{"id":44766,"date":"2014-07-21T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=44766"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:33:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:33:39","slug":"nbc-news-pulls-veteran-reporter-from-gaza-after-witnessing-israeli-attack-on-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/07\/nbc-news-pulls-veteran-reporter-from-gaza-after-witnessing-israeli-attack-on-children\/","title":{"rendered":"NBC News Pulls Veteran Reporter from Gaza after Witnessing Israeli Attack on Children"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ayman<\/a>

Ayman Mohyeldin reports from Gaza City on killing of four Palestinian boys by Israel (credit: NBC News)<\/p><\/div>\n

17 Jul 2014 – <\/em>Ayman Mohyeldin, the NBC News correspondent who personally witnessed yesterday\u2019s killing by Israel of four Palestinian boys<\/a> on a Gazan beach and who has received widespread praise<\/a> for his brave and innovative coverage of the conflict, has been told by NBC executives to leave Gaza immediately. According to an NBC source upset at his treatment, the executives claimed the decision was motivated by \u201csecurity concerns\u201d as Israel prepares a ground invasion, a claim repeated to me by an NBC executive. But late yesterday, NBC sent another correspondent, Richard Engel, along with an American producer who has never been to Gaza and speaks no Arabic, into Gaza to cover the ongoing Israeli assault (both Mohyeldin and Engel speak Arabic).<\/p>\n

Mohyeldin is an Egyptian-American with extensive experience reporting on that region. He has covered dozens of major Middle East events in the last decade for CNN, NBC and Al Jazeera English, where his reporting on\u00a0the 2008 Israeli assault on Gaza<\/a>\u00a0made him\u00a0a star of the network<\/a>. NBC aggressively pursued him<\/a> to leave Al Jazeera, paying him far more than the standard salary for its on-air correspondents.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Mohyeldin witnessed and then reported on<\/a> the brutal killing by Israeli gunboats of four young boys as they played soccer on a beach in Gaza City. He was instrumental, both in social media and on the air, in conveying to the world the visceral horror of the attack.<\/p>\n

Mohyeldin recounted how, moments before their death, he was kicking a soccer ball with the four boys<\/a>, who were between the ages of 9 and 11 and all from the same family. He posted numerous chilling details<\/a> on his Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and Instagram accounts<\/a>,\u00a0including the victims\u2019 names and ages<\/a>,\u00a0photographs he took of their anguished parents<\/a>,\u00a0and video of one of their mothers<\/a>\u00a0as she learned about the death of her young son. He interviewed one of the wounded boys at the hospital shortly before being operated on. He then appeared on MSNBC\u2019s All In with Chris Hayes<\/em><\/a>, where he dramatically recounted what he saw.<\/p>\n

\"ayman1-300x164<\/a><\/p>\n

\"ayman2-300x176<\/a><\/p>\n

\"ayman3-300x173<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite this powerful first-hand reporting \u2013 or perhaps because of it \u2013 Mohyeldin was nowhere to be seen on last night\u2019s NBC Nightly News broadcast with Brian Williams. Instead, as Media Bistro\u2019s Jordan Chariton\u00a0noted<\/a>, NBC curiously had Richard Engel \u2013 who was in Tel Aviv, and had just arrived there an hour or so earlier \u2013 \u201creport\u201d on the attack. Charlton wrote that \u201cthe decision to have Engel report the story for \u2018Nightly\u2019 instead of Mohyeldin angered some NBC News staffers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, numerous NBC employees, including some of the network\u2019s highest-profile stars, were at first confused and then indignant over the use of Engel rather than Mohyeldin to report the story. But what they did not know, and what has not been reported until now, is that Mohyeldin was removed completely from reporting on Gaza by a top NBC executive, David Verdi, who ordered Mohyeldin to leave Gaza immediately.<\/p>\n

Over the last two weeks, Mohyeldin\u2019s reporting has been far more balanced and even-handed<\/a>\u00a0than the standard pro-Israel coverage that dominates establishment American press coverage; his reports have provided context to the conflict that is missing from most American reports and he avoids adopting Israeli government talking points as truth. As a result, neocon and \u201cpro-Israel\u201d websites have repeatedly attacked him\u00a0as a \u201cHamas spokesman\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0spouting \u201cpro-Hamas rants.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, as he passed over the border from Israel, he said while reporting<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cyou can understand why some human rights organizations call Gaza \u2018the world\u2019s largest outdoor prison,\u2019\u201d; he added: \u201cOne of the major complaints and frustrations among many people is that this is a form of collective punishment. You have 1.7 million people in this territory, now being bombarded, with really no way out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gazans may have no way out of Gaza, but at this point, Mohyeldin seems to have no way back in. After several requests, NBC executives have not yet provided any on-the-record statements; they will be added if provided.<\/p>\n

Andrew Fishman contributed reporting to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

UPDATE 18 Jul 2014<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/strong>The New York Times\u2019 television reporter just reported on Twitter<\/a> that NBC has \u201creversed its decision\u201d and is now sending Mohyeldin back to Gaza as soon as possible:<\/p>\n

\"ayman4-300x153<\/a><\/p>\n

NBC\u2019s statement<\/a>\u00a0states: \u201cAs with any news team in conflict zones, deployments are constantly reassessed.\u00a0We\u2019ve carefully considered our deployment decisions and we will be sending Mohyeldin\u00a0back to Gaza over the weekend.\u201d About that, CNN\u2019s media reporter Brian Stelter tweeted<\/a>: \u201cMy read of NBC\u2019s statement: an about-face that comes close to saying \u2018we made a mistake.\u2019\u201d Much more about this on @CNNReliable<\/a> on Sunday.)\u201d\u00a0Meanwhile,\u00a0Mohyeldin himself tweeted the following:<\/p>\n

\"ayman5-300x176<\/a>_________________________<\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, and author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. His fifth book, <\/em>No Place to Hide<\/em>, about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world, will be released in April 2014. Prior to his collaboration with Pierre Omidyar, Glenn\u2019s column was featured at <\/em>Guardian US<\/em> and <\/em>Salon<\/em>. He was the debut winner, along with Amy Goodman, of the Park Center I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2008, and also received the 2010 Online Journalism Award for his investigative work on the abusive detention conditions of Chelsea Manning. For his 2013 NSA reporting, he received the Gannett Foundation award for investigative journalism and the Gannett Foundation watchdog journalism award; the Esso Premio for Excellence in Investigative Reporting in Brazil (the first non-Brazilian to win), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u2019s Pioneer Award. Along with Laura Poitras, <\/em>Foreign Policy<\/em> magazine named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013. He lives in Rio, Brazil.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17 Jul 2014 – Ayman Mohyeldin, the NBC News correspondent who personally witnessed yesterday\u2019s killing by Israel of four Palestinian boys on a Gazan beach and who has received widespread praise for his brave and innovative coverage of the conflict, has been told by NBC executives to leave Gaza immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}