NBC’s Saturday Night Live once had a character who would appear on the “Weekend Update” segment to talk about New York City’s newest [fictional] club. He would talk about how the club “has everything” and list all the over-the-top things a patron could expect there.
NBC News adopted a dangerous version of its entertainment division’s formula in recent reporting on Lebanon. The Mar. 27, 2026, article entitled “Fears Israel could replicate its ‘Gaza model’ in Lebanon as satellite imagery captures mounting destruction,” truly “has everything.” The layering of misinformation, omission of critical facts, cherry-picking other facts, and burying clarifying information made the article over-the-top in its bias.
Misinformation and Omissions on Hezbollah
Hezbollah, designated by the U.S. and other countries as a terror organization, was created and funded by Iran as its primary proxy for world-wide terror. It has fired thousands of rockets at Israel in the past two decades.
But NBC wrote:
Israel occupied southern Lebanon until 2000 and has frequently launched attacks on the area in recent decades, striking out at Hezbollah, which was first founded in the 1980s when Israel occupied southern Lebanon in response to a series of attacks by the Palestine Liberation Organization.
While U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote in June 2000 that “the Lebanese armed forces should ensure that all national territory falls under the effective authority of the Government,” that did not happen. Hezbollah flourished thereafter and sporadically attacked Israel, escalating dramatically in July 2006 when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. This sparked a 33-day war in 2006, during which Hezbollah fired approximately 4,000 rockets, indiscriminately, at Israel.
NBC mentioned none of this.
Readers were also not told that following the 2006 war, Iran helped Hezbollah build an arsenal estimated to consist of “more rockets and missiles than all European NATO members combined.” Nor were they told that Hamas, with Hezbollah’s consent, fired 19 rockets in August 2021 and dozens of rockets in April 2023 from Lebanese territory into northern Israel. Stunningly, NBC did not even mention Hezbollah’s firing of thousands of rockets at Israel and displacing 60,000 – 70,000 Israelis in the last few months of 2023 and most of 2024. The terror group launched rockets at Israel in “solidarity” with Hamas during the Israel-Hamas war, following the Hamas massacre and invasion into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
NBC News also got Hezbollah’s origin wrong.
As the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (and others) noted:
The decision to establish Hezbollah was made in Tehran three years before Israel invaded Lebanon . . . to export the revolution to the Arab world . . .
[Iranian Supreme Leader Khomeini] appointed Ayatollah Ali Akhbar Montazeri . . . [to establish] . . . and support “Islamic liberation movements” in the Arab world: Hezbollah Hijaz in Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah in Bahrain . . . Kuwait and . . . in Lebanon.
Arriving in Damascus in 1981, barely a year before Israel invaded Lebanon, Mohtashami [one of Khomeini’s close allies] began forming the new . . . movement, Hezbollah.
NBC Buried Critical Facts
In an article about Lebanese fears that the “Gaza” model will be replicated there, NBC made it hard to find facts. Readers had to wait sixteen paragraphs before learning that Hezbollah had fired on Israel first (following military strikes – in Iran – by U.S. and Israeli forces).
In fact, the only reference to any fighting by Hezbollah at all was a passive reference in the twelfth paragraph, where NBC wrote “fighting between Israel and Hezbollah resumed earlier this month.” No mention was made of the fact that Hezbollah has claimed over 1,000 attacks on Israel between Mar. 2-29, 2026, or that attacks continue.
Cherry-Picked, Sparse Information About Gaza Also Contributed to a Biased Narrative
Just as with Hezbollah, the authors also buried facts and omitted context regarding the conflict in Gaza. While Palestinian deaths (pre and post-ceasefire) and anti-Israel allegations were emphasized by the authors, Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, which precipitated the two-year war, was buried in the ninth paragraph. No mention was made of Israeli casualties, hostages taken by Hamas or the terror group’s human shield strategy. The authors also failed to report on constant ceasefire violations by Hamas since Oct. 2025, despite articles appearing on NBC’s website on Oct. 19, 2025, Dec. 24, 2025, and Feb. 15, 2026.
The authors then absolved Hamas of any responsibility for, and inaccurately reported on, Gaza’s failure to progress to reconstruction. They wrote, “efforts to rebuild [Gaza] and bring a lasting end to the conflict have been largely delayed due to the focus on the Iran war.” But this was belied by recent reporting that President Trump’s mediators offered Hamas a formal proposal to disarm. Moreover, NBC made no mention of Hamas’ refusal to disarm, a fundamental precondition to rebuilding Gaza, unrelated to Iran.
Conclusion
A perfect storm of omissions, selective framing, burying relevant facts and, in one case, historical distortion, meant NBC’s reporting lacked accuracy, balance and context. The article was consistent in exactly two respects: downplaying the actions of Iranian proxy groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and painting Israel as the aggressor. Readers should demand full information, not bias, from NBC.