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Whether reporting from the Middle East, the United States, or anywhere else across the globe, every CNN journalist covering Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review by the news organizations bureau in Jerusalem prior to publication, under a long-standing CNN policy. While CNN says the policy is meant to ensure accuracy in reporting on a polarizing subject, it means that much of the networks recent coverage of the war in Gaza and its reverberations around the world has been shaped by journalists who operate under the shadow of the countrys military censor.

Like all foreign news organizations operating in Israel, CNNs Jerusalem bureau is subject to the rules of the Israel Defense Forcess censor, which dictates subjects that are off-limits for news organizations to cover, and censors articles it deems unfit or unsafe to print. As The Intercept reported last month, the military censor recently restricted eight subjects, including security cabinet meetings, information about hostages, and reporting on weapons captured by fighters in Gaza. In order to obtain a press pass in Israel, foreign reporters must sign a document agreeing to abide by the dictates of the censor.

CNNs practice of routing coverage through the Jerusalem bureau does not mean that the military censor directly reviews every story. Still, the policy stands in contrast to other major news outlets, which in the past have run sensitive stories through desks outside of Israel to avoid the pressure of the censor. On top of the official and unspoken rules for reporting from Israel, CNN recently issued directives to its staff on specific language to use and avoid when reporting on violence in the Gaza Strip. The network also hired a former soldier from the IDFs Military Spokesperson Unit to serve as a reporter at the onset of the war.

The policy of running stories about Israel or the Palestinians past the Jerusalem bureau has been in place for years, a CNN spokesperson told The Intercept in an email. It is simply down to the fact that there are many unique and complex local nuances that warrant extra scrutiny to make sure our reporting is as precise and accurate as possible.

The spokesperson added that the protocol has no impact on our (minimal) interactions with the Israeli Military Censor and we do not share copy with them (or any government body) in advance.We will seek comment from Israeli and other relevant officials before publishing stories, but this is just good journalistic practice.

One member of CNNs staff who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisal said that the internal review policy has had a demonstrable impact on coverage of the Gaza war. Every single Israel-Palestine-related line for reporting must seek approval from the [Jerusalem] bureau or, when the bureau is not staffed, from a select few handpicked by the bureau and senior management from which lines are most often edited with a very specific nuance that favors Israeli narratives.

A shaky arrangement has long existed between the IDF censor and the domestic and foreign press, forcing journalists to frequently self-censor their reporting for fear of running afoul of prohibited subjects, losing their press credentials, and potentially being forced to offer public apology. CNN, like other American broadcasters, has repeatedly agreed to submit footage recorded in Gaza to the military censor prior to airing it in exchange for limited access to the strip, drawing criticism from those who say the censor is providing a filtered view of events unfolding on the ground.

When you have a protocol that routes all stories through one checkpoint, youre interested in control, and the question is who is controlling the story? Jim Naureckas, editor of the watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, told The Intercept.

CNNs team in Jerusalem are the people closest to the Israeli government, Naureckas added. In a situation where a government has been credibly accused of singling out journalists for violent attacks in order to suppress information, to give that government a heightened role in deciding what is news and what isnt news is really disturbing.

While CNN has used its standing to obtain raw footage of human suffering inside Gaza, it has also pushed out near-daily updates delivered directly from the IDF to its American and international viewers and embedded reporters alongside Israel soldiers fighting in the war.

Early in the war, on October 26, CNNs News Standards and Practices division sent an email to staff outlining how they should write about the war.

Hamas controls the government in Gaza and we should describe the Ministry of Health as Hamas-controlled whenever we are referring to casualty statistics or other claims related to the present conflict. If the underlying statistics have been derived from the ministry of Health in Gaza, we should note that fact and that this part of the Ministry is Hamas-controlled even if the statistics are released by the West Bank part of the ministry or elsewhere.

The email goes on to acknowledge CNNs responsibility to cover the human cost of the war but couches that responsibility in the need to cover the broader current geopolitical and historical context of the story while continuing to remind our audiences of the immediate cause of this current conflict, namely the Hamas attack and mass murder and kidnap of Israeli civilians.

Intense Israeli army activity in Gaza seen from Kibbutz Beeri as Israeli attacks continue in Beeri, Israel, on Jan. 4, 2024.

The email further instructed reporters and editors to make it clear to our audiences whether either or both sides have provided verifiable evidence to support their claims.

