On Which Side Is Your Newspaper?

The uproar over how the press covered the attack from Gaza on October 7 reminds us of Floyd Gibbons. He was the star foreign correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. He was sent to Mexico to cover the bandit Francisco “Pancho” Villa, who waged a guerilla war that eventually spilled into America. Gibbons supposedly got Villa to postpone one of his attacks by arguing that the story could get better play in the Tribune after the World Series.It would be a mistake, in any event, for either side to get too high up on its high horse over Israel’s demands for an explanation from the press on what they knew — and when — about October 7. That was after HonestReporting.com reported that news organizations were dealing with freelance photographers and reporters who appeared to know in advance that something was afoot and went into Israel with Hamas to cover the slaughter.The AP averred that it had “no knowledge of the October 7 attacks before they happened.” It denied it had embedded journalists with Hamas. It acknowledged having “acquired photographs from two Gaza-based freelance photographers who were at the border on the morning of October 7, with whom it did not have a prior relationship.” CNN and the AP did say they had cut ties with one freelance photojournalist, Hassan Eslaiah.Neither the AP nor Reuters addressed whether the freelancers and photographs it dealt with had advance knowledge that something was afoot. How, after all, did they know to be at the blasted border on the morning of October 7? The publication that climbed up on its high horse the highest, though, is the New York Times, which describes as “untrue and outrageous” what it calls “the accusation” that “anyone at Times” knew in advance of the Hamas attacks.It also denied that anyone at the Times accompanied Hamas terrorists during the attacks. It described any such allegations as “reckless” and suggested they put “our journalists on the ground in Israel and Gaza at risk.” It suggests it has been covering the war with “fairness” and “impartiality.” It’s hard to know what to say about the Times. Is “impartiality” what the Sulzberger family is looking for in its coverage of the war between Hamas and Israel?We understand the risks and exigencies of war corresponding. The historian William Shirer, who covered Nazi Germany from Berlin even after the war broke out in 1939, marched into France with the Nazis. He was working for CBS. In May 1940, he noted in his journal that he was “going to the front” to try to “get a chance — maybe — to see how this German army colossus has been doing it.” He was escorted by a Nazi officer.The Times’ columnist Anthony Lewis, now gone, went to enemy North Vietnam in 1972. He called reporting from Hanoi a “strange experience,” noting that “a reporter seldom goes to a country with which his own is actively at war.” Putting aside the “emotions,” he saw “the problem of facts.” Because “propaganda is incessant,” there is “no immediate way to judge the accuracy of a claim unless one happens to see with one’s own eyes.”Gaza is not the first time war correspondents may have dealt with the enemy. We have interviewed a number of enemies in our day. What the years have taught us to appreciate is knowing, though, on which side a publication is on. We had no doubt about Bill Shirer or Tony Lewis or even Floyd Gibbons (a World Series could take enough time for our side to regroup). Which side is the press on in the war between Hamas and Israel? That’s the question.

On Which Side Is Your Newspaper?

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