Why Does the Media Celebrate Images by Photographers With Unethical Ties to Hamas?
Error: Contact form not found.
by Rinat Harash
A pro-Hamas demonstrator uses a megaphone at Columbia University, on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in New York City, US, Oct. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
Hamas couldn’t have asked for better coverage. The terror group’s yearslong investment in relations with Gaza journalists who work for the foreign media has paid off once again.
The annual end-of-year photo galleries of Reuters, the Associated Press, CNN, TIME Magazine, and The New York Times, featured heart-wrenching images by photographers who were previously exposed by HonestReporting for having unethical ties to Hamas.
Reuters’ Mohammed Salem, AP’s Fatima Shbair, and The New York Times’ Samar Abu Elouf, all had been honored by Hamas or taken an active part in its “Loyalty Day” events. But that didn’t stop their outlets from presenting their tainted work as a pinnacle of journalistic achievement.
Reuters’ Questionable Standards
Reuters news agency praised a photo by Mohammed Jadallah Salem, showing a surreal Gaza scene: Wedding dresses “for sale” displayed on mannequins amid debris, as displaced Palestinians walk by.
So surreal, in fact, that one wonders whether the picture was deliberately staged. But that’s beside the point: Any junior photo editor in the once-respected news agency should have spiked photos taken by Salem, by virtue of HonestReporting’s exposé of his cozy relationship with Hamas.
The same applies to CNN, which also included photos by Salem in its 2024 gallery
In 2017, Salem — who recently won the Pulitzer prize and the World Press Photo award — received an award from Hamas on behalf of his brother Suhaib, the head of Reuters visuals in Gaza. Two senior Hamas officials granted the commendation: Khalil al-Hayya and Mushir al-Masri.
Al-Hayya has publicly called for a fight against Israel as “the head of the serpent,” and al-Masri has vowed to “uproot the Zionists with our axes, knives, guns.”
The Associated Press Ignores Reality
The Associated Press also ignored the facts. Their 2024 end-of-year gallery includes photos of Gaza’s damaged houses and displaced people by Fatima Shbair, who was exposed by HonestReporting for participating in a Hamas promotional video.
In the video, which featured award-winning journalists honored by Hamas in a 2021 “Loyalty Day” event, Shbair thanked the Hamas Media Office in a gushing display of emotion, calling its efforts “incredible:”
As long as the battle continues, we must continue conveying the truth, and getting this picture out to the world. What the Government Press Office does every year to honor Palestinian journalists and their efforts on the ground is incredible. It encourages all of the journalists to carry on with the mission.
As our exposé stated, when journalists from the world’s leading news agencies appear in a propaganda video for Hamas, their journalistic integrity is as good as gone. They practically voice support and allegiance to the terror group’s agenda.
But the AP had no qualms about platforming Shbair, in her own voice, describing her “journalistic” work. Nor did CNN or TIME Magazine, which included her images of Gaza destruction in their top photos of 2024.
The New York Times Hides the Truth
Finally, The New York Times — despite knowing about the problematic relations between its photographer Samar Abu Elouf and Hamas — included one of her photos in its 2024 selection.
Elouf “delivered some of the most indelible images of the year: a series of portraits of Gazans horribly injured in the war, including children who had lost arms, legs or eyes,” the paper declared.
What it didn’t reveal to its readers was that Abu Elouf was also honored in 2021 as a Hamas media office “work partner.”
Indeed, the images she captured, horrific as they may be, are the bread and butter of the Hamas media office’s war effort.
The sad truth is that media want access, which is difficult in Gaza unless you’re in bed with Hamas.
In the past year, HonestReporting has successfully exposed this hypocrisy — leading to the dismissal of journalists like Abdel Qader Sabbah and Hassan Eslaiah, who were linked to Hamas and worked for CNN and AP.
And last month, we launched the “Call Out Complicity” campaign to expose outlets that continue to use biased journalists in their coverage of Israel-related issues.
As 2024 comes to an end, those efforts on the media battlefield continue. Here’s hoping that next year’s top photo selections won’t be as tainted.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
