There has been an extraordinary amount of feedback about the reporting of the war in Gaza.
It is understandable. The war started with a brutal attack by Hamas terrorists against civilians in Israel, and soon the Israeli army began a harsh war against Hamas in the middle of Gaza’s civilians.
When watching a conflict, you can hardly not be worried, anxious or feel other difficult emotions.
Most of those who send us feedback take sides with either the Palestinians or the Israelis. We get to hear accusations from defenders of both sides that we are on the other’s side. We are criticized for the wrong choice of words, and our sources are questioned.
The same phenomenon is reported by my colleagues from broadcasting companies in other European countries. Much of the feedback is well-founded, and we take it seriously.
In this article, I open ‘s coverage of the war in Gaza. I’ll tell you what we do and with what principles, and I’ll also think about what we could have done better and what we should focus our attention on.
We carry out an information transfer task. Finns have the right to receive new, relevant and revised information about world events and form their own view.
It is important to understand that ‘s news editorial team is not a party to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. It is not our job to take a stand, even if we are asked to do so. It is not part of news work to claim to be a lawyer for a party to the conflict.
As a public service medium, Yleisradio is on the side of democracy and the rule of law. We monitor, for example, how the parties to the war comply with the legal rules of war.
So what could we have done differently last fall?
We set off too slowly and with too little volume after the attack on October 7th. The scale of the Hamas terrorist attack was only beginning to emerge piece by piece. However, the huge avalanche should have gotten us moving faster.
In that first weekend, there was a big gap between the social media content and the reliable news operator’s snapshot. The gap arose from the fact that, unlike social media operators, we, as a reliable news house, have to check the information we publish, including alleged eyewitness observations.
Reviewing videos, images and other material takes time. In this matter, we and other news media need to improve and enhance their practices so that the public can get to verified, reliable information faster.
However, it is not always possible to check information from independent sources, and in that case we openly communicate the uncertainty related to the information or from which party the information originates.
We provide content in formats that best serve the audience
Reporting on the war It’s not easy. It is often life-threatening. Journalists also rarely have equal access to information and human destinies, and it is the same in this war. The spiral of difficulty in the conflict between Israel and Hamas is increased by the fact that the parties are fundamentally different: one is a state that causes conflicts and the other is a terrorist organization that controls a civilian population of two million.
Many things make the work of journalists difficult in wars. The parties to the conflicts try to manipulate the truth and push the points of view that are important to them. The journalist’s work opportunities are limited, at least somewhat. You can usually only get to the front line of the war on the army’s journey and on the army’s terms.
Many of our foreign journalists have been reporting in Israel and the West Bank, but Israel has not allowed ‘s journalists into Gaza. We receive journalistic content from Gaza from the news agency Reuters and our other partners.
My editor however, reports from the field are at the core of ‘s foreign journalism. The task of our journalists is to ask questions, check information, listen, encounter, observe, analyze and show on behalf of and for our Finnish audience.
The fates of war victims become closer the more is known about them. Buildings collapsing due to the force of the bombs are easily distant, even if we know that someone’s home was destroyed right in front of our eyes.
Things as simple as name, age and life story help us identify with the victims of war, and these stories are best told by being there.
This is exactly what we are struggling with in the editorial department: we don’t get enough authentic material about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza because we are not allowed there.
We provide content in the forms that best serve the public
We stopped updating a separate live article following the Gaza war moment by moment on our .fi news site last week. We received worried questions about it: are we about to stop monitoring the war? Of course we don’t.
The live article was just one part of the comprehensive news coverage of the war.
We saw from the user data that the live article was no longer the place where the public found the news as the conflict continued. Separate news stories about the war in Gaza are clearly more read and watched. It is important to us that we offer our news and content in such a form that the public can find them and easily consume them.
‘s job is not to be a party to the conflict
The war in Gaza has lasted for weeks now. has made it a huge amount of content for all its channels on the web, TV and radio. The network’s fast news service, longer reports, historical context and the broad big picture of international politics linked to the conflict have been offered.
We promise to continue our quick and comprehensive monitoring, to try to get to Gaza and to open our journalistic solutions to the public again.
Thank you for your feedback!
Krista Taubert
The author is the head of international distribution for ‘s news and current affairs department.