Legacy media outlets also stand in dock over Gaza: How RNZ, ABC and other Western media failed to challenge Israeli war narratives

Abstract

As Israel faces charges at the International Court of Justice in The Hague of breaching the 1948 Genocide Convention, for many people Western media institutions also stand in the dock. Critics have pointed to a media failure to effectively challenge a narrative that framed Israel’s actions in terms of an erroneous claim to Israeli ‘self-defence’, a de facto diplomatic cover for war crimes, ethnic cleansing and probable acts of genocide. In the Pacific, news leaders at Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), by alleged omission, story framing, inaccuracies, passive editorial stances, including a refusal to adjudicate contentious claims when the evidence was available, fall into the category. Such failures call into question claims of due impartiality, a fundamental tenet media outlets use to anchor their credibility as trusted sources of news. Failure to adequately create awareness of Israeli crimes also raises questions over whether state-funded public broadcasters are fulfilling the informational needs of democratic citizenship and serving the public interest, or whether they are serving the interests of a Western power elite.