Peabody Awards Honor Flawed Coverage of Israel-Hamas War

One of the top prizes in media broadcasting was awarded last week to recipients who should have been called out as bad examples of the industry rather than winners of one of its highest honors.

British comedian John Oliver, pro-Palestinian “journalist” Bisan Owda, and a PBS NewsHour report all won the annual Peabody Award last Thursday (May 9) for their coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

But Oliver’s winning segment in the entertainment category lacked any context or nuance, while Owda’s and PBS‘s winning pieces in the news category made a mockery of journalism.

John Oliver Falls Short

The Peabody Awards Board stated that “with its thoughtful episode about the conflict in Israel and Palestine, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver offered an important corrective to the media landscape awash in misinformation.”

But as we showed last November, Oliver’s analysis fell short in several areas: His flawed depiction of Hamas, his portrayal of Israeli actions in Gaza, and his characterization of the discourse surrounding a ceasefire.

By viewing Hamas through a Western lens, Oliver’s shallow monologue disregards critical facts and falls for terrorist propaganda.

Moreover, Oliver’s depiction of Israel’s actions in Gaza is disturbingly one-sided.

He describes Israel’s defensive war against Hamas as “the relentless bombings of civilians,” but remains silent on Hamas’ embedding of its terror infrastructure within civilian areas.

And to top it all off, Oliver calls for a ceasefire but places the onus for that entirely on the Jewish State, totally ignoring the fact that Israel has the right to defend itself against those who seek to annihilate it.

A Pro-Palestinian “Journalist”

In the news category, the prestigious Peabody went to 25-year-old Gazan Bisan Owda for her work with social media publisher AJ+, which is owned by the Al-Jazeera media network.

But Owda wasn’t even wearing a press vest to identify herself as a journalist while reporting for the Qatari-owned propaganda outlet. In fact, Owda is an influencer who has gained millions of followers on social media by documenting her life in Gaza throughout the Israel-Hamas war, with a clear pro-Palestinian agenda.

Her winning work for AJ+ includes highlights from the videos she shared with her followers as she was sheltering from Israeli bombardments at Al-Shifa Hospital. Apparently, this was enough to impress the Peabody Board. “She shows what survival looks like for her and the masses around her, drawing on her indomitable spirit to keep the world informed of the day-to-day reality on the ground in Gaza,” the judges wrote.

Yet they didn’t seem to wonder why she had only emphasized the plight of wounded Gazans without mentioning Hamas terrorists’ presence at the medical compound.

This is not the work of a journalist, but a pro-Palestinian activist.

And her bias wasn’t a secret. Last November, The Jerusalem Post exposed a post in which she had justified Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

Apparently, the post has been removed since then but the paper included its translation from the Arabic: “For every action, there is a reaction. This means: What was expected after 75 years of occupation and 17 years of siege? … What was expected of us? … Would the families of the prisoners remain silent?”

Owda also helped distribute the terrorists’ lie blaming Israel for a deadly strike on Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital in mid-October, which was caused by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. She has not corrected or retracted her post.

And to reiterate her activism, she had no qualms repeating the slogan “Free Palestine” three times at the end of an Instagram video she posted after the announcement of her Peabody win.

The Mistakes of PBS

Another winner in the news category was “War in the Holy Land,” a PBS NewsHour special report that aired just six days after the deadly Hamas massacre on October 7.

The Peabody Board stated that the report “showed compassion and a sophisticated understanding of the politics of the region.”

But while relatively balanced, the report is full of mistakes and suspicious omissions.

Here are the most prominent inaccuracies:

• The 1948 war is described as a result of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, with no mention that the Jewish state had to defend itself against five Arab armies that attacked it immediately afterward.
• The Gaza blockade is mentioned as an Israeli policy, omitting the fact it had been also imposed by Egypt after Hamas’ 2007 takeover of the Strip.
• Jewish “settlers” are described as “gathering at the [Al Aqsa] mosque for Jewish prayers,” even though Jews are not allowed to enter the mosque and Jewish prayer is officially banned in the entire compound. The accompanying footage actually shows a crowd of ultra-Orthodox Jews celebrating the Jewish festival of Sukkot, clearly not on the Temple Mount let alone inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In addition, unless PBS were to check the addresses of any Jews visiting the area, they would not be able to ascertain whether or not they were “settlers” unless they were to buy into the extremist Palestinian position of treating all Israelis as “settlers.”

The report ends with a non-journalistic call for peace: “War moves in one direction until leaders dare to wage peace,” the host says.

She forgets to add that only a few days earlier, Hamas’ leaders dared to wage the murder, rape, and kidnapping of hundreds of innocent Israelis.

Is this report worthy of a reward or a rebuke?

Doesn’t the Peabody Board care about impartiality and fact-checking? Sadly, it seems like it values the complete opposite.

Oliver’s shallow monologue, Owda’s activism, and PBS’ News report all merit criticism, not reward.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

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