Covert NATO initiative turns film into anti-Russia battleground
COMMENT. This is an excellent article, but does have some bias. (E.g it doubts the murder of Litvinenko, though the evidence for this murder is convincing)
I accept the total message of this article, warning of NATO’s war-mongering influence on the entertainment media. I also think that the Russian government does exactly the same sort of thing to demonise the WEst
Many members of the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain invited to the upcoming London summit with NATO operatives expressed anxiety about the military alliance’s brazen interference in popular culture. One Irish scriptwriter told The Guardian the “outrageous” meeting amounted to the arts being used to promote war, while presenting NATO “in a positive light” in countries that are not alliance members, including those that “have suffered under wars that NATO has joined and propagated.” Elsewhere, a veteran screenwriter fretted that film and TV industry attendees would be “seduced into thinking they now have some secret knowledge.”
Kit Klarenberg·May 9, 2026 leaked documents on original, https://thegrayzone.com/2026/05/09/covert-nato-film-russia/
A scandal has erupted over covert NATO conferences with the Western entertainment industry. Leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone show how NATO has sought to infiltrate film and TV for decades, with UK intel operatives taking the lead.
On May 3, The Guardian revealed that NATO has held a series of secret meetings with film directors, screenwriters and TV producers in cities from Paris to Los Angeles. The disclosure suggests NATO is seeking to employ the entertainment industry in its propaganda operations as a European war looms.
To date, NATO’s “conversations” with scriptwriters have reportedly “inspired, at least in part” three separate unstated projects, which are already in development. At a forthcoming London summit, NATO operatives are set to meet with screenwriters tied to the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB). In email correspondence, the union told its members the event will focus on the “evolving security situation in Europe and beyond.”
Organizers claim NATO was “built on the belief that cooperation and compromise, the nurturing of friendships and alliances, is the way forward.” The alliance is actively seeking to influence film and TV projects extolling this mantra, stating, “even if something so simple as that message finds its way into a future story,” as a result of the meeting, “that will be enough.”
But collusion between NATO and the entertainment industry has a well-established history. Over recent decades, NATO has covertly sought to employ film and television creatives as psychological operations specialists, while influencing popular culture. A core driver of this push has been Chris Donnelly, a veteran British Ministry of Defence and military intelligence operative, who led alliance expansion into Central and Eastern Europe during the 1990s.
Donnelly later developed the Integrity Initiative to cultivate support for conflict with Russia through covert networks of influential pro-war pundits and operatives. Hidden behind a seemingly legitimate think tank called the Institute for Statecraft, the Integrity Initiative only became known to the public after independent outlets like The Grayzone reported on leaked emails from Donnelly revealing its existence.
In leaked documents discussing NATO expansion, Donnelly stated, “What I needed in the 1990s and did not have” was a major international public relations firm to “scale up successful activities to have real impact,” and achieve “essential behavioural change” in audiences. To address the problem, he proposed “advertising campaigns on TV promoting change, a TV soap opera looking at the problem of corruption” and other innocent-seeming cultural products aimed at enhancing NATO control.
Donnelly expanded NATO – often against significant public opposition – in the former Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact and Yugoslavia by penetrating target countries’ governments, militaries and even religious institutions. This ensured a NATO-friendly lobby on the streets, and throughout corridors of power, across the region. This experience was fundamental to Donnelly’s founding of now-defunct ‘charity’ the Institute for Statecraft. Through its subsidiary Integrity Initiative, the Institute constructed clandestine nexuses of journalists, academics, and military and intelligence operatives throughout the Western world, known as “clusters”.
These networks could be mobilized to spread pro-NATO propaganda, and encourage public and state-level antagonism towards Russia. Integrity Initiative played a not insubstantial role in laying the Ukraine proxy war’s foundations. An essay published on the Institute’s website in July 2014 by MI6-connected academic Victor Madeira openly laid out this objective, declaring “economic boycott, breach of diplomatic relations” and “propaganda and counter-propaganda” could produce “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Moscow, “that Great Britain and the West could win.”
In a leaked Institute file, Madeira discusses precisely the kind of “propaganda and counter-propaganda” he meant. “We’ll need to go beyond old-style military ‘romps’ and get entertainment ‘outputs’ that draw out the nature of 21st-century conflict: diffuse, across society, without clear boundaries at times,” he wrote. “That’s the real fight we’re fighting; we can more than hold our own on the military side of things.”
Popular TV show ‘McMafia’ influenced by British intelligence
In February 2018, a veteran writer on US state cultural policy and public diplomacy named Martha Bayles emailed Donnelly to pitch a “multi-episode, multi-season dramatic television series” about Russia in the 1990s. Bayles pointed to a US-UK co-production called McMafia as an example of the “commercial and cultural dominance” of long-form TV with “an avid following among young and old alike.” The widely-watched program drew on former BBC World Service reporter Misha Glenny’s 2008 non-fiction book of the same name.
Bayles believed the “hefty appetite out there for ‘period pieces’ about the recent past” was a “compelling” reason to create a similar series about Russia in the 1990s, when the country descended into neoliberal chaos and oligarchs took control following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The screenwriter was convinced that Russia’s traumatic time then “in many crucial ways set the stage for the world we now inhabit.” She added that a serial about the traumatic period could be supported by “scholarly and journalistic accounts by both Russian and Western participants and observers.” She suggested Donnelly’s “own experience and knowledge of those years would also be invaluable.”
The program needed to “avoid all taint of propaganda,” Bayles insisted, eschewing “black-hatted villains and white-hatted heroes.” Otherwise, audiences might suspect the show had been developed by some powerful outside force with an ulterior information warfare agenda. Bayles was certain there were “a lot of talented people out there” who could produce such a program. And she was clear about the ultimate objective: “an entertainment-based response to Russian propaganda and disinformation.”
By this point, Donnelly and the British military-intelligence veterans who staffed his now-defunct Institute for Statecraft were hard at work weaponizing popular culture to drive public hostility to Russia. In January 2018, the British state broadcaster interviewed a staffer at Donnelly’s Institute, Euan Grant, about “the impact of suspect Russian money” on London, as part of BBC wider series enquiring “How Real is McMafia?”
Grant styles himself as an expert on “geopolitical transnational organised crime.” According to a self-authored leaked CV, he worked closely with senior MI5 and MI6 operatives on the issue. Come 2018, he remained in close quarters with former MI5 chief Jonathan Evans, the agency’s then-chief Andrew Parker, and numerous veteran MI6 officials. They were among an extensive array of contacts that, Granted bragged, could be leveraged to underhandedly flood the airwaves with anti-Russian propaganda.
This included an array of think tankers, intelligence veterans, and mainstream journalists covering Russian organized crime. Grant boasted of “providing source material” to these individuals on “Russian speaking criminal groups.” Recipients included creatives including fiction authors, and award-winning reporters with the BBC, Financial Times, Guardian, and other major outlets. “Material” supplied by Grant informed “radio, TV and print and online media” output, on the purported “impact of Russian influence” overseas.
Popular culture was a key component of the Institute’s information war. Martha Bayles was listed as a contact, “for making use of fictional work for reinforcing messages” about Russia in the mainstream consciousness. A “memorandum of cooperation” had been sent to her by Grant, “about opportunities jointly and separately in North America, UK and elsewhere in Europe for input into media documentaries and fictional entertainment.”
Another listed contact was McMafia creator Misha Glenny. Grant said he had “recently met” Glenny, who requested a further discussion on “‘ideas’ for his next project,” providing the Institute with “possible input” into McMafia’s then-recently commissioned second series.
As part of the proposed collaboration, NATO would be granted “input” into the show’s script. At the time, the Institute for Statecraft was the British representative of NATO’s Atlantic Treaty Association, a “community of policy-makers, think tankers, diplomats, academics and representatives from industry.” The organization described its mission as “inform[ing] the public of NATO’s role in international peace and security and promote democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law through debate and dialogue.”
