demand mamamia end bias reporting pt 2

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Mamamia podcast network (02) 8999 9386

or email theeditor@mamamia.com.au

SCRIPT (use parts or all!)

I am contacting Mamamia Women’s Network to express my frustration at Mamamia’s reporting of the Israel-Gaza War.

I call it a war to follow the lead of Reuters, Al Jazeera and BBC-

However the ICJ ruling has shown it’s plausible, I would argue even probable what we are witnessing is indeed a Genocide. There is widespread concern over the proportionality of Israel’s response and indications of serious war crimes.

In the charge of Genocide brought by South Africa against Israel, it was alleged that “two mother’s are estimated killed every hour in Gaza”

Whilst Mamamia was not included in the analysis commissioned by the Islamophobia register Australia that looked at posts by major media outlets between October 7 and November 2023. As your target audience, I am shocked by the pro Israel bias in your coverage of this ongoing horror against humanity.

I was incredibly disappointed by the tokenistic humanising of one child, Hind Rajab which you headlined that she was simply ‘found dead’. Hind was killed by the IDF, along with two medics who tried to save her. She is one child in thousands that mainstream media sidestep while you quote numbers of Israeli children and hostages.

Hind died in one of the most unimaginably cruel and horrific ways for anyone, let alone a 6 year old. She did not get even one Instagram tile on mamamia’s many Instagram accounts.

What I had hoped to hear from a company whose mission was, and I quote your own words back to you:

We’re candid. Unflinchingly honest. And speak the resounding truth about what it means to be a woman - no matter what that looks like.

Whether it's the complex, lived experience of coercive control, or coming home from the maternity ward with empty arms.

• If that is all true, what about the empty arms of Palestinian mother’s in Gaza, who are right now experiencing 300% increase in miscarriages?

• What about the collapsing hospital system due to Israels targeting of hospitals, the health workers who are daily responding to numerous instances of fever and infection related to lack of feminine hygiene products?

• What about the Palestinian women so traumatised by constant bombardment, dehumanisation and lack of aid that they are getting their period a number of times during the month”

• What about an entire population of Palestinian women denied menstrual products, food, medicine, water, the women subjected to Caesarian birth without anaesthesia, denied pre and post natal care, painkillers,…. or even a safe place to shelter from ongoing bombardment.

I am asking that Mamamia reflect seriously on the real world consequences and potential destructive outcomes of your coverage across platforms.

Maryam Aldossari, a researcher of Gender Inequality of the Middle East wrote in the oppinion piece entitled ‘For Feminists silence on Gaza is no longer an option’

she writes;

silence is not a neutral stance. Silence today is a passive endorsement of the ongoing tragedy. How many more lives must be torn apart before these careful and politically “neutral” feminists find the courage to call for a ceasefire? The rising death toll isn’t just a tally; it represents individual lives, stolen futures, and a direct challenge to the principles that underpin feminism itself.

I am not even asking for mamamia to call for a ceasefire,

BUT I am seriously encouraging you to consider the analysis put forward by the report entitled A war of words: preliminary media analysis of the 2023 Israel-Gaza Conflict written by Dr Susan Carland, which urges all media outlets to consider and redress any imbalance they may have.