The host states that there will “invariably” be another Hamas attack that kills Israelis, and another Israeli military attack that kills Palestinians—framing this as a cycle of violence and hate. This is a textbook case of false balance. It draws a false moral equivalence between Israel, the occupying military power committing genocide, and Palestinians, the colonized population resisting decades of dispossession and occupation.
Poor coverage – Media outlet to be critiqued
A CJPME Media Researcher has launched a media alert for the following episode. Please submit a quick response to the media, even if it’s just a sentence or two:
Title of Piece: Steve Paikin: “Can Israelis and Palestinians Find Peace?”
Media Outlet: TVO Today
Click here to watch the episode on-line.
Comments of the CJPME Media Researcher:
(Note: Please do not copy and paste the material below as the content to your message to the media - put all comments in your own words):
TVO Today recently aired an episode discussing Palestine and Israel featuring a Palestinian citizen of Israel and an Israeli. A truly balanced discussion should have included a Palestinian guest from the occupied Palestinian territories—someone who has experienced the daily manifestations of Israel’s military occupation, dispossession and settler violence perpetrated by the apartheid state of Israel. Our primary concern, however, lies with the host’s framing, which reflects a troubling form of false balance.
We invite responders to watch the episode until the end, as the host's questions become increasingly unhinged and biased. You can speed up the video play speed by clicking in the bottom-right of the video player in the link provided above.
- The host opens by referencing the October 7 and the abduction of Israeli hostages, followed by the phrase “the ensuing Israeli response which has killed so many in Gaza.” Describing Israel’s brutal and systematic military assault as merely a “response” is not only grossly misleading—it whitewashes what leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, have identified as genocidal acts. These include the intent to “kill, cause serious bodily or mental harm,” and to “inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction,” as defined under the Genocide Convention. This kind of framing contributes to a dangerous journalistic pattern of normalizing the most egregious crime in international law: genocide.
- This imbalance is further exposed in the host’s line of questioning. At 3:21, he asks the Palestinian guest, Angela, whether she has lost any family or friends “to war”—avoiding any mention of Israel as the source of Palestinian suffering, killings, displacement, and violent settler attacks. But at 6:01, when speaking to the Israeli guest, he asks whether he has lost anyone “to Hamas or Palestinian attacks”—directly naming and blaming Palestinian armed groups. This blatant double standard sanitizes Israeli violence while criminalizing Palestinian resistance which is recognized under international law as a legitimate form of self-defense against occupation. It also reinforces a dangerous narrative where Palestinians are always cast as the aggressors and Israelis as the victims, despite the power imbalance: Israel is the apartheid state, the occupying military force subjugating Palestinians, not the other way around.
- Finally, at 15:06, the host states that there will “invariably” be another Hamas attack that kills Israelis, and another Israeli military attack that kills Palestinians—framing this as a cycle of violence and hate. This is a textbook case of false balance. It draws a false moral equivalence between Israel, the occupying military power committing genocide, and Palestinians, the colonized population resisting decades of dispossession and occupation.
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The CJPME Media Centre Team
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