Western popular culture infiltrated by NATO for years
Leaked files show Grant masterminded a dedicated Institute project countering supposed “Russian destabilisation” of “international financial sectors.” Contacts in journalism and the arts provided an ideal delivery mechanism. He argued the broadcast of popular TV shows and films referencing Russian organized crime provided an extraordinary propaganda bonanza for the British military-intelligence apparatus, potentially exposing millions of Westerners to anti-Russian programming.
Grant proposed alerting “press, radio, TV” contacts to the “relevance and authenticity” of the fictional serials “to contribute to publicity and discussion ahead of, and during, broadcasting.” Integrity Initiative “cluster” operatives in NATO member states could secretly “arrange similar domestic articles” about the shows, to maximize international impact. Canadian and US media contacts would provide NATO access to “powerful and influential North American” TV and film networks.
In other leaked documents, Grant strategized a covert propaganda blitz to expose how the NATO protectorate of Moldova was supposedly “exploited” by Moscow, for “building Russian and Russian speaking influence in EU, EU applicant and Eastern Partnership countries.” He noted how recent Hollywood films and the smash French drama series Spiral had featured “Moldovan linked” plotlines, providing “opportunities” to Institute for Statecraft propagandists. He suggested the BBC “might also be interested” in covering recent books about Russian organized crime, “set in Moldova.”
Unfortunately for Grant and his boss, Donnelly, the second season of McMafia failed to materialize. However, other leaked files indicate British intelligence has been disseminating pro-NATO propaganda in Central and Eastern Europe through TV shows and films for some time.
London’s psy-war demonizes Russian speakers in former Soviet states
From 2016 onwards, according to the leaked documents, London exploited the megaphone of popular culture to “make a positive impact on how target individuals perceive the UK/EU/Euro-Atlantic values.”
Read more: Covert NATO initiative turns film into anti-Russia battleground
British intelligence defined “Euro-Atlantic values” according to the NATO Stratcom Centre of Excellence’s own conception: “democracy, human rights, freedom of media, trust to international organisations and freedom of speech.” In practice, this took the form of waging psychological warfare operations to demonize and discredit Russia across the realm of the former Soviet Union. In Baltic states, for example, London’s covert propaganda denigrated Russian speakers, who since ‘independence’ in 1991 have been systematically marginalized and discriminated against, portraying them as “individuals who are susceptible to negative Kremlin-aligned messaging.”
British intelligence simultaneously recruited Russophone influencers as pro-NATO assets, working with programming commissioners at state broadcasters to identify “young Russian speaking talent in the online influencer, stand-up comedy and social commentary spaces.”
The British assisted their hand-picked assets in developing three “content ideas” and TV pilots each, then disseminated the products through state broadcasters’ social media channels and on-demand services in order “to test audience responses and viability.”
In one leaked file, a British intelligence contractor known as Zinc Network boasted that its propaganda operations had demonstrated a clear behavioral change in its target audience.
“Our strategic approach moves beyond ‘messaging’ by influencing not only the attitudes and behaviours of our audiences but also the social networks which they are embedded in and the norms and institutions which shape them,” Zinc Network boasted.
NATO works to “seed online conversations”
NATO supplemented its covert culture war in the Baltics with an online army of bots and trolls. It employed M&C Saatchi, a British public relations agency which claims to be “the world’s largest independent creative network,” to recruit a local “network of online influencers and advocates” to stealthily “seed online conversations” with “Euro-Atlantic” themes. Under this “tailored” strategy, British intelligence inserted messaging into “pre-existing conversations,” conducted by real people on social media. Therefore, “young Russian speakers” could unwittingly become British “agents of change.
This included infiltrating online discussions occurring around “key dates and events of significance” to Russian-speakers, such as Victory Day on May 6th, which commemorates the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany’s genocidal invasion. M&C Saatchi claimed its techniques had “already been employed successfully and sustainably” for major clients, including Britain’s Home Office and Ministry of Defence, the Pentagon, USAID, Facebook, Google, and NATO.
Were these top serials demonizing Russia organic products?
It is uncertain which recent Western cultural productions have resulted from NATO’s covert meddling. However, inexplicably timed historical dramas in recent years, featuring highly negative portrayals of Russia and Russians, raise serious questions.
Chief among them is Chernobyl, the HBO series which broke viewing records after it first appeared, on May 6 2019. Authored by an anti-Russian ideologue, the show’s script contained countless egregious, politicized falsehoods and grotesque mischaracterizations. The many distortions and outright fabrications were deployed to portray the 1986 nuclear accident as the result of the brutality and incompetence of Moscow, while exaggerating the effects of radiation. “Chernobyl” took so many dramatic liberties, even the New York Times accused its creators of “the imposition of a simple narrative on history” and “the twisting of events.”
Chernobyl was followed three years later by a less elegant production, taking aim at Russian President Vladimir Putin. Aired on British streaming service ITVX, a TV drama called “Litvinenko” dramatized the bizarre supposed 2006 assassination of FSB defector of the same name. Though The Guardian panned the show as “unwatchable,” its broadcast led to renewed interest in the incident thanks to coverage from celebrity gossip magazines, not typically read by individuals with an interest in intelligence intrigues.
British writers fret about NATO interference
This March, an influential pro-NATO, London-based think tank called the Centre for European Reform published a report urging member state governments to “engage with cultural institutions and leaders like theatre directors, screenwriters, film producers and museums to better tell the story” of why increased European defense spending was “needed.” It stressed the importance of targeting militaristic messaging at “audiences who may otherwise not engage with international affairs,” with “specific funding for the arts to contribute to the public conversation on defence and security.”
The Centre further recommended European governments consider “unconventional approaches, designed to reach audiences beyond the defence and national security establishment,” in order to trigger “a national conversation on defence” across member states. NATO’s recent series of meetings with film and TV scriptwriters is clearly consistent with this strategy.
Many members of the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain invited to the upcoming London summit with NATO operatives expressed anxiety about the military alliance’s brazen interference in popular culture. One Irish scriptwriter told The Guardian the “outrageous” meeting amounted to the arts being used to promote war, while presenting NATO “in a positive light” in countries that are not alliance members, including those that “have suffered under wars that NATO has joined and propagated.” Elsewhere, a veteran screenwriter fretted that film and TV industry attendees would be “seduced into thinking they now have some secret knowledge.”
As the leaked documents[on original] presented here demonstrate, NATO’s attempts to infiltrate the film and entertainment industry are nothing new. Films and TV serials have been an alliance-dominated battlefield for decades. The Ukraine proxy war was a direct outcome of NATO’s full-spectrum bombardment on the perceptions of Western populations, with film and TV providing an ideal megaphone for anti-Russian resentment.
Now, as Europe formally prepares its citizens for a wider war, NATO is openly enlisting the arts to bring its longstanding script to an apocalyptic conclusion.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
Israel Accuses The New York Times Of Antisemitic Journalism, And Other Notes
Caitlin Johnstone, May 12, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-accuses-the-new-york-times?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=197296942&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The Israeli government is currently accusing The New York Times of antisemitic blood libel for publishing a report on Israel’s already well-documented systemic rape of Palestinian prisoners.
Contrary to popular belief, the highest award in journalism is not the Pulitzer. The highest award in all of journalism is being accused of antisemitism by the Israeli government for factual reporting.
But the New York Times is unworthy of this award. The Times has been running cover for the Gaza holocaust from the very beginning with extensively documented biases in its reporting, and played a leading role in promoting the atrocity propaganda about mass rapes on October 7. Israel’s abuses were actively facilitated by the New York Times, including its systemic sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners.
The Times didn’t even run the report as a news story; they put it in the “opinion” section. You can see their bias on its surface by the fact that they ran their notoriously discredited “Screams Without Words” piece as a hard news story.
Non-western and non-mainstream media sources have been covering the facts about Israeli sexual abuse for years. Human rights groups have been warning about the systemic rape of Palestinian prisoners since long before the onslaught in Gaza began. The only reason we’re hearing about it from the mainstream press now is because they got the destruction of Gaza they were seeking, and now the crosshairs of the war machine have moved on to places like Lebanon and Iran.
