Corporate news media have consistently blundered through their coverage of the violence on October 7, with documented war crimes outshined by—and sometimes disbelieved because of—horrific claims that later proved false. There were not 40 beheaded babies, or babies hung from clotheslines or baked in ovens, and no pregnant woman was discovered with her belly cut open and her fetus stabbed.
Most of these atrocity stories disappeared after being debunked. But one especially painful and inflammatory claim continues to circulate: that Hamas militants carried out “systematic and widespread” rape on October 7 (New York Times, 2/21/24). This claim has become so embedded in the Israel/Palestine discourse that officials like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris continue to offer it as a reason to support Israel’s ongoing murderous assault on Gaza. And that has happened in no small part due to prominent and repeated coverage from corporate media—most notably the New York Times.
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