Indian TV Shows 'How Hamas Assembles and Fires Rockets'; U.S. Press Mostly Ignores

August 8th, 2014 1:04 PM

In an English language report at NDTV.com on Tuesday, Sreenivasan Jain, reporting from Gaza, witnessed a Hamas "rocket silo being created under a tent right next to the hotel where our team was staying."

His news team then "saw the rocket being fired, just before the 72-hour ceasefire came into effect." It would seem that Western news organizations who have seen their onsite reporters intimidated and threatened by Hamas in Gaza would jump at the opportunity to report some of the reality they've refrained from showing. But there's very little evidence that these organizations have used NDTV's work. Video and a portion of the report's accompanying text follow the jump.


Here's the video; the rocket gets fired at the 2:55 mark:

From the accompanying text report:

NDTV Exclusive: How Hamas Assembles and Fires Rockets

... this morning, NDTV witnessed one such rocket silo being created under a tent right next to the hotel where our team was staying. Minutes later, we saw the rocket being fired, just before the 72-hour ceasefire came into effect.

It began with a mysterious tent with a blue canopy that bobbed up yesterday (August 4) at 6:30 am in an open patch of land next to our window. We saw three men making a multitude of journeys in and out of the tent, sometimes with wires.

An hour later, they emerged, dismantled the tent, changed their clothes and walked away.

The next morning - today - we woke to news of the 72-hour ceasefire but just before it was to take effect, the rocket next to our hotel was fired. There was a loud explosion and a whooshing sound. The cloud of smoke that rose was captured by our cameraperson.

This report is being aired on NDTV and published on ndtv.com after our team left the Gaza strip - Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired. But just as we reported the devastating consequences of Israel's offensive on Gaza's civilians, it is equally important to report on how Hamas places those very civilians at risk by firing rockets deep from the heart of civilian zones.

Note that the station waited until after its crew had left Gaza.

One would think that if the national establishment press in the U.S. was really interested in making sure Americans get a balanced view of the Israel-Hamas conflict, quite a few outlets would have aired NDTV's work by now. But of the five "international headlines" NDTV lists on a separate web page identifying those who have picked up the story, only two are from the U.S. establishment press.

One is at the New York Times, where Robert Mackey saw fit to air "allegations of bias for or against either party" on the part of Mr. Jain. A Times search on the first six words of the its headline does not return Mackey's story itself as a result, and carries only mentions of it at other Times web pages, leading one to question how much the Times was really interested in the NDTV report garnering a great many eyeballs.

The other is at the Huffington Post, which includes the Indian TV footage in a long series of recaps of articles from other outlets.

The first comment currently seen at HuffPo says it all:

So it takes (a) journalist from India to show Hamas rocket sites in populated areas of Gaza. Everybody else seems to have been content to show death porn.

And to let Hamas bully them.

A Google News search on "Hamas NDTV" (not in quotes, sorted by date, with duplicates) returned roughly 90 items. All but one, a Washington Post blog item, appear to be from non-establishment press or new media outlets.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.