The New York Times does not deserve credit for its too-little, too-late, ass-covering reporting, and it does not deserve the honor of being accused of blood libel by the Israeli government. It deserves nothing but scorn and derision for failing to cover this completely unhidden story until May 2026.
There’s orders of magnitude more evidence for the systemic rape of Palestinian prisoners than there ever was for mass rapes on October 7, and there always has been. Anyone who claims otherwise is a hasbarist.
❖
It’s downright poetic all the different words that Reuters editors can find to avoid saying Israel violated a ceasefire.
A Reuters headline from May 10 reads “Israeli strikes kill three people in Gaza, medics say, testing fragile ceasefire”.
One from May 7 reads, “Israel strikes Beirut for the first time since the ceasefire”
April 27: “Israeli strikes hit east Lebanon, expanding scope despite ceasefire”
April 22: “Attacks in south Lebanon strain ceasefire on eve of Washington talks”
It’s such a trip how all these dusty old newsroom liches who’ve never created an ounce of art in their lives can spontaneously transform into wildly creative wordsmiths when they need to run cover for Israeli abuses.
Speaking of headlines, The New York Times recently altered the title of an article by House Democrats Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan L. Jackson about their visit to Cuba, wording it to remove blame from the United States for the suffering created by the US blockade on the island. The original headline read “What We’re Doing to Cuba Isn’t Just Unlawful. It’s Cruel.” New York Times editors changed it to “What We Saw in Cuba Shocked Us”. They deliberately shifted it to a passive-voice observation without a named perpetrator.
Speaking of headlines, The New York Times recently altered the title of an article by House Democrats Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan L. Jackson about their visit to Cuba, wording it to remove blame from the United States for the suffering created by the US blockade on the island. The original headline read “What We’re Doing to Cuba Isn’t Just Unlawful. It’s Cruel.” New York Times editors changed it to “What We Saw in Cuba Shocked Us”. They deliberately shifted it to a passive-voice observation without a named perpetrator.
One of the silliest contradictions in the Zionist narrative is that it is simultaneously (A) antisemitic to criticize Israel and (B) antisemitic to conflate Israel with all Jews.
Zionists will officially claim that it is possible to criticize Israel without being antisemitic, but that’s not actually their position in practice. We know this because there is not a single vocal and forceful critic of Israel who isn’t regularly accused of antisemitism by Zionists. Not one. They might let you get away with a rare timid critique of individual Israeli officials, but consistently and vocally criticizing the apartheid state of Israel itself (and your own government’s alliances with it) is strictly forbidden.
When you consistently slam literally all of Israel’s critics as antisemites, you are communicating that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, and that Israel therefore represents all Jews. You are therefore necessarily doing the very thing you decry as antisemitic.
Christiane Amanpour Lays Out Her Fear for CNN With Blistering Attack on David Ellison’s CBS ‘Realignment’
David Gilmour, May 6th, 2026, https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/christiane-amanpour-lays-out-her-fear-for-cnn-with-blistering-attack-on-david-ellisons-cbs-realignment/
Veteran CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour pointed to the “ideological realignment” at CBS News on Wednesday as she expressed her “concern” at what her own network might look like under the oversight of incoming owner David Ellison.
Speaking in London at the Truth Tellers Sir Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Summit on Wednesday, Amanpour voiced “concern” over Ellison’s influence on CBS News and what it potentially meant for CNN as his Paramount Skydance acquisition of the network’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, moves forward.
The deal would place Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder and Trump donor Larry Ellison, in control of the network where Amanpour has worked since 1983, alongside CBS News, which has already undergone sweeping changes under Paramount and Skydance leadership.
“[Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth, the world’s favorite frat boy supremo, has said that the sooner David Ellison owns CNN, the better. And CNN has become this sort of lightning rod, hasn’t it, for this administration?” asked moderator Emily Maitlis, as the topic of corporate ownership takeover came up. “Does it change what you do? Do you fear what is coming at you now in terms of a change?”
“Clearly I’m concerned, and I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say about a corporate thing that’s underway, but I am, obviously, as a person, as a journalist with a record, concerned,” Amanpour said. “And I’m concerned based on what’s happened to the other things that he’s taken over already like CBS News right? I mean, do I have to list what’s happening there?”
Amanpour then delivered a blistering takedown of the CBS News under Ellison’s leadership.
“I mean hemorrhaging viewers, probably hemorrhaging money, this ideological realignment of CBS and the destruction potentially of 60 Minutes,” she said.
In a passionate case for 60 Minutes, she praised the show as “one of literally the legacy” programs in American television journalism, adding: “Nobody can match 60 Minutes for a brilliant television magazine show that’s been doing hard news and cultural news, and for decades and decades.”
The comments come amid mounting scrutiny over the future editorial direction of major news outlets as billionaire-backed consolidation reshapes the media landscape.
Amanpour suggested staff at CNN were anxious about preserving newsroom autonomy under new ownership.
“I would like to think that we would have the very basic, which is editorial independence, I’m hoping for that,” she said. “I know many of us at CNN are incredibly – including leadership – are very, very committed to that clearly.”
Press groups demand records on potentially corrupt Paramount acquisitions
May 7, 2026 / Freedom of the Press Foundation, https://freedom.press/issues/press-groups-demand-records-on-potentially-corrupt-paramount-acquisitions/
New York, May 7, 2026 — Today, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) and Reporters Without Borders, Inc. demanded records from Paramount Skydance Corp. regarding potentially corrupt acquisitions and deals that could result in relinquishing editorial control of major news outlets to the Trump administration. Public reports suggest that David Ellison and his father Larry may have tried to secure regulatory approval to acquire Paramount and now Warner Bros. Discovery by, among other things:
- Making a “side deal” to settle President Trump’s spurious lawsuit against “60 Minutes” by providing $15 million to $20 million worth of free advertising.
- Installing a pro-Trump GOP donor without journalism experience as “ombudsman” at CBS News to evaluate complaints of “bias” and to eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.
- Promising to make “sweeping” changes to CNN, and to potentially fire anchors and commentators whom Trump dislikes.
Since Paramount Skydance announced its most consequential Trump-friendly changes at CBS News in October — acquiring The Free Press and appointing Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief — the company’s market capitalization has decreased by 40%, wiping out more than $8 billion in shareholder value. Ratings for key programs, like “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil,” have also dropped precipitously. Freedom of the Press Foundation and Reporters Without Borders, which are both shareholders in Paramount Skydance Corp., are entitled to inspect the company’s books and records related to these developments under Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law.
“Shareholders are entitled to know when the government uses its leverage over corporate transactions as a backdoor to meddle in editorial decisions that the First Amendment leaves to the press,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Larry and David Ellison’s capitulation not only harms the public and our democracy, it hurts Paramount by producing news shows people don’t want to watch and tanking the reputations of news outlets in order to appease Trump. If the Ellisons can’t stand up to their friends in the administration and defend the First Amendment, they should stay away from the news business.”
“We need to know what the Ellisons may have promised the president to secure these deals,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders, Inc. “This acquisition has all the warning signs of a political capture. The American public deserves to know whether the Ellisons are sacrificing editorial independence to appease Donald Trump and secure regulatory approval from an administration that is openly hostile to press freedom.”
“Our clients are entitled to the same records as any other shareholder in Paramount, and legally, the company must comply,” said Brendan Ballou, CEO of the Public Integrity Project. “If Paramount fails to do so, we are prepared to vindicate our clients’ rights in court.”
Under Delaware law, Paramount has five business days to respond to the shareholders’ request. Freedom of the Press Foundation and Reporters Without Borders are being represented by the Public Integrity Project and Ron Poliquin of The Poliquin Firm.
Please email Seth Stern (seth@freedom.press) for any follow-up questions or inquiries.
CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour expresses ‘concern’ over the future of the network, citing ‘idealogical realignment at CBS
Dominick Mastrangelo, Thu, May 7, 2026 , https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/amanpour-expresses-concern-over-future-171317075.html?ncid=redditnewsus&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmVkZGl0LmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHVoY-FvEsZDNw98FelEskBLQG1bup54CvssULXm_j7NIF2G4lS4nTZgIgRg7TW1unhwmBehMPDJ92nP0Ge8HQEiYxCZaEHey9RdUVWhQUvjBXQhW4CBjRKIFsNBA-a6eqQwTBIVcFc-wbaf2WviF1SKDvhT-D8aQ0WSKJvWMiua
CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour voiced discomfort with the possibility of Paramount Skydance taking over her outlet if the cable channel’s parent company is allowed to merge with the David Ellison-led media conglomerate.
“Clearly I’m concerned, and I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say about a corporate thing that’s underway, but I am obviously as a person as a journalist with a record, concerned,” Amanpour said during a journalism summit this week. “And I’m concerned based on what’s happened to the other things that he’s taken over already, like CBS News, right? I mean do I have to list what’s happening there?”
Amanpour also bemoaned what she called the “ideological realignment of CBS and the destruction potentially of ’60 Minutes.’”
The journalist’s comments were first highlighted by Mediaite.
Paramount Skydance is seeking to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, a network President Trump has sparred with for years. He said in recent months that he wishes to see the network operate under new ownership.
The president on Wednesday marked the death of CNN founder Ted Turner by saying the news outlet he founded has been “destroyed” by what Trump called the channel’s “woke” coverage.
The president on Wednesday marked the death of CNN founder Ted Turner by saying the news outlet he founded has been “destroyed” by what Trump called the channel’s “woke” coverage.
David Ellison, a media mogul that is seen as an ally of the president, has retooled CBS News in recent months to cater to what he has called a more “diverse” audience, a move seen by many as a rightward shift at the network.
“I would to think we would have the very basic which is editorial independence,” Amanpour said. “And I don’t think I need to say more about that.”
The mainstream media is finally beginning to echo Americans’ outrage at Israeli slaughter
Over the past two years, Israel has lost the support of the American public and is now losing one of its last bulwarks in the political arena — prominent voices in the mainstream media.
By Philip Weiss April 29, 2026, https://mondoweiss.net/2026/04/the-mainstream-media-is-finally-beginning-to-echo-americans-outrage-at-israeli-slaughter/
The ‘Cronkite moment’ during the Vietnam War was the night in 1968 when CBS anchor Walter Cronkite said the U.S. was stuck in a “stalemate” and that the only honorable path was to negotiate a withdrawal. President Johnson concluded that he’d lost Middle America and soon decided not to run for reelection.
Israel lost Middle America at least a year ago, according to opinion polls, and it is at last losing what is more important to its support, prominent mainstream voices, the Cronkites of our era.
On April 23, Geoff Bennett of the PBS NewsHour did the unthinkable. He sharply questioned the Israeli ambassador to the U.N. over Israel’s (wanton) killings of civilians and journalists in Lebanon.
“How many civilian deaths per Hezbollah target is acceptable? Is it five? Is it 10? Is it 300? Or is there no ceiling at all?” Bennet said.
And this, too: “What military objective is served by killing reporters?”
Ambassador Danny Danon did what any self-respecting spokesperson for Israel does in such a spot . . . he accused Geoff Bennett of antisemitism. He said the charges were a lie and a “blood libel.” But Bennett did what no broadcaster does, and fought back.
“I take issue with that, sir,” he said and cited Committee to Protect Journalists figures on 15 reporters and media workers killed in Lebanon.
The NewsHour surely anticipates criticism of Bennett’s refusal to accept Israeli propaganda (a sharp departure from the Dana Bashes and Jake Tappers of the world). So it has headlined the story, “Israel’s U.N. ambassador says IDF is the ‘most moral military in the world.’” Giving Danon a victory, though Danon is peeved.
Dangers to the Fourth Estate: The 2026 World Press Freedom Index
5 May 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/dangers-to-the-fourth-estate-the-2026-world-press-freedom-index/
Scribblers, scribes, authors and publishers – all of these are facing ever worsening conditions in pursuing their work in battling the goons of secrecy and impunity. The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index has rotten news on that score. For the first time since the index came into being, RSF states that “over half of the world’s countries now fall into the ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ categories for press freedom. In 25 years, the average score of all 180 countries and territories surveyed in the Index has never been so low.”
In reaching its scores on press freedom, RSF uses five contextual indicators: political context, legal framework, economic context, sociocultural context and safety. The political context evaluates, among other things, the extent of support and respect for media autonomy regarding political pressure from the state or various political actors. Factors important to legal matters include the extent of censorship, judicial sanctions and restrictions on freedom of expression. The economic dimension takes account of such factors as the difficulties of establishing news media outlets, blighting corruption, the allocation of state subsidies, and the interest of media owners. The sociocultural context covers such issues as “denigration and attacks on the press based on such issues as gender, class, ethnicity and religion” and cultural restraints against reporting. Safety focuses on the ability of journalists to identify, gather and disseminate news without facing bodily harm, psychological or emotional distress, and professional harm
There are various reasons postulated by the group for the precipitous decline in press freedoms. Armed conflict plays its inevitable, corrosive role. Iraq (placed at 162), Sudan at one spot above, and Yemen at 164, are cases in point. The ongoing battle between Israel and the Palestinians has been disastrous for press freedom, not least because of the killing, since October 2023, of over 220 journalists in Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces. 70 of the slain were killed while carrying out their work.
The authoritarian regimes have done little to move up the index. China remains confidently oppressive of reporters at 178, with North Korea stoutly taking the spot below. Eritrea completes the bottom at 180. Russia, at 172, continues to blot its copybook in targeting journalists (as of April 2026, 48 remain in prison), a situation not helped by its ongoing war in Ukraine. The Iranian regime (177) maintains its studied viciousness against journalists. Saudi Arabia, despite its gaudy, kitschy efforts at modernisation headed by the petulant princeling Mohammed bin Salman, has not softened on the issue of press freedom. On June 14 last year, the Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser was executed after a seven-year spell of arbitrary imprisonment. Al-Jasser had been accused by the Saudi authorities of operating the X account named Kashkool, one inclined to post material linking the House of Saud with human right abuses and corruption.
Of all the states recorded, Niger, at 120, registered the most dramatic fall (down 37 spots). This, according to RSF, underscored “the wider decline in press freedom in the Sahel region seen in recent years as attacks by armed groups and ruling juntas have suppressed the right to balanced information from diverse sources.”
The organisation despairingly notes that the Index’s legal indicator has registered a sharp fall in 2026. “This score deteriorated in more than 60% of states – 110 out of 180 – between 2025 and 2026.” Journalism has been systematically criminalised, a practice “rooted in circumventing press law and misusing emergency legislation and common law.”
Resorting to national security laws and regulations is a favourite. Mention terrorism as a charge, as happened to the journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, and a prosecution, however baseless, becomes elementary and successful. (In Cumpio’s case, the shoddy charge was that of financing terrorism.) In Türkiye, the net on national security is drawn widely to include charges of “disinformation”, Article 299 of the country’s Penal Code covering insults of the President, and the charge of “denigrating state institutions.” States, in claiming to use the law appropriately, resort to strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). RSF underlines Bulgaria (71) and Guatemala (128) as practitioners of the art. Not to be left out, political and business plutocrats make use of laws to curb exposure of their antics in the press. Indonesia (129), Singapore (123), and Thailand (92) are seen as experts in this regard.
Protections for journalists from legal or physical threats was also found to be woeful, with more than 80% of countries having “non-existent or ineffective” measures. Even the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), seen as sound armour for the independence and sustainability of media outlets, has been weakened by domestic legislatures. Hungary (ranked 74), only recently rid of its long serving Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, excelled in this regard, though RSF also notes the programs of such countries as Slovakia (37) and Lithuania (15).
