News You Can Use

Palestinian journalists are complaining to the Palestinian Authority because of the terror campaign waged by Palestinian terror groups and gangs in Gaza.

Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip complained on Tuesday that they were being subjected to a campaign of intimidation and terror by various armed groups and urged the Palestinian Authority to punish those responsible.

Several Palestinian journalists and editors have been killed or beaten over the past few years by unidentified gunmen, especially in the Gaza Strip. Until today, none of the assailants have been caught.

Well, that helps explain why we should be so wary of the reporting coming out of Gaza and even Lebanon. Terrorists have absolutely no problem killing, torturing, or threatening journalists to toe the line or else face the consequences. So, stories are skewed, photos are doctored or staged, and no one gets a true picture of the situation in the region. And that's not counting those 'journalists' who are nothing but propaganda directors for the terror groups and aren't so much reporting as providing press releases for the terror groups they represent.

Further, Hamas is holding pressers for journalists affiliated with the terrorist group, excluding others. Gee, and this should be surprising? It's a terrorist group that wants to tightly control its message and propaganda so that anyone that it doesn't trust will not get access. Again, this affects the coverage of the stories in Gaza.

Also, Hamas intends on following the example of Hizbullah by forming its own satellite propaganda channel. HamasTV is expected to launch next month. Ah, another network to be monitored by MEMRI to put a face on the Islamist and anti-Semitic agenda of the terrorists in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Sec. Def. Rumsfeld says that the terrorists are manipulating the news. That should be self evident after what we've seen over the past month.

Elsewhere, bloggers are still trying to figure out what happened to the ambulances that were supposedly attacked by Israel. Could they have been hit by 70mm unguided rockets (Zunis)? It is possible, but then again such rockets would have left debris and even rocket components that would have been picked up. I haven't seen any photos or video where the Lebanese were showing off remnants of the weapons fired at the ambulances. We've seen that happen in other instances, where bomb fragments - particularly cluster munitions. At least bloggers are trying to figure out what happened; the media outlets that have the resources and capabilities to track down this information at the scene have been AWOL on the matter, except to denigrate bloggers (Greg Mitchell, call your office).