Your definitive Palestine Media Toolkit
Preparing student journalists on Palestine reporting
Canadian media overwhelmingly favours Israeli perspectives, often dehumanizing or erasing Palestinians. This bias is systemic, shaping coverage across outlets.
As a media analyst at Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), I have been monitoring the genocide in Gaza and have witnessed the alarming disregard for Palestinian lives in Canadian journalism.
This toolkit serves as a roadmap to help young journalists critically assess Palestine coverage. Below, I outline the most common journalistic breaches in reporting on Gaza, the West Bank and the Palestine solidarity movement in Canada.
Exclusion of Palestinian voices
While Israeli officials and military sources are routinely cited, Palestinian voices are often missing or appear later in reports, if included at all.
In coverage of the genocide in Gaza, the Israeli military, government, and civilians are often prioritized. Meanwhile, Palestinian civilians living under bombardment, militant groups, and institutions in the occupied Palestinian territories are frequently treated with skepticism.
For example, the Gaza health authority is often dismissed by western media. In the early months of the war, it was framed as “Hamas-run” as a way to defame the institution as unreliable.
This bias extends to coverage of Palestinian protests and activism in Canada. Articles frequently prioritize pro-Israel civil society groups such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs or B’nai Brith Canada, while Palestinian perspectives appear at the bottom of the text, if they even appear at all.
This leaves Canadian audiences with a distorted understanding of occupation, violence and apartheid.
Before analyzing a news article or writing a story, it is important to ask yourself the following question:
Who is quoted? Are Palestinian voices prioritized, or is the article dominated by Israeli officials and pro-Israel groups? Are Palestinian perspectives also framed as credible or treated as “claims” while Israeli statements are presented as fact?
Impartiality and passive voice
Canadian media routinely uses language to distort reality. It justifies and neutralizes Israeli state violence through passive, impartial language, and frames Palestinian resistance as violent or illegitimate.
Canadian media uses wording that softens Israeli state violence while criminalizing Palestinian resistance.
For instance, headlines or claims in the body of a report will state, “Palestinians killed in clashes,” rather than stating that Israeli forces shot and killed Palestinians. Meanwhile, when Israeli civilians or soldiers are killed, the framing is direct: “Hamas killed about 1,200 people in raids and rocket attacks on Israel.”
This strips Israeli forces of their direct responsibility in carrying out extrajudicial killings and war crimes, while portraying Palestinian actions as deliberate, aggressive and threatening.
Canadian media repeatedly frame Israeli aggression as “self-defence.” No matter the scale or brutality of Israel’s actions, Canadian media often includes Israeli state narratives, claiming that its military operations are necessary responses to Palestinian violence.
Before analyzing a news article or writing a story, it is important to ask yourself the following question:
What language is used? Does the article use passive voice for Israeli violence but active voice for Palestinian actions?
The use of the term ‘terrorist’
A clear example of language bias in Canadian media is the selective application of the word “terrorist.” Palestinian resistance groups, whether armed or not, are frequently labelled "terrorists," reinforcing the idea that any form of Palestinian resistance is illegitimate. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers in the West Bank who burn Palestinian villages, attack civilians and commit outright acts of terrorism, are almost never described as such.
Instead, Israeli extremists are often given pacified labels such as “far-right activists” or “settlers.” This selective language downplays their violence, stripping them of accountability and making their actions seem politically motivated rather than acts of terror.
This influences how the Canadian public understands Palestinian resistance and contributes to the dehumanization of Palestinians as inherently violent and suspect.
Before analyzing a news article or writing a story, it is important to ask yourself the following questions:
What visual elements and headlines are used?: Does the headline sensationalize Palestinian actions while softening Israeli violence? Do images humanize Israeli perspectives while dehumanizing Palestinians?
Does the article perpetuate anti-Palestinian racism?: Use this lens to identify whether Canadian media portrays Palestinians as violent, irrational or inferior. To identify if an article exemplifies anti-Palestinian racism (APR), below are elements of APR according to the definition created by the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association that can show up in a text.
- If an article exhibits any of these biases, it is likely contributing to APR in Canadian media:
- The article silences, excludes or erases Palestinians
- The article stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians—thereby erasing their human rights, equal dignity and worth
- The article and author deny the Nakba and/or justify violence against Palestinians
- The reporter fails to acknowledge Palestinians as an Indigenous people with a collective identity, belonging and rights in relation to occupied and historic Palestine
- The report includes interviews that deliberately silence or pressure others to exclude Palestinian perspectives, Palestinians and allies of the movement
- The article defames Palestinians and their allies with slander such as being inherently antisemitic for being critical of Zionism and/or Israeli colonialism
- An article labels a Palestinian as a terrorist threat/sympathizer, or opposed to democratic values
Censorship of key information
Canadian media consistently excludes key facts and historical context necessary for the public to understand Israeli apartheid and Palestinians’ connection to their land. This is one of the most insidious forms of media bias because it creates a distorted narrative without appearing outright false.
A major flaw in so-called "impartial" reporting is its tendency to cover Palestine and Israeli settler-colonialism without explaining the structural systems of oppression at play.
Israeli settlements violate international law, yet articles rarely mention the violations. Gaza is described as “Hamas-controlled” without acknowledging Israel’s 17-year blockade. Israel’s genocide in Gaza is often framed as a “war between Israel and Hamas,” ignoring the reality of occupation.
By stripping articles of this context, Canadian media presents Israel’s actions as defensive and erases the power imbalance between the occupier and the occupied.
Before analyzing a news article, it is important to ask yourself the following questions:
What context is missing? Does the article acknowledge the asymmetry of power between both actors? Is there mention of the fact that Israel is an occupying power that violates international law through illegal settlements and its system of apartheid? Does it make clear that Palestinians are stateless and occupied? Does the article cite international law and human rights organizations? Are experts on war crimes and genocide included?
The ‘G’ word
Despite overwhelming evidence, Canadian media avoids calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. Instead, euphemisms like “humanitarian crisis” or “escalating violence” are used, even though multiple human rights organizations concluded Israel is committing genocide.
Journalists could attribute these findings in their reporting, yet editorial policies treat genocide as a “controversial” claim, shielding Israel from accountability. This refusal to name the crime being committed reflects the deep moral failure of Canadian journalism.
If you are looking for accessible journalistic guides that provide a foundation for reporting on Palestine and representing Palestinian voices. These resources highlight the importance of recognizing Israel as an occupying state, critically analyze official Israeli statements, and prioritize Palestinian sources: the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, the International Press Institute, and the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
I sincerely hope that this toolkit benefits young journalists who want to cover more stories on Palestine. Although Zionists make it appear complicated, Palestine is a simple issue of occupation and anti-colonial resistance.
Anyone can cover this issue. The best way for a journalist to fix Canadian coverage of Palestine is to simply champion the lived experiences of Palestinians.
This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 11, published March 18, 2025.