To round up the inglorious list are the United States (64), Argentina (98) and El Salvador (143). US President Donald Trump continues to hound and harry the Fourth Estate, with RSF taking particular issue with cuts to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) responsible for the drastic slimming of personnel at the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and Radio Free Asia (RFA).
Rankings, in themselves, are cold measures. They can also prove vague. But there is nothing vague about the insatiable appetite towards persecution shown by states of all political persuasions when attacking reporters and publishers. The dictates of the national security state and its desperation in controlling narratives and holding the line on mendacity and the exposure of bad behaviour, remains that most threatening of diseases to the Fourth Estate.
American Press Freedom on the Brink
April 30, 2026, Clayton Weimers, https://www.projectcensored.org/american-press-freedom-on-the-brink/
As World Press Freedom Day (May 3) nears, it’s a good time to step back and assess how journalists and news outlets are faring in our current media climate.
President Donald Trump came back to the White House and picked up right where he left off, insulting and attacking the press on an almost daily basis, suing media outlets, and taking a number of concrete actions to restrict press freedom. Against this backdrop, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) will release its 2026 World Press Freedom Index on April 30.
Every year, RSF scores and ranks 180 countries and territories based on their level of press freedom. The Index evaluates five indicators: political context, legal framework, economic context, sociocultural context, and safety. The United States has declined in each of these indicators and steadily fallen on the Index over the past decade, dropping in rank from 49th in 2015 to 57th in 2025.
It may be tempting to blame Trump entirely for the perilous state of journalism in the country, but that steady decline in press freedom over the past decade spans multiple administrations, with both parties holding power in Washington. Such a prolonged decline points to structural deficiencies that cannot be attributed to a single issue, person, or administration.
Media ownership has become increasingly consolidated among a few media moguls, as outlets have also faced major revenue losses.
Local news is also vanishing, and millions of Americans, especially in rural and low-income areas, now live in “news deserts.”
Time and again, Congress has missed opportunities to enact meaningful press freedom protections, such as the PRESS Act, while local and state governments have chipped away at press freedom.
Violence against journalists has risen to stubbornly high levels, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker. And in the last decade, eight journalists in the US were killed for their journalism or while working.
And through this tumultuous period, public trust in news has plummeted.
Now, on top of that overall troubling context, a White House openly hostile to journalism is exacerbating an already fraught situation. Since returning to power, Trump, along with his advisors and allies, has dealt devastating blows to journalism, setting dangerous precedents and inflicting enduring harm.
From limiting journalists’ access to government buildings to cutting public media funding to targeting and threatening disfavored media outlets, the administration has regularly violated press freedom.
While these individual incidents are scandalous, and often unconstitutional, it’s easy for them to be washed away into the constant churn of the news cycle. Put them all together, though, and one conclusion is unavoidable: Trump is waging an all-out war on press freedom and journalism.
Trump promised to be a dictator on just “day one” of his term, but the totality of his anti-press campaign signals that the self-proclaimed “Peace President” is sinking to the depths of authoritarian regimes. His war on press freedom affects all five indicators RSF measures to compile the Index: political, legal, economic, sociocultural, and safety.
Political context
On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order “ending federal censorship,” effectively eliminating government monitoring of misinformation and disinformation.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has also weaponized the independent agency to investigate news outlets with coverage that the presidential administration disagrees with.
The administration removed thousands of US government pages that hosted information ranging from vaccines to climate change, vital resources for journalists and the general public alike.
Reporters have been barred from, or had their access severely restricted at the State Department, Air Force One, the Pentagon, and even a section of the White House previously known as “Upper Press.”
Legal framework
In addition to the president’s numerous lawsuits against media outlets, his administration earlier this year raided the home of Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson and confiscated her personal and professional devices, a truly dangerous and unprecedented assault that puts thousands of Natanson’s sources at risk and is likely to scare off future sources from speaking with journalists. Journalists like Don Lemon and Georgia Fort have been arrested and threatened with criminal charges while doing their work.
Economic context
Trump led the charge to eliminate federal funding for public media. He’s also inserted himself into media company mergers and acquisitions, putting his thumb on the scale to ensure his political allies take control of American media outlets—a move eerily reminiscent of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and even Vladimir Putin in Russia.
Sociocultural context
Trump’s near-daily attacks and insults against journalists have set an example for others, with journalists now facing online and public harassment while doing their job. The bar for attacks against journalists is undeniably lower today thanks to Trump. RSF’s 2024 investigation into the state of press freedom in swing states found journalists reporting alarming instances of direct threats to their safety by local politicians. Threats against journalists by elected officials that once seemed inconceivable have become de rigueur.
Safety
Journalists faced a spike in physical violence by law enforcement and federal agents while doing their work. This was most evident as journalists covered widespread protests against the administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigration in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
Press freedom around the world is in trouble, as RSF’s Index has shown in recent years. Notably, the Trump effect extends beyond US borders. The American retreat from foreign aid led to the withdrawal of millions of dollars that supported independent media in developing economies around the world. In one striking example, a safety training session for journalists in the Amazon was abruptly canceled because of the USAID shutdown.
Authoritarian leaders are further emboldened to attack the press with the knowledge that the United States is no longer championing press freedom. When Serbian authorities raided the offices of the country’s largest fact-checker, they cited X posts by Elon Musk in his capacity as the leader of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) as evidence of the media organization’s crimes. That evidence? Accepting a USAID grant.
This is a moment of crisis for American media. During the twentieth century, press freedom—and free expression more broadly—saw a gradual, if uneven, expansion. Now we’re heading in the other direction for the first time in generations, and RSF isn’t the only organization that’s noticed. The Varieties of Democracy Institute’s 2026 Democracy Report found that US freedom of expression had declined to World War II levels. Freedom House also docked the United States in its latest global report, with freedom of expression cited as a leading factor in democratic backsliding.
We can’t lay all the blame for the state of American press freedom at the president’s feet, but Trump has taken a troubling situation and turned it into a full-blown crisis that we must urgently solve. Our very democracy is at stake.
Clayton Weimers is a recognized leader in press freedom who serves as North America Director for Reporters Without Borders (RSF). He and his team defend press freedom across the English-speaking Americas and advance RSF’s global priorities to advocate for journalists and everyone’s right to information. His writing on press freedom has appeared in publications such as the Guardian, Newsweek, The Hill, and The Independent. He originally joined RSF’s DC team as Deputy Director for Advocacy after a career in political campaigns. He has degrees from the University of Chicago and Pitzer College and a borderline unhealthy relationship with the Chicago Cubs and Everton Football Club.
Nuclear Abolition. A Scenario
Wallis also bats away the patently absurd notion, nevertheless advanced by those same politicians, that somehow having nuclear weapons keeps us safe, something he declares as “nonsense” while reminding us that “Nuclear weapons are the biggest racket of all time — billions of dollars going from taxpayers to giant corporations to produce things everyone hopes will never be used!”
by beyondnuclearinternational, Linda Pentz Gunter, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2026/04/26/nuclear-abolition-a-scenario/
Tim Wallis’s book provides an optimistic view, but it’s also a methodical journey toward the nuclear-free world we all want, writes Linda Pentz Gunter
The Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is about to begin in New York City. There is no reason to be particularly optimistic about any positive outcome. Meanwhile, signatories to the treaty itself continue to defy it, most specifically the United States.
The US is a signatory to the NPT, which in its Article VI states: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
It is the second shortest clause in the entire treaty. And yet, what we are seeing instead is a clear intent by the major nuclear powers, especially the US, Russia and China, to arm up rather than down.
Meanwhile, two nuclear armed states — the US and the undeclared nuclear weapon nation Israel — are busy attacking a non-nuclear armed state, Iran, that is also a signatory to the NPT. (Israel cannot join because it officially neither confirms nor denies whether it has the upwards of 200 nuclear weapons that everyone knows it does have.)
Iran has long declared that it is abiding by the terms of the NPT and enriching uranium for a civil nuclear power program, not to build nuclear weapons. This “inalienable” right is granted to any NPT signatory that forswears nuclear weapons in Article IV that says: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.”
