{"id":250646,"date":"2023-12-18T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=250646"},"modified":"2023-12-16T08:59:31","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T08:59:31","slug":"cnn-goes-to-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/12\/cnn-goes-to-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"CNN Goes to Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Watching the sloppy propagandistic spin of the western press reminds me of how grateful I am for all the real journalists in Gaza who\u2019ve been doing the heavy lifting, even while their lives are in serious danger. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

15 Dec 2023<\/em> – CNN\u2019s Clarissa Ward and her crew became the first<\/a> western journalists to enter Gaza independent from Israeli forces since October 7, briefly visiting a 150-bed hospital that was recently constructed in a soccer stadium by the United Arab Emirates in the southern part of the enclave before leaving to report on the footage from Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

Overall the segment on Ward\u2019s visit<\/a> is beneficial, providing some much-needed visuals to a mainstream audience for whom the human butchery in Gaza has largely been more of an abstract idea. CNN shows maimed victims of Israeli airstrikes in all their suffering and distress, and Ward interviews them with compassion, noting correctly that \u201crecord numbers of civilian casualties\u201d have been inflicted by \u201cIsrael\u2019s frenzied bombardment\u201d. Ward emphasizes the \u201cheroic, extraordinary work\u201d of Palestinian journalists who\u2019ve been covering what\u2019s been happening in Gaza over the last two months, accurately noting that these reporters have been getting killed at an unprecedented rate<\/a> in this onslaught.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s an objectively good thing that this segment was made and that Ward and her crew did the work that they did. But because it\u2019s CNN, there was also a lot of narrative distortion thrown on what people were shown which happens to benefit the information interests of the US empire.<\/p>\n

\n