Reuters photographer resigns in protest at agency’s collusion with Zionist propaganda

Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink announced her resignation from Reuters after eight years with the agency, in protest at what she described as “the agency’s collusion with Zionist propaganda and its repeated justification of the assassinations of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip.”

Zink, who worked as a photographer for the agency in the Canadian Prairie provinces and whose work has been published in international outlets including The New York Times and Al Jazeera, said that continuing her relationship with Reuters had become impossible in light of its role in legitimising the killing of more than 245 Palestinian journalists during the ongoing assault on occupied Palestine. She said: “I owe this step to my colleagues in Gaza at least, and much more besides.”

Zink strongly criticized the silence of major Western media institutions, chief among them Reuters, regarding crimes by Israeli forces against journalists, noting that the agency adopted the Israeli narrative after the killing of journalist Anas Al-Sharif in a direct strike that targeted an Al Jazeera crew in Gaza. She said it published Israeli claims about his affiliation with the resistance without verifying them, calling that “one of the many lies these outlets have adopted and promoted.”

She added that this propaganda did not even protect Reuters’ own staff, referring to the death of her colleague photographer Hussam al-Masri, who was killed along with four other journalists in a double strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. She said Israeli forces use this tactic of striking a site first and then targeting it again after medical, humanitarian and press teams arrive.

Zink accused the Western media of playing a direct role in creating the conditions that allow these crimes, citing journalist Jeremy Scahill as saying that “every major outlet — from The New York Times to The Washington Post, from The Associated Press to Reuters — has become a propaganda conveyor belt for the occupation, whitewashing its crimes, stripping victims of their humanity, betraying their colleagues and abandoning any commitment to journalistic ethics.”

She said that Western media’s adoption of the Zionist narrative without verification, and their deliberate disregard for the most basic rules of journalism, has made it possible to assassinate a number of journalists in Gaza over the past two years — more than were killed in the two World Wars and in the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Ukraine combined — not to mention the starvation of the population, the tearing apart of children’s bodies, and the burning of families alive.

Zink condemned Reuters’ silence over defending Anas Al-Sharif despite his repeated pleas for protection after the Israeli military put him on a public “assassination list” on the charge of belonging to the resistance. She said that list followed a filmed report Al-Sharif produced about the escalating famine in Gaza, which was followed by direct threats from an Israeli army spokesman in a filmed clip, paving the way for his later killing — a crime the agency did not cover with even the minimum degree of journalistic honesty.

Zink concluded her statement: “I can no longer carry a Reuters badge except with a deep sense of shame and sorrow. I do not know how to begin to honor the courage and sacrifice of the journalists in Gaza — the bravest and greatest in the history of journalism — but from now on I will devote all I can to commemorating them.”

On Monday, the number of Palestinian journalists killed rose to 246 since the start of the war of extermination on the Gaza Strip, after the announcement of the death of journalist Hassan Douhan, who worked for Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, after being shot by Israeli forces in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Douhan was killed hours after five Palestinian journalists died in the horrific incident in which Israeli forces bombed the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis governorate: journalist Hussam al-Masri (Reuters), journalist Mohammad Salama (Al Jazeera), journalist Mariam Abu Daqa (AP and The Independent Arabia), journalist Muath Abu Taha (NBC), and journalist Ahmed Abu Aziz (Quds Feed). Dozens more were killed or wounded in the strike that targeted the hospital.