Article IV is arguably the fatal flaw of the NPT — and, regrettably, of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which repeats the clause verbatim — since it effectively leaves the back door open to transition to nuclear weapons via access to materials, technology and know-how. This is precisely the suspicion harbored by the US, Israel and Iran’s other enemies about Iran’s nuclear program. It was also used as the pretext for the current attack, almost certainly a cover story given both US intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency have consistently insisted that Iran is not moving toward nuclear weapons production.
The ramping up of nuclear weapons arsenals by the existing nuclear weapon nations, and the aspirations by other countries to acquire them — now potentially made more keen by the attack on Iran — moves us ever closer to the nuclear abyss.
It is a frightening scenario, and one brought vividly alive by Annie Jacobsen’s chilling book, Nuclear War. A Scenario.
But, says Timmon Wallis, founder of NuclearBan.US, let’s not abandon our optimism too quickly. Surely there is a different way to think about this, and even a possibility that we can, after all, achieve our global nuclear disarmament goals?
Wallis’s book, Nuclear Abolition. A Scenario, takes a very different tack, and approaches the process through a form of mathematical calculation by subtraction, by moving the arms of the Doomsday Clock — currently at 85 seconds to midnight — gradually further away from that grim moment of Armageddon. (Wallis’s book was published when the clock sat at 89 seconds to midnight, still dire enough.)
Wallis begins by asking the question aspired to by his book — “What if there were no nuclear weapons in the world?” —then asks us to savor the joy of that feeling for a while. It’s what most of us want, after all, but somehow we have elected a rash of megalomaniacs who don’t seem to share that worldview.
Wallis also bats away the patently absurd notion, nevertheless advanced by those same politicians, that somehow having nuclear weapons keeps us safe, something he declares as “nonsense” while reminding us that “Nuclear weapons are the biggest racket of all time — billions of dollars going from taxpayers to giant corporations to produce things everyone hopes will never be used!”
To ensure they are never used, Wallis argues, we must do away with them altogether. But can we really arrive at that moment, when we can turn the Doomsday Clock off altogether? Unlike many of us, Wallis has not lost that hope. His book provides the pathway to get there. The central obstacle, however, is the world’s arms manufacturers, who profit from the existence of nuclear weapons — and of course from the manufacture and unending use of conventional weapons.
Wallis’s central thesis, therefore, is that pressure must be exerted on the nuclear weapons companies to turn them into advocates for nuclear abolition. And that pressure, Wallis asserts, can come first and foremost from the now 99 countries that have signed the TPNW, 74 of which have also ratified it.
And so, Wallis takes us on a trip around the world, showing how countries both large and small can exert that pressure and move us out of the nuclear age. Wallis provides a check box of tactics per chapter, ending with “US bombs out of Europe,” an imperative that has become even more urgent now it is clear that US bombs have likely returned to British soil — at RAF Lakenheath, in reality a US Air Force base — for the first time since 2008. Ironically, this also comes at a time when US President Trump’s rhetoric has threatened a lifting or even folding up of the so-called “nuclear umbrella” with which the US, still a member of NATO, suggests it is protecting its European allies.
Pressure needs to come from within the US, too, Wallis writes. Wallis was an essential ally as we fought here in Takoma Park, Maryland, to maintain our nuclear-free status (we have, but the city has largely abandoned any efforts to promote perhaps its most famous achievement, having been one of the first US cities to become a Nuclear-Free Zone back in 1983.) What if every US city and town declared itself a nuclear-free zone, we had asked our city council? Wallis does not expect every city and state to do so, but he makes a strong case in his book for the power of local activism, especially in boycott and divestment, a proven tactic.
Finally, Wallis expresses the hope that Trump himself could denuclearize. This notion emanated from early, less irrational declarations from the White House at the beginning of Trump’s second term. Trump has indeed said one or two slightly sensible things here and there, denuclearizing being an example. But the ride has become considerably wilder since then.
I wonder if Wallis would feel as optimistic today? We are undoubtedly in an “alternate universe” as he states late in the book. Is it one in which Trump leads the world to nuclear weapons abolition? That’s an optimistic leap that most of us probably aren’t willing to take. But Wallis takes it, because optimism is what drives his writing and his activism, and because it’s an essential fuel if we are to persist in our mission to achieve global nuclear abolition. That work may seem hard to impossible. But what’s the alternative?
The hands of the Doomsday Clock cannot and must not inch any closer to midnight. Wallis’s book gives us a detailed guide to moving the clock — and the world that is watching its inexorable and ominous progress toward zero hour — slowly back to a time when no one had to worry about nuclear weapons. After all, as Wallis points out, that wasn’t really so long ago. Everyone alive before 1945 slept much better at night than we do.
Linda Pentz Gunter is the Executive Director of Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. She is the author of the book, No To Nuclear. Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress And Provokes War, published by Pluto Press.
Israel Kills Journalist in Lebanon After “Hunting” Down Her and a Colleague
April 25, 2026, By Sharon Zhang, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/25/israel-kills-journalist-in-lebanon-after-hunting-down-her-and-a-colleague/
Israel targeted the slain journalist’s colleague with three strikes, including one on an ambulance she was in.
Israeli forces killed journalist Amal Khalil and wounded her colleague, Zeinab Faraj, on Wednesday, firing multiple strikes on the journalists in southern Lebanon in Israel’s latest attack on journalists covering its violence across the region.
Khalil and Faraj were taking cover in a nearby house after an Israeli strike near their car, while they were out reporting on an Israeli strike on another vehicle. While at the house, Khalil reached out to family and Lebanese officials, notifying them of her location, but Israeli forces bombed the house, collapsing it.
Rescuers pulled Faraj from the wreckage, but Israeli forces fired at emergency workers trying to reach Khalil, delaying her rescue, according to Lebanese officials. Khalil’s body was only recovered hours later from the rubble.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces also fired, for a third time, on the ambulance transporting Faraj to the hospital, Lebanese media reported, in an incident described by critics as the Israeli forces “hunting her down.” Faraj underwent surgery at the hospital and was brought to stable condition.
Khalil was a veteran reporter for the Al-Akhbar newspaper. The left-wing journalist was raised under Israeli occupation in the 1980s in southern Lebanon, and was driven by a desire to chronicle daily life in south Lebanon under constant threat of Israeli invasion and bombardment.
“On a personal level, resistance means everything to me,” Khalil said in an interview, translated from Arabic, with The Public Source last year. “Through my work, I have tried to be in solidarity with these people — the people of the land.”
Khalil was also an animal lover, and devoted her free time to rescuing and sheltering stray cats in her family home in Baysariyyeh, in southern Lebanon.
“This was a blatant murder. This was a targeted assassination,” said independent Lebanon journalist Courtney Bonneau. “The Israeli army committed multiple flagrant war crimes this afternoon, during this incident.”
Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, said in a statement that the strikes on the journalists were war crimes.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned Israel’s targeting of the journalists as a “brutal and recurring crime.” “Khalil, an unarmed civilian journalist, remained trapped under the rubble for more than seven hours while the Red Cross was prevented from reaching her,” said Sara Qudah, Middle East and North Africa regional director for CPJ, in a statement.
The multiple strikes on the journalists are seemingly part of a practice by Israel to strike the same or similar locations multiple times in order to kill targets and then attack the people who come to rescue them.
Just a week before the killing of Khalil, Israeli forces carried out a “quadruple-tap” attack on Mayfadoun, in southern Lebanon. Israel struck the city, then struck three more times as successive waves of paramedics arrived on the scene. In all, the attacks killed four medics and wounded six others, The Guardian reported last week.