In a separate directive dated November 2, Senior Director of News Standards and Practices David Lindsey cautioned reporters from relaying statements from Hamas. As the Israel-Gaza war continues, Hamas representatives are engaging in inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda. Most of it has been said many times before and is not newsworthy. We should be careful not to give it a platform. He added, though, that if a senior Hamas official makes a claim or threat that is editorially relevant, such as changing their messaging or trying to rewrite events, we can use it if its accompanied by greater context.

The language of the directives mirror similar orders from CNN management at the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, when Chair Walter Isaacson ordered foreign correspondents at the network to play down civilian deaths and remind readers that the violence they were witnessing was a direct result of the attacks on September 11.

Also in October, CNN hired a former IDF soldier to contribute writing and reporting to CNNs war coverage. Tamar Michaeliss first byline appears on October 17, 10 days after Hamass attack on southern Israel. Since then, her name has appeared on dozens of stories citing the IDF spokesperson and relaying information about the IDFs operations in the Gaza Strip. At least one story bearing only her byline is little more than a direct statement released from the IDF.

According to her Facebook profile, Tamar Michaelis served in the IDFs Spokesperson Unit, a division of the Israeli military charged with carrying out positive PR both domestically and abroad. (Last year, the Spokesperson Unit was forced to issue a public apology for conducting psychological operations, or psyops, against Israeli civilians.) Michaelis recently locked her profile, which does not indicate the dates of her service in the IDF, and she did not respond to a request for comment.

Tamar Michaelis worked with CNN on a freelance basis for a few months last year, and worked in the same way as any freelancer, within our normal guidelines, the CNN spokesperson wrote.

Read our complete coverage

CNNs Gaza war coverage, regardless of where it originates, has been subject to the news organizations internal review process for reporting on Israel and Palestine. According to an email reviewed by The Intercept, CNN expanded its review team over the summer as the highly controversial overhaul of Israels judicial system moved through Israels Parliament to include a handful of editors outside of Israel, in an effort to streamline the process.

In a July email to CNN staff, Jerusalem Bureau Chief Richard Greene wrote that the policy exists because everything we write or broadcast about Israel or the Palestinians is scrutinized by partisans on all sides. The Jerusalem bureau aims to be a safety net so we dont use imprecise language or words that may sound impartial but can have coded meanings here.

But because the protocol could slow down the publication process, Greene wrote, we have created (wait for it..)

The Jerusalem SecondEyes alias!

The CNN spokesperson told The Intercept that Jerusalem SecondEyes was created to make this process as swift as possible as well as bring more expert eyes to staff it across the day, particularly when Jerusalem is dark. The spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether CNN has a similar review process in place for other coverage areas.

The CNN staff member described how the policy works in practice.War-crime and genocide are taboo words, the person said.Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as blasts attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed.

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CNN Runs Gaza Coverage Past Jerusalem Team Operating Under Shadow of IDF Censor - The Intercept

Press Releases | January 04, 2024

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for failing to respond to an October 11, 2023, FOIA for all records regarding Judicial Watch and its President Tom Fitton held by DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-00003).

The request specifically asked that the search for responsive records include email accounts of CISA officials publicly implicated in censorship operations.

On November 6, 2023, the House Judiciary Committee released a report detailing how the Department of Homeland Securitys (DHS) Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Global Engagement Center (GEC, within the State Department) coordinated with Stanford University and other entities to create the Election Integrity Partnership to censor Americans speech in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton is listed as a target of this censorship operation.

Judicial Watch and I have been censored again and again by government and Big Tech, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. That we had to file a federal lawsuit to get basic information about this targeting is another sure sign that CISA has been up to no good.

Judicial Watch has been in the forefront of uncovering government efforts to censor free speech and suppress opposition.

On November 9, 2023, Judicial Watch reported that CISA records show government involvement in the EIP [Election Integrity Partnership] pressure on Google, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit and other platforms to censor disinformation.

In October 2023, Judicial Watch sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) for records of any payments made by the FBI to Twitter (now known as X). The payments were disclosed in internal Twitter documents (the Twitter Files) made available by Elon Musk to journalists.

Also in October, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records concerning censorship of social media users.

In April 2023, Judicial Watch filed two lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for communications between the agencies and Facebook and Twitter regarding the governments involvement in content moderation and censorship on the social media platforms.

