing funny about what these terrorists were doing.
I wondered, if JD Vance's trailer had been hit while he was a military journalist, would he have been listed by the CPJ? Oh, but wait, military journalists are combatants and not protected this way, according to an ICRC handout (via Google). So, terrorists are militants, except when that might make them subject to military rules of war, at which moment they become civilians? Ugh.