Who Did It? CNN Won’t Say

By Published On: February 16, 2016

In a gross omission in an article Sunday about Palestinians opening fire on Israeli security forces near Damascus Gate, CNN fails to fulfill one of the basic journalistic requirements: to report who carried out the attack (“Israel says 2 men are dead after opening fire on police near Damascus Gate“).

cnn two men are dead Damascus gate.jpg

It’s not only the headline which fails to note that the two attackers were Palestinian. Nowhere does the article itself identify the assailants as Palestinian, though that information had earlier been reported by other news services. The CNN story begins:

Two men who opened fire at Israeli security forces outside the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City were shot and killed late Sunday, according to Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

No police or soldiers were injured.

Authorities have not yet identified the alleged attackers, referring to them only as “terrorists.”

According to the time stamp, the article was last updated at 22:20 GMT. Before then, news agencies had already identified the assailants as Palestinian.

For instance at 21:37 GMT, AFP reported (“Palestinians fire at Jerusalem police, attackers shot dead: police”):

Two Palestinians opened fire on Israeli police just outside Jerusalem’s old city walls before being shot dead by officers, police told AFP. (Emphasis added).

Similarly, the Associated Press reported at 22:00 GMT:

Late Sunday, two Palestinians were fatally shot after they opened fire with automatic weapons on Israeli security forces near Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate. (Emphasis added.)

CNN again covers up Palestinian violence at the end of the brief article by reporting:

Israel has experienced a spate of violence since October.

Specifically, Israel has experienced a spate of Palestinian violence since October, key information obscured by CNN.

This is not the first time in recent months that CNN has had trouble identifying Palestinian culprits or characterizing the last few months of Palestinian violence as Palestinian. See “CNN Dances Around Palestinian Violence, Refuses to Identify Culprits” for more details.

We expose the anti-Israel lies so you don't have to. But we can't do it without your help. Join the fight -- Donate now
Tell the World – Share Now!

More from SNAPSHOTS

  • Professor John Quigley Falsely Condemns Israel and U.S. Support in His Syndicated Column

    April 30, 2019

    John B. Quigley In his widely distributed April syndicated opinion piece mainly about ISIS, the Islamist terrorist entity, John B. Quigley, an Ohio State University law professor, argues that claims of an imminent ISIS resurgence [...]

  • New York Times Adopts Erroneous ‘Palestine’ Terminology

    April 17, 2019

    In two recent articles, The New York Times has incorrectly referred to the present day West Bank or Gaza Strip as "Palestine," contrary to Times style. References to modern "Palestine" in the West Bank and [...]

  • The New York Times’ Slow Reaction to Hamas Crackdown on Palestinian Protesters

    April 4, 2019

    The New York Times took a slight jab at Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip, in a recent story about Hamas's crackdown on Palestinian protesters who spoke out against its policies in [...]

  • CNN’s Zakaria Deals With U.S. Proclamation Recognizing Golan As Part Of Israel

    April 3, 2019

    Fareed Zakaria hosted an eight-minute discussion of the Golan matter at the end of his weekly (weekend) program, “Global Public Square “ (GPS) hour-long Cable News Network (CNN) broadcast. The broadcast, on both CNN and [...]

  • Is a Fake Twitter Account Outed by NY Times Really Real?

    April 1, 2019

    In the New York Times and Israel's Yediot Ahronot, reporter Ronen Bergman relays charges that a network of fake accounts has been activated to support Benjamin Netanyahu's drive for reelection. An Israeli watchdog group has [...]

  • NY Times Reporter David Halbfinger Editorializes Israel as “Brutal”

    March 6, 2019

    New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger Israel, according to the New York Times, is a brute. A March 3 news analysis piece—not an opinion piece—by the newspaper's Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger uses [...]

  • Diminishing the Horrors of Nazism

    February 28, 2019

    There is an unfortunate tendency by some who possess a pulpit -- whether media or otherwise -- to embellish valid (or invalid) points by flippantly tossing out the epithet "Nazis". For example, MSNBC's Velshi & [...]

  • Palestinian Malevolent Indoctrination Exposed; Mainstream Media Are Indifferent

    February 26, 2019

    Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an Israel-based non-governmental organization, analyzes and presents in English to the world the ongoing inflammatory indoctrination of Palestinians in Arabic particularly via Palestinian Authority (PA) television (West Bank). PMW is a [...]

  • Did WCC Activists Attend A Birthday Party Promoted by Palestinian Extremist Organization?

    February 4, 2019

    The video is a bit fuzzy and grainy. But the footage of birthday party for Shadi Farar, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who spent three years in an Israeli jail on charges of intent to murder, [...]

  • Reuters Falsely Links Jerusalem Embassy, Two-State Solution

    January 9, 2019

    The Jerusalem office park which houses Guatemala's embassy Multiple recent Reuters articles incorrectly report that moving the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is a dramatic move away from the two-state solution. For instance, [...]