The Fox News and the media controlled by the neoconservative, far right groups have ignored the credible and legal patterns of journalism for many years and have been turned into a propaganda instrument to justify the warmongering, ideological and Armageddon policies of the United States, Israel and the West against other countries.
Over the past few days, the gap between claims of professionalism in the US media and the reality of their propaganda practices has been laid bare. Tampering with the news and justifying Israel’s crimes in launching an aggression against the airspace and the territory of Lebanon and back-to-back brutal and illegal attacks against civilian areas and infrastructure of the Arab country has become a norm in the US media so that there is no clear boundary between the progressive leftist sources and the far right platforms. This is a sign of defeat for the US media in their claims of reporting the truth and respecting ethical and professional standards of journalism and the international laws regulating the profession.
The New York Times and the Fox news have normally represented two opposite sides of the ideological spectrum in the US, namely the progressive left and the far right. However, they have formed an unprecedented alliance to justify and support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aggression against Lebanon and his genocidal practices against the people of the country.
The New York Times has opted for “normalization” techniques to support Israel’s illegal aggression against Lebanon by publishing a story titled “Israel sends troops into southern Lebanon!” That comes as the Fox news has reported on the same development with an article entitled “Israel launches limited ground action against Hezbollah in Lebanon!”
These two news outlets, while avoiding the use of the legal term “invasion of Lebanese territory” or the political term “war,” have reported it as though the heavily armed Israeli soldiers have traveled to a friendly country for fun and picnics, rather than for illegal invasion, assassination, crimes, and massacre of civilians. The degree of unity between these left- and right-wing media in their shared disregard for media ethics and international laws governing media behavior, as well as their support for war criminals, is unprecedented. The shared interests of the owners of these Jewish-owned media with the Zionist regime, along with the famous statement by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, about the 'shared responsibility of Jewish-owned media in defending Israel,' are key factors in this unprecedented alignment, which leads to their practical and unlawful participation in justifying Israel's war crimes, betraying the truth, undermining media ethics, and deceiving US officials and the public regarding the invasion of Lebanon and the genocide in Palestine.
The New York Times, in an unexpected move, has published an article by one of the most extreme members of Netanyahu's war cabinet. In this article, on the anniversary of Hamas's war against Israel, Benny Gantz whitewashed a year of war crimes and genocide committed by himself and Netanyahu in Gaza, emphasizing the need to expand the war throughout the Middle East. Gantz, who had previously attacked the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for alleging genocide against Netanyahu, is using The New York Times as a platform for right-wing extremism in Israel to threaten an escalation of tensions in the region.
The history of such behavior by Western media in support of war dates back to World War II; however, after that devastating war, international laws have prohibited this irresponsible and deceptive conduct. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, established after World War II to prevent the recurrence of the bitter experience of the Nazi German government's misuse of media as a war propaganda tool, explicitly prohibit the misuse of 'media power' and 'the power of speech' as weapons to justify and promote war and crimes.
This is not all about the political alliance between the New York Times and Fox News in justifying and promoting the wars of the US and the Zionist regime. In another war in Eastern Europe between Russia and Ukraine, which is currently going on, both media giants have used the technique of exaggeration and fear-mongering about Russia’s attack on Ukrainian soil, and at the same time, an important part of the reality of this war which is about the American and European conspiracy to add Ukraine to NATO, unlike the previous treaties with Russia, have been hidden from the eyes of the Western audience. Both media have used the legal term “military aggression” to describe Russia's attacks on Ukraine, and at the same time, both have become propaganda tools of the US government in promoting the false and undocumented accusation of Iran's ballistic missile assistance to Russia, without fulfilling their media responsibility regarding the investigation of the authenticity of this fake and propaganda news.
The type of interaction of the New York Times and Fox News in dealing with the invasion and occupation by the fake Israeli regime of Lebanon and comparing it with the type of description used for the conflict between Russia and Ukraine shows a collection of deception, hypocrisy, political propaganda, and press lies.
Media experts have raised the question whether words such as “invasion” or “occupation” no longer has a meaning in the American media terminology. Naturally, these two very famous media outlets will not suffer from such forgetfulness when it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This is the reality of the Western media today: complete bias in favor of the official aggression and war crimes of the Zionists in Lebanon and Palestine and the promotion of their official narrative, which has become the common behavior pattern of the editors of most major Western media outlets, both left and right.
Ahmed al-Alawi, an Algerian journalist, referring to such degree of duplicity, deception and hypocrisy, has described the behavior of some media outlets in the region in imitating the news coverage patterns of the Western media as follows: Unfortunately, some of us are concerned about the need to follow the Western press model, which means we have to use deception, lies and hypocrisy to reach this level of quality and fame.
During the Gaza war and the Russia-Ukraine war, the Western press demonstrated unprofessional behavior and a lack of journalistic ethics.
Contrary to international law, the Western press has become a tool for Western governments and armies to justify the occupation and attacks on countries that resist their dominance. Therefore, they should be considered as accomplices in the ongoing war crimes against humanity.
The Algerian journalist is correct in saying that criticizing the New York Times and the Western media should not be interpreted as desiring a national press that is deceitful, propagandistic, or warmongering like the Western press.
Rather, the emphasis should be on the need to establish a sober, independent, audacious, patriotic and professional press that defends the interests of the Islamic ummah in all circumstances.
The national press should understand the deception of the Western media and expose it, without being concerned about any controversy or outcry from Western media outlets that have abandoned all of their credibility, professionalism, and moral obligations only to defend the crimes of the Zionist regime.
*Ali Mohammadi is a political analyst based in Tehran
Views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the IRNA.
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