Just Journalism Newsletter 
3 April 2009 The Guardian's war crimes investigation
On Tuesday 24 March 2009, The Guardian published a
cover story and a two-page spread on details of the newspaper's month-long investigation into war
crimes said to have been committed by Israel during the recent conflict in Gaza. The main allegations were that
Israel illegally:
· used Palestinian civilians as human shields
The findings of this investigation, lead by Clancy Chassay, a Beirut-based correspondent for The Guardian and The Economist, were also posted on
the Guardian website in the form of three videos featuring interviews with Palestinians in Gaza. You can view the whole report here.
In recent weeks, two other reports were released by rights groups and NGOs,
also alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza.(1) In view of the
fact that Gaza was quite clearly a hotbed of fact-finding activity among third party organisations, it is interesting that The Guardian would regard its own investigation as particularly worth pursuing at this time.
Selective report
So far this year, The Guardian has published six other pieces of
investigative journalism on the following diverse topics:
· Police monitoring journalists at a protest
The latest investigative piece from Gaza is the only one to have focused
on the subject of war crimes allegations. This is despite the fact that serious abuses are currently suspected to be taking place in other conflicts, such as
the ongoing and under-reported fighting in Sri Lanka. The UN estimates that more than 2500 people have been killed there this year alone. With most journalists
banned from the conflict zone and not much media reporting on what is
happening there, it is noteworthy that this neglected area was not
selected by The Guardian for an investigative report, rather than the
already densely-reported Gaza conflict.
The only international war crimes news story which is discussed in
The Guardian to a similar degree as Gaza is Sudan. Although the publication
has not undertaken an investigation into Sudan's conduct in Darfur, it has featured the story in detail this year, particularly following the arrest warrant issued for President Al-Bashir on 4 March by the International Criminal Court
(ICC). However, the massive disparity in the scale and nature of violence in
Sudan and Gaza (casualties in Gaza are less than half a per cent of
the 300,000 deaths in Sudan estimated by the UN) might be expected to
translate into a very different picture of coverage.
The Guardian's decision to launch its month-long investigation into war
crimes allegations against Israel is suggestive of a conscious editorial decision
to focus excessively on this region. The level of attention given to this news
story over the past month is out of proportion to coverage of other conflicts in which war crimes allegations have also been made. This selectivity, echoed in
the newspaper's website, indicates an uneven prioritization. This is problematic
if The Guardian seeks to demonstrate the holistic international outlook of which
it boasts.
(1) Amnesty International, 'Fuelling conflict: Foreign arms supplies to
Israel/Gaza,' 23 February 2009; Human Rights Watch, 'Rain of Fire: Israel's Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza,' 25 March 2009.For more information or to contact us, please visit www.justjournalism.com
Just Journalism does not endorse the views and opinions presented in the
articles, documentaries and programmes referred to above.
Friday, 3 April 2009
· targeted and killed civilians using unmanned drones
· targeted and killed medical personnel
· Distribution of foreign aid to fight climate change
· Damage caused by cocaine production in Latin America
· Undue influence of pharmaceutical companies
· Tax avoidance by British companies
· 'Cash for amendments' scandal
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