Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.

On November 9, 2023, just over one month into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a group of U.S.-based journalists published an open letter. “We stand with our colleagues in Gaza and herald their brave efforts at reporting in the midst of carnage and destruction,” the letter’s authors wrote. “We also hold Western newsrooms accountable for dehumanizing rhetoric that has served to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”

Signed by 1,200 journalists in the first week of its publication, the letter called on reporters to “use precise terms” and “tell the full truth without fear or favor” — in other words, to do exactly what reporters are supposed to do. Instead, many Western newsrooms bristled at the demand for basic moral clarity and journalistic ethics. Coverage of employer backlash against the letter’s signatories quickly drowned out the contents of the letter itself. Facing disciplinary action, staff at The Associated Press, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and other major media outlets requested their signatures be removed; the Los Angeles Times banned staff who signed the letter from covering Gaza for at least three months.

At the time of the letter’s publication, Israel’s four-week siege had killed at least 36 Palestinian journalists. As of August 11, 2025, that death toll has ballooned to more than 270 — and more journalists have been murdered in Gaza than in the U.S. Civil War, both world wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan combined. Still, the widespread (and sometimes targeted) slaughter of their Palestinian colleagues has been unable to shake Western journalists from their cowardice. Hiding behind a mask of spurious objectivity, major outlets continue to shy away from words like “genocide” and “apartheid” while giving credence to the Israeli military’s oft-debunked talking points.

Get reliable, independent news and commentary delivered to your inbox every day.

Twenty-two months into Israel’s dizzying, relentless assault on Gaza, it is easy to lose track of how much the goalposts have shifted. At the start of the genocide, Israel vehemently denied targeting journalists at all, despite ample

© Truthout