Jon Snow’s Gaza Appeal: Journalism or Propaganda?

In response to an unusually direct and passionate video from Channel 4 anchor Jon Snow urging viewers to act in response to the conflict in Gaza, BBC correspondent David Loyn contends that Snow's reporting walks the line of propaganda. 

"In his appeal, Snow said the world had shown it was not that interested in the death of children in Gaza. Almost three-quarters of a million hits showed that many were interested. But how did they know enough to care?" wrote Loyn, author of Frontline: Reporting from the World's Deadliest Places. "Not from reporters who had put their emotions on show. Instead, the horrors of Gaza have been bravely narrated by reporters fully equipped with compassion and empathy, but not wallowing in their own feelings."

The video, which has been viewed more than one million times across various platforms, was filmed in the Channel 4 News studio after Snow returned to London from Gaza. According to Loyn, Snow "considered that he could deliver this [message] only online since it might contravene rules governing impartiality in news programmes."

In the video, Snow spoke of his visit to Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital and some of the wounded children he saw there. He also quoted the official number of child injuries and casualties resulting from the conflict.

“That’s what makes this something that every one of us has to confront,” said Snow. “We have to know that in some way we share some responsibility for those deaths.”

He added: “We cannot let it go on… together we can make a difference.”

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