“Journalism,” George Orwell allegedly said, “is printing what someone else does not wanted printed: everything else is public relations.”
By this standard, The Washington Post’s coverage of the latest war between Israel and Iranian proxies is little more than PR. It can hardly be called journalism.
A recent article by the newspaper purported to provide readers with details about negotiations between Israel and Hamas. But instead of offering facts, the Post reprinted a litany of lies.
The paper struck a false equivalency between hostages being held by Hamas, and Palestinian prisoners locked up by Israel for crimes including murder and terrorism.
But terrorists are not the same as their victims. Nor are they credible sources.
It took no fewer than four reporters to author the Jan. 26, 2025 story, “Who are the Palestinians released by Israel in exchange for hostages?” And not a single one saw a problem with treating a designated terror organization as a credible source.
The Post uncritically quoted claims by Samidoun, which the newspaper identified as merely “an activist network supporting Palestinian prisoners.”
This would be akin to referring to Al-Qaeda as “campaigners for an archaic version of Islam,” or describing the founder of ISIS as an “austere, religious scholar.”
A basic tenet of journalism is to identify the “who, what, when, where, and why” relating to a story. Another tenet is to fully vet your sources. And still another is to be as specific as possible. The Post failed at all three.
(Read the rest of CAMERA’s Jan. 30, 2024 Op-Ed at the Algemeiner)