New report lays bare media bias on Gaza
| DECLASSIFIED UK, Hamza Yusuf, 23 April 26 A comprehensive, data-rich report released today by UK media monitoring group NewsCord puts hard numbers on the UK media’s failings in reporting on Israel’s crimes in Gaza.The study analyses coverage from Al Jazeera, BBC, The Guardian and Sky News across 686 articles and 11,295 classified excerpts.The findings illustrate how the UK mainstream media methodically sanitises genocide, shields the public from reality and marginalises Palestinian experience. For example, when civilians are killed in Gaza, the BBC attributes the attack to Israel in only 50% of cases, with the Guardian only marginally better with 54%. The BBC also labels Gaza’s health ministry as “Hamas-affiliated” in 60% of death toll citations, but mentions that the United Nations considers these figures credible in only 0.6% of cases. Al Jazeera names the perpetrator at nearly twice the rate of the BBC and Guardian. References to “genocide” in UK outlets are notably limited in the dataset – 15 mentions by the BBC, 12 by Sky News, and 21 by the Guardian – compared to 58 by Al Jazeera. Just as important as how a story is told is whose story is heard: Sky News gives Israeli perspectives nearly double the space of Palestinian ones. Meanwhile, when Israeli officials declared explicit genocidal intent, this went practically unreported. The BBC never covered such statements by Israeli figures like Benjamin Netanyahu, Isaac Herzog or Yoav Gallant. This is despite some of those statements being cited in proceedings at the International Court of Justice in the case against Israel. Reflecting on the report’s findings, NewsCord founder Nima Akram said: “The data is not opinion, it’s the result of classifying thousands of articles to measure bias. These aren’t isolated incidents, they’re structural patterns that shape how millions understand the genocide in Gaza, and whose suffering deserves attention.” Their report demands the outlets publicly review their Gaza coverage against the evidence and to disclose and revise their editorial practices. Simply put, the mainstream media has failed in its duty to report Israel’s actions with accuracy, fairness and integrity. The new data leaves little room for denial. |
Assessing Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) in Canada
20 April 26, https://cedar-project.org/roadmap/
In 2018, Canada published a strategic plan – a roadmap – to develop small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) across the country. An SMR is one designed to generate 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity or less, compared to Canada’s existing CANDU power reactors which generate 500 MW or more.
According to the “SMR Roadmap,” the first demonstration SMR was expected to be operating in 2026. In this milestone year, our report analyzes the financial and developmental status of the 10 SMR designs with some kind of presence in Canada.
On this page are the report and the recording of the report launch webinar on March 18, 2026.
The report authors are Susan O’Donnell, PhD, St. Thomas University and M.V. Ramana, PhD, University of British Columbia. The report was published by the CEDAR research project at St. Thomas University.
Report launch webinar
The SMRs report was launched during a webinar on March 18, 2026, An assessment of SMR projects: the case of Canada. The speakers were the report authors, Susan O’Donnell, PhD, St. Thomas University and M.V. Ramana, PhD, University of British Columbia with moderator Madis Vasser, PhD, Senior expert on SMRs for Friends of the Earth Estonia.
The event was hosted by Nuclear Transparency Watch in Paris and co-hosted by the Sustainability Learning Lab at St. Thomas University in Fredericton.
The webinar recording, below, was published by the NB Media Co-op, a CEDAR project partner.
Iran aside, don’t ignore Trump’s war crimes in the Caribbean, Venezuela and Somalia
19 April 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Walt Zlotow , https://theaimn.net/iran-aside-dont-ignore-trumps-war-crimes-in-the-caribbean-venezuela-and-somalia/
As Trump was cooling his massive, murderous bombing of Iran, he was ramping up his murderous bombing of small civilian boats in the Caribbean. In the last 5 days he obliterated 5 little boats Trump imagined were operated by narco terrorists. Since these dastardly attacks began last October, Trump has wiped out 48 little boats, killing 163 (as of March 2026). Those are war crimes.
On January 3 Trump invaded Venezuela, kidnapped its president Nicholas Maduro, murdering 83 in the process. More war crimes.
Most heinous but most ignored by the media
is Trump’s endless war crimes in Somalia. Last year His African Command bombed pitifully poor, remote Somalia 124 times, likely killing thousands of imagined bad guys. Just last week Trump bombed Somalia 4 times in 2 days, raising the 2026 total to 49 attacks. He’s on track for a record year of war crimes in Somalia.
Why aren’t the media and the American people focused on Trump’s war crimes in the Caribbean, Venezuela and Somalia? Could be simply that these Trump war crimes have not raised a gallon of gas north of 4 bucks and threaten a global recession that will also engulf the Homeland. To put it more bluntly, “Hey, Mr. Trump, as long as your war crimes don’t affect me personally, go for it.”
Israel Destroys a Synagogue; US Media Yawn
“Iranian Jews are viewed by Iranians as indigenous,” he said. “They’re the original Bundists,” a nod to the Jewish political movement that “stood not just for socialism, but for do’ikayt—Yiddish for ‘hereness,’” the concept that a Jew’s homeland was in whatever nation they resided in (New York Times, 4/6/26).
Ari Paul, April 16, 2026 https://fair.org/home/israel-destroys-a-synagogue-us-media-yawn/
An Israeli missile attack destroyed a Tehran synagogue during the Jewish Passover holiday (Religion News Service, 4/9/26). The Israeli military “expressed regret over what it called ‘collateral damage’ to a synagogue in Tehran caused by an overnight strike,” which was “targeting a senior Iranian commander,” said the Middle East Eye (4/7/26).
Photos of the wreckage at the Rafi-Nia Synagogue have accompanied many of these pieces. The Council on American-Islamic relations condemned the attack in a statement (4/7/26):
We strongly condemn the Israeli regime’s bombing of a synagogue in Tehran, which was the predictable end result of the indiscriminate US/Israel bombing campaign against mosques, hospitals, schools, apartments and other civilian sites across Iran.
The group challenged “various Israel advocacy groups and politicians that support this war in the name of protecting Israel to condemn Israel’s synagogue attack.”
Buried at best
The story of the attack on the Tehran synagogue was, at best, buried in the US corporate media. CNN posted a brief video (4/7/26) about the bombing but had no online article about it. The New York Times (4/7/26, 4/7/26) mentioned the attack, but as background in broader stories about the US/Israel war on Iran.
A search for “Rafi-Nia” on the Washington Post website yields no results. Ditto for the AP, although the news service did post a video to YouTube (4/7/26). Al Jazeera’s coverage (4/7/26) of the attack was a mélange of AP and AFP copy. CBS News (4/7/26) also used a few paragraphs of AFP copy to report on the attack, although it was buried in the middle of a general timeline about the war.
The Wall Street Journal (4/7/26) had the story, but led with Israel’s contrition over the destruction; that’s not a journalistic construction we see in US news coverage when it comes to the Israeli bombings of other civilian structures in Iran, Gaza or Lebanon. When Israel destroys a hospital, apartment building, encampment, etc., the stories don’t lead with official regret, but rather include Israeli claims that the civilian facilities were actually legitimate military targets. The Journal’s lead provided the government with public relations cover over the sensitive issue of destroying a Jewish house of worship.
Newsweek (4/8/26), once a bigger player in the US media landscape, led with condemnation of the attack from Jewish Iranian leaders, who declared “their unwavering solidarity with Iran in defending the homeland.”
Jewish presence in Iran
Underplaying the story obscures not only the wantonness of Israel’s aggression, but the actual nature of Iranian society, which is portrayed as obsessed with wiping Jews off the map (ADL, 6/25/25). “Iranian foreign policy freely mixes anti-Israel furies with anti-Jewish ones,” wrote New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (1/13/26), a pro-war cheerleader (2/22/26, 3/24/26).
In fact, while Israel is obviously the center of Mideastern Jewish life, the Iranian Jewish population dwarfs those elsewhere in the Middle East. “Estimates range from 9,000 to 20,000 Jews currently living in Iran,” according to the Forward (6/18/25).
Wrote the Palestine Chronicle (3/6/26): “The Jewish presence in Iran is among the oldest continuous Jewish communities in the world, with roots that historians trace back more than two millennia.”
