The Media Accountability Project  

This headline blurs the line between fact and accusation, presenting the Israeli/U.S. claim that Hamas was behind the killing of Palestinian aid workers as if it were an established fact.

"I take immense issue with Ms. Oger's statement that the activists who protested at the Pride event did so 'in an attempt to intimidate' people to follow their ideological line. This claim is both misleading and irresponsibly decontextualized. The protests were in fact aimed at highlighting the Vancouver Pride Society's refusal to sever ties with corporations that profit from Israel's occupation and oppression of Palestinians. This context is vital to understand the legitimate concerns raised by these activists and the solidarity they are showing with a marginalized group facing a genocide."

On March 15, CJPME learned that the Vancouver Sun corrected an article following a CJPME complaint. In an article about how a children’s tent at a rally for Gaza has supported Palestinian-Canadian parents, Denise Ryan wrote the following:

Sama said that when Israel invaded Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel, Yafa knew something was happening.

CJPME wrote a letter to the journalist and the editor-in-chief asking whether Sama called it a terrorist attack in her testimony or whether the journalist made this moral judgment herself. If Sama called it a terrorist attack in her own testimony, then that needs to be made clear by putting those words in quotation marks. In any other case, the Hamas attacks should not be broadly labeled as “terroristic” in a news article. Further, despite the article providing readers with the Israeli death toll, no information regarding how many Palestinians have been killed by Israel was included. After the Deputy Editor of the Vancouver Sun admitted that the reporter was working within a limited word count, they opted to remove the portion about Hamas’ attack, as well as the Israeli death toll, to avoid imbalanced reporting. The sentence now reads:

Sama said that when Israel invaded Gaza after October 7, Yafa knew something was happening.

CJPME appreciates the Vancouver Sun’s prompt response and willingness to make corrections to their published articles.

"I, therefore, ask you to add a Muslim voice and mention the rise in Islamophobia to make your article more balanced and fairer."

"That rare exceptional moment in Israel/Palestine, namely, a brief window of time in which more Israelis had been killed by Palestinians than Palestinians had been killed by Israelis, is closed."