16 April 2024 - Covering Israel's war on Hamas

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G’day Squizer. We’re featuring something different this week, and that’s our chat with award-winning journo Adam Harvey.

At The Squiz, we spend a lot of time and effort ensuring we read widely from trusted sources and putting aside our own biases to give you the best possible information. Every now and then, there is a news topic that is particularly challenging - and Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza is one of those.

To have a chance of getting across what’s going on requires wading through layers of historical context, confronting deeply distressing scenes, and wrangling reams of information from a variety of sources - some with heavy agendas. That means we’re curious about how this war is being covered and the logistics of reporting on a war. 

So, this week’s News Club podcast episode is an interview with Adam Harvey. He is a reporter with ABC TV’s 7.30 and was their Middle East and South East Asia correspondent. He has also done stints with Sky News and won awards for his work reporting in Syria.

Throughout this conversation, Adam talks about his experience of being a journalist working in the Middle East, and how different it was when he returned late last year. He explains how journalists get their information and the important role of a ‘fixer’, and we ask him whether he would ever have thought the events of 7 October were possible and if he is surprised by Israel’s response.

To support this topic, our Club Picks this week are:

1. This article that was written by Adam himself. He talks about it in the podcast because it was published 24 hours after the 7 October attack. Note: he talks about how Israeli intelligence failed to anticipate it.

2. He also discusses CNN reporter Clarissa Ward, one of the only reporters who has been able to enter Gaza without an escort. Here is a piece she produced after doing so. 

3. Adam recommends this podcast by Yonit Levi of Israel’s Channel 12 News and Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian - 2 prominent journalists - called Unholy: Two Jews on The News.

4. Finally, Adam pointed us in the direction of 3 books called ‘Jerusalem’ as background to a city he and so many others love: Simon Montefiore’s biography Jerusalem*, Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collin’s O! Jerusalem*, which covers the events surrounding the creation of the state, and Ottolengi’s famous Jerusalem cookbook*.

We hope you’ll listen to the podcast - it’s an insightful and thoughtful conversation and lifts the lid on how journalism is made. But if you just have time for the Club Picks, you’ll be one step further down the road of upping your news knowledge.

Your friends in news
Kate Watson and Claire Kimball

*Buy using this link and The Squiz might get a little commission.

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