As the world witnesses the devastation in Gaza and continued atrocities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, much of the media is not just reporting but are actively enabling these atrocities.
Free speech guarantees do not protect excusing, minimising or inciting war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide. This can and should be subject to criminal accountability.
Where journalists, editors, and media executives knowingly distort reality to justify or cover up mass killing, legally they become accomplices to genocide.
Yet, far from upholding their duty to inform, many western media executives, reporters, and presenters have become complicit in sanitising, excusing, or obscuring the reality of Israel’s war crimes, raising a profound and urgent need for accountability in the style of the Rwanda or Nuremberg tribunals where media enablers were put on trial.
Denial, distortion, and media complicity are key warning signs and enablers of genocide This also happened in Bosnia. In Myanmar, Facebook played a central role in amplifying hate speech and inciting violence against the Rohingya — as acknowledged by internal UN investigations.
WhatsApp messages plays a major role in the pogroms against Muslims in India. Now it’s happening in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
When journalism enables genocide
International law is unambiguous: incitement, denial, and active participation by media actors in crimes against humanity can constitute prosecutable offences.
The 2003 “Media Trial” at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) saw the conviction and life sentencing of 3 media executives who used radio and print to encourage mass murder; Judge Navanethem Pillay told the RTLM director, “Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, you caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.”
Similarly, the Nuremberg tribunal sentenced Nazi publisher Julius Streicher to death for his use of Der Stürmer in organizing and inciting genocide. At the heart of the case was “propaganda as an instrument of aggression”.
Western media coverage of Gaza fits these precedents disturbingly well. As detailed by Craig Mokhiber and corroborated by multiple human rights organizations, Western outlets [like the Murdoch media] have repeatedly failed to report Israeli war crimes, adopting official Israeli narratives and language downplaying mass civilian suffering.
Sky News Australia denies that there is a genocide or that there is starvation in Gaza.
Whistleblowers from public broadcasters like the ABC and BBC as well as commercial outlets CNN and the New York Times have reported editorial directives and pressure from senior management to minimise, distort, or omit facts on the ground — sometimes in response to coordinated external pressure campaigns.
A Federal Court in Australia found the ABC guilty of unfair dismissal when it removed journalist Antoinette Lattouf for sharing a Human Rights Watch statement about Israeli conduct in Gaza after pressure from pro-Israel lobby groups.
Censorship, denial, and digital suppression
Media censorship and narrative sabotage means Gaza has become not only a graveyard for children, but for journalism itself. Detailed internal leaks from the BBC and on-record testimony reveal prescriptive instruction to staff that stripped impartiality, forced reporters to use “decontextualized language,” and actively discouraged critical examination of Israeli actions—a pattern repeated at major outlets globally.
At the digital frontier, Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and other social media platforms — even Tik Tok, employ Israeli ex-military intelligence officials.
Social media companies have systematically suppressed pro-Palestinian content, erasing documentation of rights abuses and silencing Palestinian voices.
Human Rights Watch and digital rights groups have documented scores of account closures, the restriction of posts, and “shadow banning” on an unprecedented scale.
This is chillingly reminiscent of the “death by radio” phenomenon in Rwanda, where broadcasts stoked violence and erased warnings that could have saved lives.
Historic precedent for prosecution
The ICTR, the Nuremberg Trials, and international law all affirm that individuals — no matter how powerful or prestigious — can and must be held criminally liable for using media platforms to abet atrocities.
Under international law, media leaders and reporters can be prosecuted for incitement, conspiracy, and participation in genocide. Holding the media accountable his will act as a deterrent and restore dignity to the victims.
The evidence is overwhelming:
Historical precedents make it clear that media actors can be tried and convicted for enabling genocide and crimes against humanity.
Both legally and morally media executives, editors, presenters, and social media decision-makers complicit in covering up or excusing the Gaza atrocities must face independent investigation and prosecution, like their counterparts in Rwanda and Nuremberg.
In the case of Gaza it is time to:
Just as in Germany, Rwanda, Bosnia and Myanmar, the graves in Gaza testify not only to Israeli cruelty but to the deadly enablers in boardrooms and newsrooms.
In the words of the ICTR’s sentencing of a radio director: “Without a firearm … you caused the death of thousands.”
History, justice, and the future demand that the media enablers of genocide — in Gaza as in Rwanda and at Nuremberg — be brought to trial.
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