Media, A Free Press, and the other "P" Word

Media, A Free Press, and the other "P" Word

Location: SIS Founders Room

The war on Gaza has been identified as the deadliest for journalists in decades. Over 165 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed there according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate puts the number closer to 200. Mainstream American media coverage of these unprecedented violations of international law has not matched their scale or pace, nor done the stories of these journalists justice. In fact, in the past 16 months, U.S. media coverage has often reported on the Israeli war on Gaza and Lebanon in ways that made it less safe for media workers on the ground. The media workers who have stood their ground and attempted to capture the reality on the ground, and shed light on the gross human rights violations, have faced tremendous challenges in the institutions and public, and have done so at risk to themselves and their own families. At the same time, press freedoms in the United States have come under attack in congressional hearings and allegations and threats from the executive branch.

This event aims to create a space for the American University community to hear from those who have reported on the ground in Palestine and those working to bring the voices of journalists in Gaza and Palestine more broadly to U.S. media coverage. The event will allow members to hear first hand about what is happening in Palestine, explore the crisis facing press freedoms in the US today, and hear about the role and impact of various U.S. media responses to the War on Gaza. Questions that will be explored are: How have our panelists responded to the pressures around coverage of what is happening on the ground in Gaza? Have the panelists experienced censorship in trying to relay the facts on the ground in their coverage? What implications do these experiences and media policies have on the values and practices of freedom of expression and freedom of the press in US society? What are lessons we can learn from the ways that U.S. Media have responded to and covered the war on Gaza so far?

Panelists:

Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a reporter and editor at Drop Site News. He is the correspondent on the Al Jazeera Fault Lines documentaries “The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza,” which won an Overseas Press Club award, “The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh,” which won a George Polk Award, and “The Ban” which won an Emmy award.

Yumna Patel is the Editor in Chief at Mondoweiss, an independent news organization dedicated to sharing news and opinion on Israel, Palestine, U.S. politics, and the movement for Palestinian liberation. A journalist and filmmaker previously based in the occupied West Bank, Yumna's field of work focuses on Palestinian life under occupation and apartheid, and the everyday human stories that get overlooked and underreported in the media. Yumna has directed and produced several short-form documentaries in Palestine, exploring themes of resistance, community resilience in the face of displacement, and the never-ending battle of Palestinians to remain on their land.

Ryan Grim is a longtime D.C. reporter, breaking news from the halls of Congress and leading the Washington bureaus for The Intercept and HuffPost. At HuffPost, he led a team that was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and won once. Grim has spent years chronicling the rise of progressives in Congress, and his most recent book is The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution, which followed his best-selling We’ve Got People. He’s also the author of the 2009 book This Is Your Country On Drugs.

Moderator:

Brigid Maher is a tenured full professor in the School of Communication. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Community Voice Lab at American University and Founder and Creative Director of the Anacostia Youth Media Festival. She is an award-winning documentary filmmaker focusing on women, from women’s issues in the Middle East to women’s health and beyond.

Sponsors:

Abdul Aziz Said Chair in International Peace and Conflict Resolution

Co-Sponsors:

Arab World Studies Program

Anthropology Department

SIS Cluster Ethnographies of Empire

Host or Publisher Abdul Aziz Said Chair in International Peace and Conflict Resolution