The Media Accountability Project  

In the same vein, you consistently refer to Palestinian captives who are being “treated” by Israel as “patients.” If one of the civilians or soldiers taken captive by Hamas on Oct. 7 were receiving treatment, shackled, and blindfolded on a bed in a tent in Gaza, I am certain that AP would refer to this individual as a hostage, not a patient.

"Your language subtly undermines the scale of starvation and dehydration in the Strip. Earlier in the article, CBC outlines allegations that starvation of civilians is being used by Israel as a method of warfare. Yet, when CBC describes starvation in Gaza in its own terms, it settles for “catastrophic food insecurity.” The starvation, dehydration, and malnutrition preceding a famine do not fall under the scope of “food insecurity.” Palestinians in Gaza are not “food insecure.”"

Writing “want to leave Gaza” makes it seem like Palestinians have a choice of leaving or not when they don’t because of the reality they are going through. Palestinians are either getting killed, waiting to die or getting killed, or witnessing family members or other Palestinians getting killed. In such circumstances, anyone would flee their land because it’s a matter of life or death.

The term “fighting flares'' is too vague and a journalistic sin of media reporting. Using vague and cliched action verbs to inform an audience, especially of a global conflict where Israel is currently committing a genocide in Gaza, downplays the on-the-ground facts of what is actually happening.

"Using the term “patient” to refer to Palestinians who were forcibly taken captive and subsequently treated for injuries is a dangerous euphemism that obfuscates the fact that Israel is 1) holding these individuals captive and wrongfully detaining them and 2) “treating” injuries the Israeli military as almost certainly inflicted."

"AP is quick to label unconfirmed cases of chants calling for “death to Jews” as antisemitic, but will only refer to extremist Israelis chanting “death to Arabs” as nationalists or ultranationalists."

"While the Associated Press and CBC’s unwillingness to publish the word “Palestine” in its reporting has always been a form of anti-Palestinian racism, this tendency has become especially offensive and outdated as 143 countries have supported UN resolution to provide new rights and privileges to Palestine, and countries like Norway, Ireland, and Spain have formally recognized the state."

If students not being able to graduate in the verdant oasis in the heart of downtown Montreal makes the author so sad, I’d hope she’s sobbing over the thousands of Palestinian students who have had their campuses carpet-bombed. If McGill students having to walk the stage at the “cavernous” Bell Center makes her so sad, I’d hope she’s sobbing over the >7,000 children who will never finish their schooling because they are dead.

Israel's blockade and siege of Gaza did not start on October 7th. Israel has had total control of the crossings into Gaza since 2007 when Hamas won the election and Israel imposed a land, sea, and air blockade on the Gaza Strip. This amounts to collective punishment and is considered a war crime.

If Canada’s attribution is the reason you’ve made a broad-brush generalization of Hamas as a terrorist entity, then that needs to be made clear in your article. Otherwise, your vocabulary insinuates a moral judgment, which is inappropriate in an article labeled “local news.”