Toby Dershowitz and Eitan Fischberger
Al Jazeera’s ethics instructor Khamaiseh led a webinar on bias—despite a history of glorifying Hamas and spreading hate against Jews online.
The Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Institute recently hosted a webinar for journalists about detecting media bias to coincide with Press Freedom Day. One big problem: Muhammad Khamaiseh, the Al Jazeera instructor who specializes in “journalism ethics”, himself has a record not only of media bias but of hatred and discrimination. That’s quite an ethical dilemma, an area in which he claims to be an expert, and it’s also a dilemma for Al Jazeera, the organization for which he frequently acts as a public standard bearer.
Khamaiseh holds a master’s degree in media and cultural studies, is an editor at the Department of Media Initiatives at the Al Jazeera Media Institute, is a member of the Al Jazeera Journalism Review’s editorial team, and oversees its Research Fellowship Program. But despite his impressive CV, Khamaiseh has used social media to spread hate against Jews instead of using it to gather information for stories.
“Jews have been known for centuries to be cunning thinkers, and currently, the entire global economic system is under their control”, he posted on his X account in August 2018, six months after he started working at Al Jazeera, amplifying a hateful canard against an entire faith population.
Back in July 2014, at the height of an expanded military confrontation between Israel and Hamas, Khamaiseh expressed disturbing support for Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades when he cruelly mocked the suffering of Jews, laughing — yes, actually typing out the sound of laughter — at the idea of them being left orphaned. “The summer schedule of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades… By God they are not slacking off on going after the Jews, not even allowing them to sleep in the morning as they would like. Hahahaha.”
No comments:
Post a Comment