Reporting for Newsweek Sept. 3, 2026, Dan Gooding covered efforts to boycott Israel, including the fight within the Democratic Party over the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS). The article, “Israel Boycotts: Full List of Democrats Voting to Cut Funding to Colleges,” curiously failed to explain what the BDS movement is, leaving readers with the impression that the campaignis simply a disagreement with the Benjamin Netanyahu government, rather than opposition to the existence of the Israeli state.
A U.S. House of Representatives bill triggered the article. Education committee chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) proposed the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act of 2026 to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, which, according to Gooding, “aims to rewrite the Higher Education Act of 1965 to prevent institutions that take part in ‘a non-expressive commercial boycott of Israel’ from receiving federal funding under the original bill.”
The article’s first flaw was its citation of Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed as an opponent of the House bill. A better choice would have been a sitting member of the House, such as Foxx’s counterpart, Bobby Scott (D-VA), who voted against the bill, rather than someone who is not a member of Congress.
The piece then turned to the BDS movement. The first reference read, “Ahead of the vote, New York Representative Jerry Nadler said he felt that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which the bill directly seeks to tackle, could veer into antisemitism, and that he overall disagreed with the movement. That did not prevent him from voting against the bill, he said in a statement.”
It also quoted the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that “BDS activities are divisive and harmful, especially on college campuses, where BDS proponents seek to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jewish and other students for their connection to the Jewish state.”
Layman readers will therefore know that the bill intends to combat BDS. They will learn that ADL’s position is that the BDS movement is hostile toward Jews. What they will leave ignorant of is what the movement is. It is astonishing that nowhere in a piece about a Congressional bill to combat BDS does the author explain the issue to his audience.
There is, however, an inaccurate implication. Gooding writes:
Critics of such measures [to fight BDS] also contend that efforts to police antisemitism can sometimes blur the distinction between anti-Jewish hatred and criticism of the Israeli government, raising concerns about freedom of speech and pro-Palestinian advocacy on college campuses.
The tacit suggestion here is that BDS is a movement critical of the current Israeli government. Simply put, Gooding’s narration boils down to ADL thinks that BDS is hostile to Jews, while critics of the bill believe that it is anti-Netanyahu. This journalistic failure brings to mind Texas journalist Hubert Mewhinney’s quip. Referring to two Texas opponents, he ridiculed local journalists:
If Jimmy Allred says it’s raining, and W. Lee O’Daniel says it isn’t raining, Texas newspapermen quote them both, and don’t look out the window to see which is lying, and to tell the readers what the truth is at the moment.
A good journalist cites both sides when there is a lack of evidence to settle the dispute over a claim. But after decades of activism, there is now mounting evidence proving that BDS is hostile to Jews and wishes to eliminate the Jewish state, not simply critical of the current—or any single—Israeli government.
But since Gooding failed, it falls on CAMERA to do his job for him. BDS was created in 2005. The best evidence for the fact that it is not merely an anti-Netanyahu campaign is that Netanyahu was not the prime minister at the time. It does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and advocates for a complete isolation of all Israeli entities, from cultural and academic to financial and political.
On a grassroots level, BDS activists in universities frequently and increasingly harass Jewish students, violently attack Jewish centers, and collaborate with neo-Nazis and white supremacists along the way. On Oct. 7, 2023, BDS issued a statement attacking governments for condemning the orgy of violence against Israelis on that day and excusing the terror attack. You would not have known any of these facts from reading Newsweek.
Gooding also erred by poorly litigating a politician’s statements, which is supposed to be the primary job of the Fourth Estate. He cited Nadler’s justification for his vote:
No matter how much I may disagree with BDS, and find it strategically stupid and morally repugnant, I will always fight to protect Americans’ right to speech with which I disagree. … It is the only way to ensure speech I do agree with is equally protected.
Indeed, speech is relevant to this bill, but it is not the primary dispute. The core question is whether an institution, including a university, that is undermining federal policy is entitled to federal money. This is a precedented issue, and the federal government under Democratic and Republican administrations has used its Title IX prerogatives to compel universities to follow federal policy, including issues concerning expression. Universities that do not accept federal money are entirely immune from federal policy.
Of course, politicians prefer to make the most favorable case for their positions, and Nadler is no exception. Gooding’s failure is accepting the flawed argument on face value.
Throughout the article, Gooding quoted people without scrutinizing their words or giving context for their claims. That is not journalism. That is stenography without critical thinking. For that, we can just ask Claude to write “news reports” for us. The least we can demand from reporters is doing better than an A.I. chatbot.