UN report reveals: How Western media contributed to the cover-up of genocide

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese accuses Western and Israeli media institutions and major technology companies of contributing to the cover-up of crimes in Gaza, by marginalizing Palestinian voices and promoting unverified Israeli narratives, in a report titled "Truth Under the Rubble."

UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, issued a report titled "Truth Under the Rubble: Media in the Time of Genocide," in which she accused Western and Israeli media institutions and major technology companies of contributing to the cover-up of crimes committed in the Gaza Strip. The report, released yesterday, Monday, and spanning 37 pages, criticizes the performance of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), The New York Times, CNN, and Germany's ZDF for editorial bias and the use of linguistic formulations that obscure responsibility for the killing of Palestinians. The report points to editorial instructions at The New York Times calling for the avoidance of terms such as "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing." It also notes that 83% of BBC headlines and 65% of New York Times headlines used formulations that obscure responsibility. Regarding Israeli media, the report addresses content from Channel 14 that included calls to wipe out Gaza and incitement, and statements from Channel 12 justifying sexual violence against Palestinian detainees. The report criticizes Meta, Alphabet, X, and TikTok platforms for applying unequal policies in managing Palestinian and Israeli content, noting that Meta's compliance rate with content removal requests related to Israel or Palestine reached 94%, and TikTok's 99.2%. The report estimates the value of Israeli advertising campaigns at about $50 million to promote narratives denying the famine in the Strip. The report links the targeting of Palestinian journalists to information control and calls for the establishment of an independent mechanism to collect evidence and investigate attacks on journalists.