In a separate lawsuit file in June 2023, Judicial Watch sued DHS for all records of communications tied to the Election Integrity Partnership. Based on representations from the EIP (see here and here), the federal government, social media companies, the EIP, the Center for Internet Security (a non-profit organization funded partly by DHS and the Defense Department) and numerous other leftist groups communicated privately via the Jira software platform developed by Atlassian.

In February 2023, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department Homeland Security (DHS) for records showing cooperation between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and social media platforms to censor and suppress free speech.

Judicial Watch in January 2023 sued the DOJ for records of communications between the FBI and social media sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the Hunter Biden laptop story.

In September 2022, Judicial Watch sued the Secretary of State of the State of California for having YouTube censor a Judicial Watch election integrity video.

In May 2022, YouTube censored a Judicial Watch video about Biden corruption and election integrity issues in the 2020 election. The video, titled Impeach? Biden Corruption Threatens National Security, was falsely determined to be election misinformation and removed by YouTube, and Judicial Watchs YouTube account was suspended for a week. The video featured an interview of Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. Judicial Watch continues to post its video content on its Rumble channel (https://rumble.com/vz7aof-fitton-impeach-biden-corruption-threatens-national-security.html).

In July 2021, Judicial Watch uncovered records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which revealed that Facebook coordinated closely with the CDC to control the Covid narrative and misinformation and that over $3.5 million in free advertising given to the CDC by social media companies.

In May 2021, Judicial Watch revealed documents showing that Iowa state officials pressured social media companies Twitter and Facebook to censor posts about the 2020 election.

In April 2021, Judicial Watch published documents revealing how California state officials pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about the 2020 election.

Judicial Watch has produced a four-part documentary, Censored and Controlled, that details the coordinated effort by the FBI and other government agencies and Big Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Bidens laptop, Covid-19, and election debates.

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Judicial Watch Sues Biden Censorship Agency for Records Targeting Judicial Watch and Its President Tom Fitton - Judicial Watch

In a long and most informative post from last March, Tablet news editor Jacob Siegel takes a hard look at the suddenly popular concept of disinformation. A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Centuryis essential reading for understanding key ways the concept affects our information world. Ill touch on just three take-home points here.

But first, a reflection. Have you ever wondered why we so seldom hear the term false information today? Instead, we hear about misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, etc. These concepts suddenly loomed into public prominence during the COVID lockdowns. All of these alleged information vices amount to deviations from whatever government is saying at any given time. Many public figures and organizations have jumped into the fray, eager to fight the menace.

False information is, by contrast, a simple old concept. For example, every health department everywhere deals with false ideas like the claim that menthol cigarettes areless harmful than regular ones. Conventional honest communication telling people that a wide body of research shows that that is not true is the only needed response. Those who have decided to believe something against the evidence will continue to do so anyway. End of story.

As Siegel shows, the concept of disinformation and the alleged war on it spring from deeper, more malignant roots. First, the concept of disinformation has nothing whatever to do with truth or falsehood:

In a technical or structural sense, the censorship regimes aim is not to censor or to oppress, but to rule. Thats why the authorities can never be labeled as guilty of disinformation Disinformation, now and for all time, is whatever they say it is. That is not a sign that the concept is being misused or corrupted; it is the precise functioning of a totalitarian system.

If the underlying philosophy of the war against disinformation can be expressed in a single claim, it is this: You cannot be trusted with your own mind. What follows is an attempt to see how this philosophy has manifested in reality.

So disinformation is simply information not in accord with government goals. Its accuracy relative to the accuracy of information provided by government is irrelevant. It you accept the concept at all, that fact is part of the package.

Second, Siegel punctures the widespread (and attractive!) myth of the internet, that it has always functioned as a liberating force. In reality, it originated in the defense establishment of the United States and there was always close co-operation between the White House and Silicon Valley. For example, From 2009 to 2015, White House and Google employees were meeting, on average, more than once a week. The recent Twitter files revelations revealed to most of the public how much social media censorship government has exercised over the years, in collusion with Silicon Valley. He writes,

As Obamas secretary of state, Hillary Clinton led the governments Internet freedom agenda, which aimed to promote online communications as a tool for opening up closed societies. In a speech from 2010, Clinton issued a warning about the spread of digital censorship in authoritarian regimes: A new information curtain is descending across much of the world, she said. And beyond this partition, viral videos and blog posts are becoming the samizdat of our day.

It is a supreme irony that the very people who a decade ago led the freedom agenda for other countries have since pushed the United States to implement one of the largest and most powerful censorship machines in existence under the guise of fighting disinformation.

