ABSTRACT
Introduction: contextualizing the debate When the British broadcaster Jon Snow, the presenter of Channel 4 News, returned from Gaza in July 2014, he committed the cardinal sin of professional journalism: he appeared to take sides in a conflict. In a video posted on the Channel 4 website, he spoke of his ‘distress’ in witnessing the horrors inflicted on Palestinian children by Israeli bombs and urged viewers to take action: ‘We cannot let it go on. If our reporting is worth anything, if your preparedness to listen and watch and read is anything to go by, together we can make a difference’ (Snow 2014). His emotional appeal was immediately condemned by the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre – a pro-Israel monitoring organization – as just another example of Snow’s ‘extremely partial and one-sided reports from Gaza’ (Kehoe 2014). Pro-Palestinian campaigners, on the other hand, challenged Snow (and Channel 4 News coverage more generally) for ‘failing to pose the more far-reaching and complex question as regards why Israel is conducting this intense bombing campaign’ (Schlosberg 2014), an absence of context that appeared to fuel a simplistic premise that ‘Hamas attacks; Israel defends’.