Yes, Iran is a theocracy; the government is no model for an open society. But there is a Jewish member of Iran’s parliament, who even went on record this year openly criticizing Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s handling of popular unrest (i24, 1/29/26).
‘Well-protected second-class citizens’
US media have covered the Jews of Iran before. USA Today (8/29/18) did a story in 2018, reporting from Tehran. Former Forward reporter Larry Cohler-Esses (8/12/15, 8/12/15, 8/18/15, 8/27/15) reported extensively and critically on Iranian Jews, indicating that the country was at least open to letting a reporter for a Jewish publication do their job.
Cohler-Esses told FAIR that Jews in Iran are “well-protected second-class citizens.” In fact, when he read about the attack, he “wondered if it was the synagogue I spent Shabbat in, but it wasn’t,” because there are more than a dozen active synagogues in Tehran—a reflection of the size of the Jewish community there.
Recalling his 2015 reporting trip, Cohler-Esses said that on Shabbat, Jews would spill out of their synagogues and mingle in the street after services, a sight he didn’t often see in many places in Europe. In one instance, after he left a synagogue service, one of the congregants ran after him through a street teeming with people, wearing a kippah and a tallit (traditional religious attire), and “no one batted an eye.”
The Jews of Iran do suffer discrimination, because Muslims are favored in the legal code over all non-Muslims, Cohler-Esses said. He noted that the Jewish population of Iran has shrunk significantly since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“Iranian Jews are viewed by Iranians as indigenous,” he said. “They’re the original Bundists,” a nod to the Jewish political movement that “stood not just for socialism, but for do’ikayt—Yiddish for ‘hereness,’” the concept that a Jew’s homeland was in whatever nation they resided in (New York Times, 4/6/26).
Cohler-Esses was hopeful that coverage of the synagogue’s destruction in the Jewish and Israeli press (JTA, 4/7/26; Jerusalem Post, 4/7/26) had the “potential to make Jewish readers of Jewish media outlets go, ‘Oh, they have synagogues there.’” But with the underplaying of the story in US media, it’s a missed teachable moment for news consumers generally.
More robust press coverage of the attack could have taught Americans that the Jews of Iran do have something to fear: Israel.
NYT’s Investigation of How Trump’s War on Iran Started Leaves Out the Paper’s Own Silence
Luca GoldMansour, April 17, 2026, https://fair.org/home/nyts-investigation-of-how-trumps-war-on-iran-started-leaves-out-the-papers-own-silence/
A New York Times exposé (4/7/26) detailed a presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to President Donald Trump in the White House Situation Room—meant to sell the president on a war with Iran roughly two weeks before the US’s initial attack—and Trump’s subsequent discussions with his inner circle.
The Times report, headlined “How Trump Took the US to War in Iran,” is sparking renewed corporate media attention to how this conflict began. But that discussion has been clouded by the report’s fixation on Netanyahu’s sway over Trump and alleged divisions among his advisers.
That Trump was narcissistic and gullible enough to believe lies Netanyahu told him, as the report lays out, was undoubtedly an important factor in the time and manner of a US/Israeli assault that has killed thousands and effectively widened the scope of the Gaza genocide.
But buried within the report is an interesting detail indicating more structural forces were also at work: The Times‘ Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman reported that the US intelligence community determined that, while the prospect of regime change was “farcical,” “crippling Iran’s capacity to project power and threaten its neighbors” was “achievable with American intelligence and military power.” Iran’s continued capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz and exact a heavy toll on US bases in the region demonstrates this was a faulty assessment.
Whether it was by groupthink, incompetence or the influence of neoconservatives and the Israel lobby, the fact that the national security state came to such an erroneous determination is going criminally underdiscussed.
Military/industrial megaphone
A full accounting of how this disaster came about must grapple with the US military/industrial complex and its push for war. No less important is reckoning with that complex’s megaphone: the compliant US corporate media. And juicy scoops on palace intrigue concerning the leaders in the White House and Tel Aviv won’t wash away the Times’ participation in that push.
The Times’ streak of failing to challenge, or even actively encouraging, major US wars (FAIR.org, 10/23/17) remains unbroken during this latest misadventure. Their approach this time was more disjointed than in the past: First, the usual bluster. But then, an all-too-conspicuous silence.
When war with Iran—a heavily armed nation of 90 million people with eminent geographic advantages—was just theoretical, the New York Times’ editorial board was as hawkish as usual. That included cynically deploying humanitarian concerns in Iran to advocate for regime change just 12 days before the armada’s arrival in the gulf (FAIR.org, 2/10/26).
In that January editorial (1/14/26), headlined “Iran’s Murderous Regime Is Irredeemable,” the Times pulled out arguments from the old regime-change playbook. The Iranian government, the Times said, is “among the world’s most nefarious regimes, and the people who bear the biggest cost are the citizens of Iran.”
Having neatly packaged their argument urging empathy for the Iranian people, the Times then offered a familiar sleight-of-hand for its readers: It is possible—natural even—for coercive US power to be utilized to help the Iranian people “achieve liberty.” Offering the considerations it thought Trump should be taking into account, the Times wrote:
The crucial question is what measures—diplomatic, economic and potentially militarily—have the best chance to strengthen the protest movement and sow division among elites allied with the Khamenei government.
Never mind that US policy has been to the detriment of Iranians’ “liberty” for the better part of a century. The papers’ editors advised Trump that, if he chooses the military option, he should do so “much more judiciously than he typically does.”
Suddenly silent
As war became increasingly likely—that is, once Trump began amassing his “armada” in the Persian Gulf—the editorial board went silent. No more calls for coercive force. No more discussion of Iran at all.
From January 26 to February 27—the 32-day period of military buildup, during which Trump was weighing one of the most consequential US foreign policy decisions of this century—the Times’ editorial board had nothing to say.
That is unprecedented, given the page’s historic role in promoting US adventurism. In the 32 days preceding the US invasion of Iraq, for instance, the New York Times published 13 editorials perpetuating the weapons of mass destruction myth, which to them was sufficient justification for a war against Iraq.
The public debate over whether or not to go to war with Iraq was so ubiquitous leading up to the invasion that one of the Times’ pro-war editorials (2/23/03) acknowledged that “the debate over Iraq has exhausted everyone.”
That voluminous public debate, replete with fabrication and misinformation as it was, manifested in broad public support for the war. In the first days of the conflict, 76% of the US public favored military intervention in Iraq.
The Iran War, on the other hand, is only the second major US war (after the 2011 Libyan intervention) in the era of modern polling to start with more Americans opposed than supportive of it. Any propaganda campaign in favor of war with Iran would have a steep hill to climb after two decades of experience with Middle East interventions.
Mirroring Democratic silence
In the last two weeks before Trump launched his attack, details of his military deployment, like the inclusion of E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, indicated that the potential for war was serious.
Still, the Times editorial board found no reason for comment. Given that the editors were advocating for regime change mere days before Trump took up their suggestion by ramping up its forces in West Asia, it is highly doubtful that they learned from their history of mistakes and had a change of heart. In any case, if they did, they didn’t voice it.
What can be said is that the Times’ silence mirrors that of Democratic leaders in Congress, who also barely let out a peep during this period. For their part, it is clear that they aimed to conceal their support for the war from their base, who overwhelmingly oppose it. Within that dynamic, congressional Democrats waited until after the war began to propose a war powers resolution—demonstrating their issues, if any, were about process, not substance.
The Times likewise saved its feckless criticism until after the war began, penning an editorial (2/28/26) the day Trump launched the war (proving their capacity to move quickly when convenient) voicing process concerns: Trump lacked clear achievable objectives, threatened to mire the US in another “endless war,” and failed to consult Congress. Like Democratic leaders, the Times failed to reject—and indeed reiterated—the logic of the war itself: that article of faith that Iran is an intolerably evil and belligerent state (FAIR.org, 3/13/26).
Just like Democratic leaders, the New York Times failed to use its outsized influence to challenge this monstrous war. Instead, it participated in its genesis, through cowardice as much as through sanctimony.
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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