NBC Decision Questionable: Reporter Pulled From Gaza After Witnessing Killing of Kids

NBC has been facing questions about pulling out their most experienced correspondent, Ayman Mohyeldin, a veteran reporter of Gaza, after he witnessed the killing of four Palestinian boys whom he had been kicking a soccer ball around with on the beach. He witnessed it first-hand, and with years of foreign correspondence under his belt; where this was one of his biggest coverage opportunities of Gaza, he was removed and told to leave. The reason cited was ‘security concerns,’ which Mohyeldin argued against.

But it begs the question why, when almost immediately after, another NBC reporter and producer who had never been to Gaza, were sent in for future correspondence on the Gaza coverage.

Mohyeldin initially started working as a reporter for Al-Jazeera but moved to the mainstream news arena in hope of bringing his news coverage to the world. While reporting for Al-Jazeera, Mohyeldin was the only inside western journalist due to the media blockade at the time surrounding ‘Operation Cast Lead.’ An excerpt cited by the Democracy News site is direct from his time during the coverage of the military operation.

“You had a propaganda machine that was in full swing to portray the war as a just war, as a necessary war, a war of self-defense. And when you have a PR machine that is portraying everyone in Gaza as a Hamas sympathizer, as a terrorist sympathizer, and that justifies the kind of bombardment that was the biggest challenge that we had to contend with—reporting the truth in the face of that spin.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and associate of Ayman Mohyeldin, Greenwald, reflects on the reaction by NBC to pull one of the most experienced reporters from the area. Greenwald argues that the excuse of citing a security risk to Mohyeldin doesn’t represent the underlying causes. It doesn’t make sense.

“What happened on the day that he witnessed the beach attacks was he posted some incredible tweets and, as well, some amazing photos and videos on both his Facebook and Instagram accounts about the reaction of the parents of the Palestinian boys learning right that moment that they had been killed — very, very powerful stuff. And he had also tweeted a couple of what I guess in the network news business is viewed as some unusually pointed tweets about the position of the U.S. government. Namely that the State Department spokeswoman was asked about this killing and she essentially absolved Israel and blamed Hamas, what the U.S. government always does even in the most egregious cases of Israeli war crimes. And he went onto Twitter and Facebook and posted some very mild comments, essentially noting what the State Department had said, and then inviting people to comment on it. And later that day, he deleted it…

But certainly the whole context of what has happened here is that he is a very unique reporter, especially for a network news position. You know, the kind of reporting that – the amazing reporting that we just hear from Sharif usually is not the kind of reporting that you hear on the network news – and Ayman does that kind of reporting. And he’s been criticized for it by neo-conservative outlets, calling him a Hamas sympathizer and the like. So for NBC to remove him at exactly the moment where he brought the humanity of this war and the humanity of Gazans to the world, at the same time that he posted some tweets that in network news land would be considered controversial because it questions the U.S. government and the Israeli position, at the very least looks awful, and I think for NBC News’ credibility, demands that they provide some answers about what really happened here.”

The most interesting of the comments by Greenwald is the utter fear carried by media that reporting on Israel spurs. He cites that the dread of upsetting the pro-Israelis in America really ‘can’t be overstated.’ It leads back to the question of the propaganda machine and why such a credible journalist was removed from the environment.

The complete interview can be listened, viewed or read here.