DR ERROL NARINE BENJAMIN

I HAVE ALWAYS taken it for granted that the news in the foreign media, despite all the talk about reporting the facts as they are or the objectivity that should accompany such reporting, is often twisted, manipulated, coloured, call it what you will, depending on the agendas of the reporters and their media houses or the interests they often serve, so much so that some media houses are almost predictable on their likely stance on an issue.

Like in the US, with which most of us in this country are familiar through YouTube, Facebook et al, where you can almost predict what one popular media house would say on former president Donald Trump issues as against others who are likely to be anti-Trump, or the patronage some offer to the liberal 'left' and "woke' issues, while another may be severely critical.

Even here in this country, although such bifurcation is virtually absent, much to our credit, you can speak reasonably about one being 'conservative' and the other "liberal,' with a mix of both in all three.

But never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that an issue can be dichotomised politically and ideologically to such an extent that opposing views can degenerate into the kind of acrimony we witness nowadays in the social and mainstream media, as with the Israel/Gaza conflict.

Normally on an issue the standard approach is to be nuanced and critical, taking a multi-faceted instead of a one-dimensional view. This is sometimes the case for often with enlightened thinkers you get the pros and cons of a given situation, which you often see with some reporters on the Israel/Gaza situation, Piers Morgan being one of them, but more often than not it is one side or nothing with a fervour hitherto unimaginable.

Which brings us to the issue of media sources on the Israel/Gaza conflict and their levels of credibility. The average viewer like myself is obliged to consider what is offered as 'fact,' because it's all you've got with no way of verifying same. In this instance, however, you are mesmerised by the stark opposing views on the same issue from different media houses, as, for example, with regard to the alleged atrocities of October 7.

Surfing YouTube you are confronted with a variety of endorsements on the subject involving reputable names like Douglas Murray, author and associate editor of The Spectator and the Hindustan Times, inter alia, and this with a level of emotionalism that is somewhat at variance with the objectivity of standard news reporting.

But equally so there are vehement denials of such allegations, notably from campus groups in the US and other pro-Palestinian supporters who insist that such allegations are mere propaganda and that whatever may have occurred on October 7 is the historical outcome of years of Israeli occupation, not to mention, of course, the continuous bombing of Gaza and the deaths of thousands of civilians.

And this does not exist merely at the level of debate. It is now manifesting itself in violent riots across t

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