MRC Promoted Bogus Claim That Photojournalists Embedded With Hamas

Nicholas Fondacaro loves spreading lies — we just documented him lying that a Palestinian Instagram influencer was a “crisis actor.” A couple days before he started that lie, he repeated another one in a Nov. 8 post:

On Wednesday, HonestReporting drew attention to what they described as “ethical questions” stemming from the fact that local Gazan photojournalists affiliated with the Associated Press, CNN, the New York Times, and Reuters followed Hamas terrorists through their breaches in the border fence and into Israel during the October 7 terrorist attack. This led to accusations that these journalists were “embedded” with the terrorists and that they were given advanced notice of the attack.

In the subsection titled “AP: Photojournalists or Infiltrators?,” HonestReporting identified four photojournalists with various ties to Western liberal media outlets who somehow found themselves among the chaos of the invasion of Israel that was a shock to everyone but those who planned it. The reporters of note were “Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud, and Hatem Ali.”

“What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas?” HonestReporting wondered. “Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and The New York Times, notify these outlets?”

The answer was obvious to Free Beacon contributor Noah Pollak, who posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Important expose by @honestreporting: Photographers working for AP, CNN, NYT, and Reuters were EMBEDDED with Hamas on 10/7 and accompanied the terrorist group into Israel. They knew the attack was coming, and participated in it.”

Fondacaro followed up with a post the next day noting that the media outlets in question denied having any advance knowledge of Hamas’ attack. But he didn’t tell readers the truth: that the allegation was a lie.

The Associated Press reported that HonestReporting admitted it never had any evidence to back up its claims of embedding; it insisted it was merely asking “legitimate questions” and that despite its name, “we don’t claim to be a news organization.” But because the lie serves the MRC’s anti-media narratives, not only did it stay silent about the lie being exposed, it chose to perpetuate the lie. Curtis Houck ranted about the lie being called out in a Nov. 10 post:

On Thursday night, CNN sent out its cartoonishly pathetic senior media reporter Oliver Darcy to do what he dubbed “Shooting Down a Smear” in the wake of HonestReporting’s bombshell alleging Gaza freelance journalists for CNN and The New York Times as well as Associated Press and Reuters embedded with Hamas terrorists during the group’s animalistic October 7 terror attack.

[…]

Touting the outlets “strongly pushing back against the report from the staunchly pro-Israel media watchdog, HonestReporting, that claimed photographers for the news outlets were present during the initial attack,” Darcy insinuated there’s nothing further to see since the AP and CNN “severed ties with the freelance photographer Hassan Eslaiah”.

The former conservative reporter pointed to an AP story doing damage control and doing what the liberal media do when targeted, which is try to smear and maim those who criticize them:

When Darcy cited the AP takedown of the lie, Houck whined without evidence that “Darcy and the AP were a tad misleading”:

HonestReporting published a statement Friday morning that, while they “unequivocally condemn calls for violence or death threats aimed at bona fide media workers” and disagree with arguments that there’s no distinction between terrorists and journalists, “HonestReporting stands behind the legitimate questions we asked media outlets in our recent expose.”

Back to CNN from the night prior, the dictatorial dweeb bemoaned that “the damage had already been done” in that “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…used HonestReporting’s story to give credence to the false notion that newsrooms were aware of the terror attack prior to it taking place” with a member of his war cabinet saying terrorists and those who stood as “idle bystanders…are no different”.

Actually, Houck is the one who’s being a tad misleading here, having deliberately omitted the fact that HonestReporting admitted it never had any evidence to back up its claims.

Houck promoted the lie again in another Nov. 10 post promoting an interview NewsNation host Leland Vittert (a former Fox News personality) did with IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus:

After alluding to the HonestReporting bombshell about Gaza freelancers, he asked Conricus for his reaction whenever he “see[s]…that the stories that Israel puts out and then the…same validity given to information coming from Hamas in American media.”

Conricus acknowledged journalists shouldn’t be threatened before hitting the nail on the head that Gaza journalists “report what Hamas allows them to report…and, if they don’t prove correctly, according to the Hamas message page, then they” and their families “face consequences.”

He even called them “compromised”:

[…]

Vittert spoke from experience on that issue: “I dealt with it myself. I mean, I — I worked with stringers in Gaza as well. And you had to — you had to sort of — ba — try — try and figure out what was Hamas propaganda and what were they really trying to tell you.”

Houck did not indicate whether Vittert and Conricus discussed whether journalists who cooperated with the IDF are “compromised” because they report only what the IDF allows them to report.

This also spread to an interview MRC executive Dan Schneider did with far-right writer Sara Carter, as detailed in a Nov. 10 post by Tom Olohan:

Liberal media photojournalists employed by CNN, Reuters, The New York Times and The Associated Press have been accused of embedding with Hamas during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks against the nation of Israel. According to NewsBusters, on Nov. 8, The Associated Press, CNN, The New York Times and Reuters have all responded to HonestReporting’s story with reactions ranging from cutting ties with the photojournalists in question to defending their work. You can read NewsBusters’ reporting on their statements here.

Schneider commented on these atrocities in his interview with Carter. “[T]these photojournalists were embedded with the Hamas terrorists before the attack began,” Schneider explained. “They knew the attack was going to commence. They did not warn anybody that the attack was going to commence.” 

Schneider also predicted that there will be consequences for the journalists involved in attacks. “I think we’re going to see big lawsuits by the families of the murdered victims and the injured victims against AP, CNN, [The] New York Times and Reuters at a minimum for paying these, their own photojournalists kept silent about what was about to happen,” said Schneider

Carter agreed, also calling for lawsuits. “I certainly hope so. I hope every single family that is connected and has lost a loved one or has a loved one who has been taken, or who was harmed in any way shape or form or had to flee their home or has family in the United States, I hope there are multiple lawsuits across the board, targeting these news agencies,” Carter said.

No mention, of course, that the story was a lie. The narrative, however bogus, is more important than the truth, remember?