BROADCAST BIAS: Media skip Mamdani’s ‘genocide’ comment but love him bashing ICE
The third anniversary of the merciless slaughter of Israelis, as well as Americans, on Oct. 7 drew some solemn media coverage remembering the attack. If there’s a day that the news should display a pro-Israel bias, it would be on this anniversary. But on this subject, our broadcast networks have a disturbing tendency toward "both-sidesism."
That’s the clunky word they use when they complain that it’s not moral to present pro-Trump and anti-Trump views as morally or factually equivalent. The best journalism should tilt toward the "right side" of our world. That generally means the liberal side in their view.
On Oct. 7, "CBS Mornings" anchor Gayle King was Exhibit A in moral equivalence: "three years ago today, Hamas unleashed a horrific attack on civilians in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage. Israel responded with an all-out military offensive in Gaza that killed more than 70,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry run by Hamas."
The impression that leaves is that Israel is 60 times worse than Hamas. The first problem here is using a terrorist group for your statistics. The left-wing media do this without blinking. Naturally, Hamas does not distinguish between its combatant casualties and civilian deaths, and the networks rarely note that Hamas routinely surrounds its soldiers and weapons with civilians with the aim of causing maximum civilian casualties.
The other bias bubbling up on Oct. 7 was the bias against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom journalists dislike almost as much as President Donald Trump.
ABC’s "Good Morning America" had just 75 seconds on the anniversary, which mostly focused on allegations that Netanyahu was warned in advance these attacks were coming. President George W. Bush faced this kind of partisan attack after 9/11, that there were warnings of an al-Qaeda attack on America.
Foreign correspondent James Longman summarized: "One claim, that the UAE warned the prime minister a week and a half before it happened, but those warnings were not passed on. Another that the head of Egyptian intelligence came to Israel to warn about Hamas preparing something. There’s also outrage about how long it took for security forces to respond. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu has called all this lies and a smear campaign."
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On the homepage of National Public Radio on the morning of Oct. 7, their top headline announced: "3 years on, Israelis grapple with reports Netanyahu was warned before Oct. 7 attacks." NPR’s reporters in Israel dramatically began: "Israelis are reeling from new revelations in Israeli and U.S. media that the country had been repeatedly warned by its regional allies that Hamas was planning to attack." They cited four anonymous sources with "direct knowledge." But we have no "direct knowledge" of their identities or motivations.
NPR added that Netanyahu has denied all this, calling the reports "fake news" and filing a defamation lawsuit last week against Israeli news outlets that published them. They surely see that as the Trump playbook.
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The evening newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC didn’t use any Hamas body counts. But ABC disposed of the subject in a cursory 13 seconds. The other two were somber stories marking the dark day. CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil added: "In the years since, more antisemitic violence has followed. Targeting kids at Temple Israel in Michigan, a young couple outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and a Hanukkah celebration on Australia's Bondi Beach."
The "PBS News Hour" devoted 13 minutes to the anniversary, much of it with Jonathan Dekel-Chen and Jaser Abu Moussa, two men who lost family members on opposite sides of the war, trying to reject hate. They were appearing at the 92nd Street Y in New York that night.
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None of the networks focused on the controversy in New York, where Muslim Democrat Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued an Oct. 7 statement that mourned the "unthinkable loss" of that day, and then shifted into his traditional loathing of Israel: "The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza."
The mayor added to the insult by showing up that night at a candlelight vigil in Union Square, where anti-Israel protesters, some of them with Hamas and Hezbollah flags, booed and yelled at him with jeers like, "Zohran, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide."
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Then, Mamdani suddenly appeared on the broadcast networks after the anniversary, when the subject changed to an ICE shooting during an enforcement action in New York. On Friday, Oct. 9’s "Today" show, reporter Erin McLaughlin touted "the mayor now calling for ICE to leave New York City." Mamdani’s soundbite was "We know that ICE is rotten to its core." These are not words he would use for Hamas.
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ABC’s "Good Morning America" reported Mamdani was "livid," as he railed against the immigration enforcers: "We want ICE out of our city, ICE out of our schools, ICE out of our hospitals, ICE out of our streets, ICE away from our kids!"
So, the broadcast networks will select Mamdani’s quotes carefully, when they neatly align with their anti-Trump agenda. When he rails against Jews committing "genocide" on the anniversary of the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, it’s time for bias by omission.