The role of a photojournalist in war must be horrific at times. You may be witness to unspeakable atrocities, and your job is to document those atrocities for the world to see. For example, anyone old enough remembers the photo that AP photographer Eddie Adams took during the Vietnam War of a South Vietnamese police officer walking up to a Vietcong prisoner on the street and brutally executing him with a gun to his head. The photo won a Pulitzer Prize and is often cited as changing the course of the war.
But where is the line between 'war correspondent' and 'terrorist collaborator'? A shocking new report from Honest Reporting suggests that many photographers working for the AP, CNN, The New York Times, and Reuters may have crossed that line, and it raises some serious new questions for our media organizations, whose credibility is already underwater.
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— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) November 8, 2023
Important expose by @honestreporting: Photographers working for AP, CNN, NYT, and Reuters were EMBEDDED with Hamas on 10/7 and accompanied the terrorist group into Israel. They knew the attack was coming, and participated in it.https://t.co/HXVLHj0m6X
On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions.
What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and The New York Times, notify these outlets? Judging from the pictures of lynching, kidnapping and storming of an Israeli kibbutz, it seems like the border has been breached not only physically, but also journalistically.
The report then details each of the photojournalists who were on the scene and the photos they took, all of which beg several questions. How were they there on the morning of the attack without foreknowledge? Did they, in fact, collaborate on the terrorist attacks? And, perhaps most importantly, if they had foreknowledge, did they communicate it to these news agencies? If the answer to that final question is yes, it is a damning indictment of all of them (one of which, as a reminder, once shared office space with Hamas).
If true, this is the most insane story in half a century.
— U.S. Ministry of Truth (@USMiniTru) November 8, 2023
I guess I wasn’t the only one wondering why the @AP had photographers embedded with the terrorists on 10/7? https://t.co/0yxTlYLTeh pic.twitter.com/gygpyHpznw
— Dovi Safier (@safier) November 8, 2023
If they knew ahead of time and reported nothing, it means journalists from U.S. outlets accessories to the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. https://t.co/ZfXHvsHSGz
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 8, 2023
The media needs to answer to this report, fully and transparently. And they need to be held to account.
Dear @AP @CNN @nytimes and @Reuters Rick Robinson with @KLRNRadio would you care to comment on this? https://t.co/TElSsh1Kpx
— Rick Robinson 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 (@RowdyRick73) November 8, 2023
I apparently don’t hate journalists enough.
— Vincent Charles: Savant Bon Vivant 2.0 (Ret.) (@judasbooth99) November 8, 2023
I need to correct that… forthwith. https://t.co/MVdYIiE4ND
Yes, we all know that adage. But this report may take it to monstrous new levels.
I’m going to need more on this. But if it’s true, I cannot fathom it as a journalist. I know we have many guidelines about sharing information in war, etc., but butchering children isn’t war. A pogram isn’t war. https://t.co/Y6ZxRwWjjd
— Emily Zanotti 🦝 (@emzanotti) November 8, 2023
This is an important point as well. Unlike the example we cited at the top of this article, there was no war between Israel and Hamas on October 6. Hamas committed an unprovoked savage act of terrorism on October 7. So, even calling them 'war correspondents' may not apply here.
Imagine if the AP had photojournalists following the Sept. 11 terrorists as they went through flight training and coordinated their plans ... and said nothing about it. Those photographers -- and the media who employed them -- would be in prison for the rest of their lives, if not worse.
The press being literally the enemy of the people. https://t.co/BhXJ93uMK2
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) November 8, 2023
I really wish the media wasn't awful enough to make this entirely believable. https://t.co/ofvMiDoLcl
— Doug Powers (@ThePowersThatBe) November 8, 2023
And there's another problem. The media has so thoroughly demolished their credibility over the past several years that almost no one will be willing to give them even a shadow of the benefit of the doubt here.
Is anyone surprised by this? Everyone in Gaza works for Hamas. As far back as the 2000s when I was in the IDF there were stringers in the West Bank & Gaza who would set up children to throw rocks at soldiers for a good phot op. https://t.co/SGaYwqRLzH
— Yael Bar tur (@yaelbt) November 8, 2023
It's not unreasonable to assume that all of these photographers were sympathetic to -- if not fully in league with -- Hamas. In fact, Ari Hoffman of Human Events offered a detailed thread explaining that this is exactly who they are.
🧵GAZAN "JOURNALISTS" WERE EMBEDDED WITH HAMAS ON OCT 7
— Ari Hoffman (@thehoffather) November 8, 2023
Gazan/Hamas journalists have been contributors with major news outlets despite many of them knowing about the planned Hamas massacre.
Thread below https://t.co/8GWF8adMnH
But the critical question is: what did the AP and other agencies know, and when did they know it?
The probable excuse for all of this will be that these news organizations use stringers & freelancers who are not officially employees. But the near-constant communications these organizations have with these camera people makes it likely they knew something was up: https://t.co/9Hctw3akMU
— Jake Novak (@jakejakeny) November 8, 2023
Of course, the mainstream media will probably never report on this. It is devastating to them.
But Congress, independent media, and all individuals must call for transparency. If any of the questions being asked here are true, this isn't just a failure of journalistic ethics. It is complicity in crimes against humanity.
Demand answers.
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