And perhaps this part should come as no surprise: As traditional journalism is collapsing, its refugees, now working for non-government organizations (NGOs) funded by billionaires, are increasingly the frontline warriors against disinformation:

There is no reason to question the motivations of the staffers at these NGOs, most of whom were no doubt perfectly sincere in the conviction that their work was restoring the underpinning of a healthy society. But certain observations can be made about the nature of that work. First, it placed them in a position below the billionaire philanthropists but above hundreds of millions of Americans whom they would guide and instruct as a new information clerisy by separating truth from falsehood, as wheat from chaff.

There is every good reason for citizens of free societies to be suspicious of claims that we desperately need these people to manage our information choices for us. However, any reform in this area must come from the bottom. It will be slow, grueling and widely misrepresented work.

You may also wish to read: How bottom up media now threaten the traditional top tier. New media resources like subscription-based Substack are rapidly becoming the venue of choice for whistleblowers with stories to break. The rise and fall of intellectual movements may well now depend on their ability to use new media successfully to express their views.

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Why Don't We Hear So Much About False Information Any More? - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She's the editor/author of (DON'T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen.

View All posts by Kelly Jensen

This is the first in a series of posts that will offer insights and calls to action based on the results of three recent surveys conducted by Book Riot and the EveryLibrary Institute. The surveys explored parental perceptions of public libraries, parental perceptions of librarians, and parental perceptions of school libraries.

We know the results of these surveys are a study in tension. Where parents agreed with big picture ideas across all three surveys, 94% said they feel their child is safe at the library it was some of the more granular topics where we saw conflicting responses. It is important to talk about those, including the fact that there are parents who believe library workers should be prosecuted for the materials they offer in the collection and that many believe there needs to be more barriers to material access in place for their children. But rather than focus on those as threats, perhaps theyre better framed as opportunities. These areas of contention are places where librarians, who are overwhelmingly perceived as trustworthy and worthy of respect, can harness those perceptions to combat mis-, dis-, and malinformation about what they do.

Lets take heart here. The vast majority of parents believe the following things about libraries and library workers:

More:

When it comes to the materials available in the library:

On the topic of parental rights:

Taking heart with this data is important. In a time when library workers are beleaguered by rhetoric from the far-right and are the most likely to be handling book banning issues, it is important to remember the vast majority of parents trust and respect librarians. Where tensions or conflicting ideas emerge is where there is opportunity to educate and challenge mis- and disinformation about the roles and responsibilities of librarians and libraries.

Note that you might need to adapt or modify these ideas based on the laws and policies in your own jurisdiction.

Many library workers already do this, but it bears emphasis. If most parents do not know how librarians select materials for the collection (81% of parents in the school library survey and 53% in the public libraries survey), then offer them an answer. Create a one-sheet or short video explaining the process, including the sort of review sources used in making decisions and why those review sources are used. If youre in a school, explain that materials in the collection both serve the curriculum and meet the recreational needs of student readers. This means meeting the needs of all students in a building, from the youngest to the most senior. Demystify the process and put this information in readily accessible places. Your website is great, and if you are in a school where you can get printed materials into a take-home folder, use that to your advantage. Talk with your boards, too it is possible that board members do not know how the process of selecting library materials works, either, especially if they are new to their role. Offer to give a short presentation at one of the meetings; this will be especially useful for the historical record, as it will be included in meeting minutes and any video repository if recorded.

This also helps inform patrons about why librarians are the most qualified to make collection selections. While librarians ranked as most qualified to choose materials both in public and in school libraries (rating a 3.6 on a 5-point scale, with 5 being most qualified), a small percentage also believed that librarians should be prosecuted for the materials available (25% in public libraries and 16% in school libraries) even if they do not know how those materials are selected.

Parents might still say they do not know how librarians select materials for the collection, but youve done your work. Putting this information out there is transparency and further bolsters your perception as trustworthy. You arent, nor have you ever, tried to hide what youre doing because there is nothing TO hide.

Chances are that you already do, but where and how can you make your presence more visible? This goes more for the school librarians than the public, but it is valuable for both. Only 41% of parents state they have met their school librarian. Where and how can you reach another 41%?

