The ‘Tectonic Shift’ in Media That Changed Perceptions of Israel: ‘What’s Left Is a System Run by Activists’

“The press has been gutted. The bureaus have shrunk, and into that vacuum have come ideological voices,” says Matti Friedman

Pro-Palestinian protestors gather outside of the New York Times building to protest the newspaper’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war in December 2023
Pro-Palestinian protestors outside The New York Times building protest coverage of the Israel-Hamas War. (Credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

JERUSALEM – It gives journalist Matti Friedman no satisfaction to know he was early to realize that a change had come to covering Israel, favoring fixed narratives and activist journalism over a tradition of fact-based reporting. 

Friedman, a former reporter and editor at the Associated Press based in Jerusalem from 2006-2011, quit the global news agency after being censored by his editors, and realizing he would have to censor what he and his colleagues knew to be true about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And what was the case a decade ago is more true now, he told me. 

“The press has been gutted.

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