Alwaght- Journalists have criticized Associated Press for dismissing its journalist Emily Wilder over alleged violation of the American news agency’s social media policy, saying the move reflects an unjust double-standard about who is considered “biased” when reporting on Israel-Palestine.
In a statement shared on Twitter on Saturday, Wilder said her managers at the AP told her that she had violated the news agency’s social media policy when she was fired this week, but that they did not say which tweets were in violation of that policy, or how, Al Jazeera reported.
Her dismissal on Wednesday came after right-wing groups at her alma mater, Stanford University, launched what Wilder described as a “smear campaign” against her over her student activism in defense of Palestinian rights.
It also took place during Israel’s 12-day military offensive on the Gaza Strip, which killed nearly 250 Palestinians and injured more than 1,900 others. Twelve people were also killed in Israel by rockets fired from the coastal Palestinian territory.
“I am one victim to the asymmetrical enforcement of rules around objectivity and social media that has censored so many journalists – particularly Palestinian journalists and other journalists of color – before me,” Wilder said in her statement.
Since Israeli regime launched its attacks on Gaza on May 10, there has been growing criticism of how media outlets, especially in the US, cover the conflict.
“This is disgraceful and journalism organizations that exist to demand accountability and transparency of others must hold themselves to the same standards,” US investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted on Saturday, about Wilder’s sacking.
“This is a pretty egregious case of selective enforcement,” said Khaled Elgindy, director of Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute think-tank.
“There is a reckoning coming in American journalism. Good. It’s well past time to rethink a notion of ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ that always privileged the status quo and all who benefit from it,” former US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro also tweeted.
In her statement, Wilder questioned what message her removal sends to other young people looking to get into journalism.
“I have to ask what kind of message this sends to young people who are hoping to channel righteous indignation or passion for justice into impactful storytelling,” she wrote.
“What future does it promise to aspiring reporters that an institution like The Associated Press would sacrifice those with the least power to the cruel trolling of a group of anonymous bullies? What does it mean for this industry that even sharing the painful experiences of Palestinians or interrogating the language we use to describe them can be seen as irredeemably ‘biased?'”
