Media Bias Studies Say Coverage Framed Hamas After October 7 In Gaza War

A new book and multiple media-bias studies argue that coverage of Hamas and Israel helped shape public rhetoric around the war in Gaza, with one account tracing a “plug and play aspect” to how Hamas was framed after October 7.

“Another study has been released showing UK media bias against Palestinians in how it frames the “conflict” in Gaza and dehumanises Palestinians”

Jewish Voice for Liberation

In an interview with Mondoweiss, media critic Adam Johnson said he and his team “counted the amount of times [the media] used the term civilization and in contrast to Hamas,” and he described the “idea of a barbaric Asiatic horde.”

Jewish Voice for Liberation

Johnson also said they “quantified and counted how many times words like “savage” and “barbaric” were used,” adding that the language has “racial connotations.”

He argued that early coverage was reinforced by a campaign in which “the Israeli government paid for a campaign to say Hamas is ISIS,” writing that it was used “on Twitter and on other social media.”

Johnson said the comparison was “obviously absurd,” but that outlets were “attempting to appeal to the lizard brain American public by calling on racist tropes and cliches.”

He further claimed that “the beheaded babies being being the first and most, I think, consequential one,” and said the story was “bullshit” and “debunked,” yet “the damage was already done.”

In the same interview, Johnson linked the propaganda to ceasefire politics, saying the “early attempt at atrocity propaganda” was “essential to really removing the idea of a ceasefire.”

Mondoweiss also reported that “All royalties from Johnson’s book will be donated to the Middle East Children’s Alliance.”

A separate set of claims centers on a NewsCord study that, according to the reporting, quantified how UK outlets frame Gaza coverage and attribute responsibility.

Jewish Voice for Liberation says “Another study has been released showing UK media bias against Palestinians” and points to BBC coverage that it says “did not challenge an Israeli spokesperson on the claims that 1200 innocent people were killed on October 7th.”

Mondoweiss

The same article says the BBC anchor “did not challenge the claims asserted as fact that there were rapes and beheadings,” and it adds that she “did not challenge the spokesman when he referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as genocidal.”

It also cites a NewsCord analysis that “analysing 11,295 excerpts from 686 articles covering the same events across the three news publishers and Al Jazeera” found that the BBC and Sky News and the Guardian “downplayed Israeli violence through the use of passive voice, obscured language, selective reporting and negative qualifiers.”

The article quotes NewsCord founder Nima Akram saying, “The data in this report is not opinion, it’s the result of a systematic classification of thousands of article excerpts covering the same events.”

It further reports that NewsCord said the BBC led “the pattern of passive voice in nearly 80 percent of sentences involving Palestinian casualties,” giving an example: “15 killed as Israel attacks camp” rather than “Israel killed 15 people.”

The same reporting says Israeli attacks were “explicitly attributed… only around half the time,” with “Sky News and the Guardian at 54 percent, compared with Al Jazeera‘s 89 percent.”

It also claims the report found “the BBC humanised Israeli captives twice as often as Palestinian detainees,” with “almost 60 percent for Israeli captives and only 29 percent for Palestinian prisoners.”

Novara Media’s report focuses on a specific finding that, in its description of NewsCord’s linguistic analysis, the BBC failed to name Israel as the perpetrator in civilian casualty reporting.

“BBC Failed to Name Israel As Perpetrator in Half of Civilian Casualty Reports, Data Shows ‘Manufactured consent for genocide”

Novara Media

The headline says, “BBC Failed to Name Israel As Perpetrator in Half of Civilian Casualty Reports, Data Shows,” and it frames the work as “Manufactured consent for genocide.”

The article says NewsCord “analysed 11,295 excerpts from 686 digital articles from the Guardian, Sky News, BBC News and Al Jazeera” and says the data report was “released on 23 April.”

It states that when reporting on Palestinian casualties, “the BBC used the passive voice – “15 killed as Israel attacks camp” rather than “Israel killed 15 people” – in nearly four out of five cases (77%), removing agency and responsibility from Israel.”

