Abeer Al‐Najjar, Bouziane Zaid
This paper examines the Western legacy media’s coverage of the war on Gaza, particularly news media organisations with business models that allow them to be independent and, therefore, not completely captured by politics or economics. The paper posits that an initial examination of their war coverage shows how these organisations contribute to the proliferation of a post-truth environment wherein essential journalistic values, such as accuracy, independence and balance, are sidelined. Through a qualitative case study approach, the paper aims to analyse the loss of basic media ethics among Western legacy news media and to identify a pattern of biased narratives, selective omission of facts and a predominance of the Israeli official government sources over fair, balanced and independent journalistic voices. The paper argues that this skewed portrayal decontextualises, dehistoricises and misrepresents the conflict’s complexity, as it also reinforces existing power dynamics and hegemonies. It calls for a re-evaluation of journalistic practices and media ethics in the context of international conflict reporting. It asserts that for democracy to thrive, a radical transformation of media practices is essential, prioritising the reinstatement of journalistic integrity and a commitment to truth-telling, even in the face of political pressures, power imbalances and propaganda.