How The Media Normally Report On A Mass Atrocity

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

The Washington Post has published an article titled “Families shot down, held at ransom as they flee Darfur’s killing fields,” subtitled “Sudan’s RSF paramilitary and its allies have carried out mass ethnic killings and hostage taking in the captured city of El Fashir, survivors told The Post.”

The article opens with a paragraph humanizing the victims of the El Fashir massacres: “Families gunned down as they huddled for safety. Young children weeping over their mother’s body in the desert. Doctors seized for ransom and executed.”

It names the perpetrators, “the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces,” in the second paragraph.

It names the backers of the perpetrators in the third paragraph, saying that “The RSF is backed by the United Arab Emirates.”

It mentions the word “genocide” three separate times. “Ethnic killings” appears twice. The UAE is named repeatedly; even the fact that it is “a key U.S. ally” is explicitly highlighted.

Do you notice anything strange about this reporting?

Me neither. What stands out, reading this article here in the year 2025, is how completely and utterly normal it is.

https://x.com/caitoz/status/1985129927579255097

It’s not fantastic or extraordinary journalism, it’s just normal for a mainstream western publication. The reporters talk to the victims, describe the massacres they were told about, explain the various power dynamics at play from a mainstream western perspective, name some US officials who are pushing for a halt to the RSF’s atrocities, and use appropriately strong language to describe the horrors they are documenting — including in the headline.

They do all the normal mainstream news reporter things. They cover a depraved mass atrocity the same way they’ve typically covered such things for generations.

None of this would stand out on its own, if we hadn’t spent two years watching the mainstream western press do absolutely none of these normal journalistic things in Gaza.

The passive-language “Gazans perish in explosion” headlines. The contortions to avoid naming the perpetrator and the governments that are backing its atrocities. The adamant refusal to use the word “genocide” except to frame it as a dubious claim being made by another party which Israel forcefully denies. The wildly biased discrepancy between the strength of language used to describe violence inflicted by Israelis versus violence inflicted by Palestinians.

If the western press had not been aggressively protecting Israel and its interests this whole time, all their reporting on Gaza over the last two years would have looked very much like the reporting we’re seeing on the genocide in Sudan. There’s a discrepancy in the reporting because there’s a discrepancy in the propaganda needs of the western empire.

It is good that the western press are doing actual journalism in Sudan and covering that genocide with the normal level of urgency and emphasis. If they had been reporting on Gaza in the same way these last two years, the west’s support for Israel would have completely collapsed by now.

Which is exactly why they haven’t been doing it.

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