The same report says “Sky News used the passive voice for reporting Palestinian casualties in 71% of cases, the Guardian in 67% and Al Jazeera in 53%.”

It also asserts that “BBC News failed to name Israel as the perpetrator in Israeli attacks where civilians were killed in Gaza in 50% of all analysed cases,” with “the Guardian in 45% of cases and Sky News in 46% of cases – compared to in 11% of cases for Al Jazeera.”

The Novara Media piece also repeats a claim about how the BBC labels Gaza’s health ministry, saying “The BBC was found to label Gaza’s health ministry “Hamas-affiliated” in 60% of death toll citations.”

The report quotes NewsCord’s founder Nima Akram saying, “The data in this report is not opinion, it’s the result of a systematic classification of thousands of article excerpts,” and it includes a direct quote from Jeremy Corbyn: “manufactured consent for genocide.”

The Mondoweiss interview ties the media narrative to ceasefire politics, arguing that atrocity propaganda and rhetorical framing helped “remove[] the idea of a ceasefire” by keeping Hamas outside “political seriousness.”

Johnson said the “early attempt at atrocity propaganda, and these lurid tabloid claims of hyper-gratuitous violence, were essential to really removing the idea of a ceasefire,” and he described the logic as requiring “Hamas to remain, if not in power, an armed force within Gaza.”

Jewish Voice for Liberation

He then said this was “affirmed by everyone from Elizabeth Warren to Ro Khanna to Bernie Sanders,” who he said “went on CNN and CBS in November and December of 2023, respectively.”

Johnson’s account also claims that the ceasefire rhetoric treated calls for ceasefire as “a moral endorsement of Hamas,” while he argued that “Palestinian civil society calling for a ceasefire is not a moral endorsement of Israel.”

He said a “weird thing developed” in which the talking point “sort of just came and went,” but he linked it to “buying time for Israel to change the so-called facts on the ground.”

In his account, the timing mattered because he said “the basic axioms of genocide were already in place” by the time the Biden White House “redefined it in February and March of 2024.”

Johnson also said “it was too late because really the intervention to stop the genocide could have happened between October to December 2023.”

The same interview includes Johnson’s claim that President Biden “said he saw pictures of it,” and Johnson adds that “which obviously he couldn’t have because it’s not something that ever happened.”

Across the bias reports, the stated next steps are framed as demands for correction, transparency, and ongoing self-auditing.

“In his new book, How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, media critic Adam Johnson provides a painstakingly detailed indictment of the Fourth Estate, showing how cable shows, newspapers, and online news sites helped build support for the mass killing of Palestinians”

Mondoweiss

Jewish Voice for Liberation says the monitor “called on the three outlets to review their Gaza war coverage, correct issues of framing, attribution and proportionality in future reporting, disclose and revise editorial practices, and commit to ongoing self-auditing using objective metrics.”

Mondoweiss

It also says NewsCord “called on theBBC, which has regularly facedaccusationsof complicity in Israel’s war on Gaza, to publish these metrics regularly due to its role as a publicly funded broadcaster.”

The same article criticises what it calls the BBC’s “selective use” of the term “Hamas-run health ministry,” saying it “appeared in 60 percent of cases,” and it adds that while the report says the BBC notes the UN’s view that Gaza health ministry death toll figures are credible, this was “mentioned only 0.6 percent of the time.”

Novara Media similarly describes the dataset as quantifying coverage “since October 2023,” and it says the BBC is “taxpayer-funded” and “constitutionally bound by the Royal Charter,” while “both Sky and the BBC are regulated by Ofcom.”

In Mondoweiss, Johnson’s interview also frames the issue as a structural media role, saying the media was “complicit in the destruction of Gaza,” and he argues that the rhetoric was built to “appeal to the lizard brain American public.”

Taken together, the sources present a dispute not only about what was said, but about how often and in what form, with NewsCord’s metrics and the demand for regular publication serving as the mechanism for accountability.

The reporting also includes a direct quote from Assal Rad that “These choices are no accident,” and that “the media has played an active role in laundering Israeli war crimes and normalizing the unthinkable.”