I HAVE done several columns in recent months on the bias and unprofessional nature of the entire ocean of Western journalism since the Israeli perpetuation of genocide in Gaza after Hamas militants invaded Israel on October 7, 2023. I spoke at three public symposia on the Gaza genocide, and I declared in unambiguous language that I believe the Gaza tragedy has destroyed beyond recovery the credibility of Western journalism in the eyes of the people of the post-colonial world.

I elaborated in those columns and in those symposia that I believe it is impossible to get Third World nations to accept, as they did shortly after Independence, that Western journalism is the standard bearer after the way the Gaza tragedy was handled by the Western media.
Here are a few highlights before we come to President Trump’s credible accusations against CBS. First, every Western media house shamelessly took the Israeli versions of what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel said that babies were murdered, and their heads hung on sticks and paraded in public. Every Western media house carried that story which was initiated by the New York Times (NYT). The paper got the story from a former air force intelligence officer in Israel. No fact-checking occurred, and the NYT story spread like wildfire in the West.

It was not true. Babies killed and their head stuck on sticks and paraded never happened. So why did NYT carry it? The editor-in-chief of NYT is Joseph Kahn, a wealthy Jewish man who has stationery store in Tel Aviv. He and his father, Leo, sit on the board of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA). This is a pro-Israeli witch-hunting body that exerts extensive pressure on the American media landscape to put Israel in a good light in the US.

Space would not allow for extended analysis of NYT’s pro-Israeli, anti-Hamas bias but see the brilliant article on this subject by Daniel Boguslaw and Ryan Grim for “The Intercept,” published on January 28, 2024.
Secondly, Western media houses instructed their reporters not to use the word “genocide” in their reporting on Gaza. NYT refused an advertisement on January 8 this year from a Quaker organisation named The American Friends Service Committee because it contained the words, “Israeli genocide in Gaza.” Thirdly, the British Guardian dismissed its cartoonist after 40 years of service because his drawing caricatured Netanyahu.

Let’s come now to the exposure of the true nature of American journalism by President Trump. During the presidential election, CBS aired on Face The Nation, an interview with Kamala Harris in which she responded to a question on Netanyahu. For “60 Minutes” CBS carried the same interview but Ms. Harris words on the Netanyahu question was altered to make her appear more competent.
Mr. Trump sued CBS for $5billion (US) claiming it was election interference by CBS. When he came to power last month, he requested the Federal Communication Commission to order the tape of the full interview which CBS handed over. The complete interview is now public and in it, Ms. Harris appeared to be shambolic, rambling and incompetent.

CBS withheld material to favour Ms. Harris. This is the type of journalism the West accuses Third World countries of practising. We are now seeing the nature of Western journalism for what it always was only that colonialism brainwashed us into accepting that their institutions were higher than our own. So embarrassed is CBS that it has agreed to settle the court case with Trump.

In another startling revelation by President Trump, it has now been made public that the USAID was using government money to fund pro-Democratic Party, pro-Biden newspapers, especially the influential liberal online newspaper, “Politico.” I honestly believe that we have seen the end of the dominance of Western newspapers in the Global South.

The mask has been removed; a mask Western media wore since the West colonised the Third World. Colonial nations were told that the BCC was the paragon of independent journalism. Then came the popularity of the NYT for printing the Pentagon papers exposing American deceit in starting the Vietnam War.
The domination of the Western Media reached its apogee when the Washington Post exposed the Nixon presidency in 1974 in what is now known as the Watergate scandal, (made into the mega hit movie, “All The President’s Men”).

The collapse of the West’s journalistic hegemony has certainly awakened the consciousness of the people of the Third World who subliminally believed Western institutions were superior. The leaders of Jamaica and Trinidad still think British judges in the Privy Council are superior to the judges of the Caribbean Court of Justice.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.