For Facts’ Sake Ep3: Misinformation, news and genocide denial
For Facts’ Sake Episode 3
Host: Tebadi Mmotla
Introduction:
The first casualty of war is truth. This saying is attributed to Hi-rum Johnson, who was a prominent American senator
from 1917 to 1945.
It’s often been used to indicate that during conflict and war, information is contested.
Governments have used propaganda and information manipulation to legitimise their actions. They also use it to undermine their enemies, and to suppress information about what they are doing.
The news media is often caught in the crossfire between truth and falsehood, and risk becoming complicit in misinformation narratives. This is also the case of media reporting on the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Critics have accused Israel of deliberate misinformation – questioning civilian deaths, disputing the number of people killed, discrediting sources reporting Palestinian death tolls, and killing journalists who report on Israel’s actions.
In this episode of For Facts’ Sake, we look at what is meant by genocide denialism, and what happens when the media gets their reporting wrong.
For decades, regimes that have committed genocide have found devious ways to deny their crimes, often by blaming victims or insisting that civilians were simply caught in the crossfire. But Israel’s denialism about the ongoing genocide in Gaza has taken on a new form.
This time, the deaths themselves are not denied, but rather questioned. The numbers of people killed are disputed, the sources reporting Palestinian death tolls are discredited, and the journalists on the ground accused of manipulation. These tactics plant seeds of cynicism and doubt in the minds of news consumers.
In this episode of For Facts’ Sake we look at what genocide denialism looks like today. In the second half of this episode, we continue with our focus on the media and Gaza – and see what happens when the legacy media, which we are supposed to
rely on… get their coverage wrong.
