Spanish journalist - off the record - says Hamas would kill Gaza reporters if they filmed rocket fire

I have been on a bit of a rant about Gaza reporters giving only one side of the story.

This post by Israeli media figure Michael Grynszpan helps explain why:

I met today with a Spanish journalist who just came back from Gaza. We talked about the situation there. He was very friendly. I asked him how comes we never see on television channels reporting from Gaza any Hamas people, no gunmen, no rocket launcher, no policemen.. We only see civilians on these reports, mostly women and children.
He answered me frankly: "It's very simple, we did see Hamas people there launching rockets, they were close to our hotel, but if ever we dared pointing our camera on them they would simply shoot at us and kill us."

Wooh, impressive. Then I asked him "would you mind saying that on camera? I can film you explaining this..."

For some reason I cannot really understand he refused and almost ran away. I guess my camera is as dangerous as Hamas threats...

So just for you to know, the truth will never appear on the images you see on television.

While this can - to some extent - excuse the reporting directly from Gaza, it does not excuse the media organizations that employ them. In fact, it makes them more culpable.

It is worth reminding people about how reporters in southern Lebanon dealt with Hezbollah intimidation in 2006.

CNN's Nic Robertson dutifully accompanied Hezbollah on a planned tour of a bombed out building, repeating Hezbollah's talking points about not seeing any military targets there and not telling viewers that it was staged entirely by Hezbollah. Only when he was safely back in the US, and challenged on TV about his report, >did he admit the truth, as reported by Newsbusters

Hezbollah has “very, very sophisticated and slick media operations,” that the terrorist group “had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath,” and he even contradicted Hezbollah’s self-serving spin: “There's no doubt that the [Israeli] bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities.”

To his credit, Anderson Cooper was the only one of scores of journalists who exposed the facade of impartiality while he was in Lebanon:

As the video showed a group reporters and photographers interviewing a single woman on a blanket, Cooper explained, “Civilian casualties are clearly what Hezbollah wants foreign reporters to focus on. It keeps the attention off them — and questions about why Hezbollah should still be allowed to have weapons when all the other militias in Lebanon have already disarmed.

“After letting us take pictures of a few damaged buildings, they take us to another location, where there are ambulances waiting.

“This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah media event. When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. We were allowed a few minutes to talk to the ambulance drivers. Then one by one, they've been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians. That's the story that Hezbollah wants people to know about.

“These ambulances aren't responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.”

CNN knew this and yet allowed its other reporters to act as if they were doing real reporting instead of being actors in Hezbollah's play.

This was eight years ago, and the media continues to do the bidding of terrorists without informing their viewers.

What can responsible media organizations do to counter the threats by Gaza terror groups?

If they were responsible, for every report from Gaza, the anchor introducing the segment should say:

"Our viewers should be aware that the Hamas leadership in Gaza and terror groups operating there threaten journalists both implicitly and explicitly. We care for the safety of our reporters and staff and are not requiring that their reports be as even-handed as we would like."

They would also take pains to have their reporters in Gaza be replaced with new ones every week or so, and have the old ones go in front of the cameras and then report what they really saw, and how they were intimidated and manipulated.

Because without doing that, the media is losing what little trust they still have in their reporting.

(h/t pm)