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 Poor coverage - Media outlet to be critiqued
A CJPME Media Researcher has launched a media alert for the following article. Please submit a quick response to the media, even if it’s just a sentence or two:
Title of Piece: Leslie Roberts: Canadian media choose Hamas fiction over facts
Media Outlet: The National Post
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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):
Leslie Roberts, brother of the National Post’s editor in chief Rob Roberts, wrote a misleading and ethically compromised opinion piece accusing Canadian media of spreading Hamas “fiction” over the Israel’s killing of Palestinians at a GHF aid site in Gaza. In his piece, he repeats Israeli military denials as fact. Leslie Roberts wrote the piece during a propaganda trip to Israel, sponsored by the Exigent Foundation, a pro-Israel lobbying group, alongside his brother Rob Roberts. This is a blatant conflict of interest and a dangerous example of deliberate disinformation in mainstream media.
- Roberts uncritically repeats IDF and GHF claims that no Palestinians were targeted at the aid site. However, these lies have already been refuted by CNN and Al Jazeera investigations, as well as others. Both networks found strong evidence, including geolocated video and eyewitness accounts, that the IDF opened fire on crowds of starving Palestinians seeking aid in Rafah. This evidence is entirely excluded in the article.
- Roberts suggests the IDF is a “real-time fact-checking unit” while ignoring Israel’s own documented pattern of disinformation, including the 2024 “Flour Massacre”, where over 100 Palestinians were killed while seeking food. Despite Israeli denials, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s forensic investigation proved IDF responsibility. This is the same playbook we’re seeing repeated now in Rafah.
- Leslie Roberts published this piece during a sponsored trip to Israel by the Exigent Foundation, a pro-Israel lobbying group with ties to former Israeli intelligence agents. While this is clearly a violation of basic journalistic ethics and transparency, this also isn’t the first time Leslie Roberts has been implicated in a journalism ethics scandal. He resigned from Global TV in 2015 after a Toronto Star investigation revealed he used his position to promote PR clients on air without disclosure.
Please click here to launch an email in which you can draft a response to this media coverage. If this link does not work for you, simply open an email in your email program, address it to [email protected], pgelfand@postmedia, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] , and draft and send your email.
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Thank you very much. Every response makes a difference.
The CJPME Media Centre Team
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