This feels like library 101, but if theres anything that several years of book banning have shown, its that parents do not know there is a list of every book available in the library a frequent call from uninformed parental rights activists (the survey findings are that 67% of parents believe this should exist). Its the library catalog. While you might spend time teaching students how to use it, do you have a handy guide on your website for parents? What might be basic knowledge to you, though, is not to those who are being led by false narratives. Put a guide to using the catalog in an easy-to-find place, and if nothing else, youll have given yourself a point or two for transparency.

The ideal time to update your collection development and management policies was when challenges to books began to rise. The second best time is now, especially given that book banners are taking advantage of bad policies to get hundreds of titles removed at a time. Make these policies robust, explaining the kinds of materials you collect; if you have the opportunity, include information as to why you collect diverse materials, too. The data might not change the minds of those who are committed to a white, cishet christofascist agenda, but it might be eye-opening to others. For example, when you note in your policy that your collection is inclusive of a range of gender and sexual identities, include the statistic that one-quarter of US teens openly identify as LGBTQ+, per the CDC. More, PEW Research notes that only slightly more than half of todays teenagers are non-Hispanic white. One in four of todays teens in the US are Hispanic, 14% are Black, 6% are Asian, and 5% are bi- or multi-racial. Nearly 1/4 of Generation Z are the children of immigrants, and 66% live in households with married parents. This information should not be necessary to state your librarys commitment to inclusion, but it offers information to further support the decisions made by staff.

Use the language being used right now in your collection policies: note that parents always have the right to determine what their children access. If you have opt-out policies for your library, include or link to those; if you dont, emphasize that parents are responsible for having these conversations with their children. They say so themselves! Mention in your policies that you do not remove the right of all children to access materials based on the beliefs of a few. Instead, it is up to parents to set those limits for their own children.

Data show that 43% of parents report knowing their library has a collection development policy, and the same percentage report knowing how to locate it. A slightly higher percentage, 56%, know how to file a complaint about a book they believe to be inappropriate. Once you have updated your policy and created a robust form for book challenges, make it easy to find. You might not like having your challenge policy readily available, but the more you make it findable, not only are you more transparent, but you build trust, too, through being open so that patrons can voice their feelings about the collection. This right to petition goes hand-in-hand with the right to read, and libraries, as upholders of the First Amendment rights of all, should not shy away from it.

Book banners are loud, well-funded, and connected to those perceived to have a lot of power. That is real, and at times, it is unrelenting.

But its also true that those voices are the minority. You have the majority behind you and your work.

With the holidays and school breaks, this list is shorter than usual.

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Data Overwhelmingly Supports Libraries and Library Workers: Book Censorship News, January 5, 2024 - Book Riot

Government Internet censorship is a permanent fact of life in some countries, but there are many more countries that impose Internet blocks in response to specific events. A new report says that happened on 196 occasions last year, with hundreds of millions of people affected

Some governments impose permanent restrictions on full Internet access. The biggest culprit here is China, which blocks access to a wide range of services, including:

The so-called Great Firewall of China also imposes blocks on content containing specific keywords. This includes the names of government leaders, political protests, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and more.

But the annual report published by VPN review site Top10VPN looks instead at occasions when governments impose temporary shutdowns or blocks.

The latest report shows that there were 196 major self-imposed internet outages in 2023, across a total of 25 countries.

Iraq was the biggest offender, with a total of 66 shutdowns last year. Manipur, India, had the longest shutdown, totalling more than 5,000 hours.

Unsurprisingly, social network X topped the list of platform-specific blocks. Both news and commentary on political events and protests spread quickly on the platform, and repressive governments responded with blocks totalling 10,683 hours. Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook were also targeted.

Messaging services were also hit. These are commonly used to coordinate protests, and to circulate new the government doesnt want known. WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal were all affected.

The reasons for these blocks is not hard to guess: wars and other conflicts, military coups, protests, and elections where repressive governments aim to block reports of election interference.

When a government wants to block Internet access while pretending not to, extreme throttling is used where bandwidth is reduced to such a degree that the Internet becomes effectively unusable. This is a common tactic for governments aiming to stop the circulation of videos, including live-streaming from protests.

Protocol blocking is used when governments want to shut down certain apps, or categories of apps. Here, they block specific TCP/IP ports used by messaging apps, for example.

In addition to the obvious human rights violations involved, the site says that the economic cost is significant.

Government internet outages in 25 countries lasting over 79,000 hours cost the global economy $9.01 billion in 2023.

Photo:FlyD/Unsplash

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Government Internet censorship was imposed 196 times last year - 9to5Mac