An ethical journalist acts with integrity. As I sat in my first ever journalism class, staring at the sentence scrawled on the chalkboard, my heart soared with the conviction that I was entering a field defined by truth.

But just two months later, as Israeli bombs reduced the streets of Gaza to rubble, I watched Western media justify the countless Palestinian lives stolen, as though my people’s suffering was disposable. Each death fractured my heart, while media organizations played a cruel game of linguistic gymnastics to avoid recognizing the depravity of genocide. Stories were told without context, headlines stripped of humanity, and the integrity I had been promised felt like an illusion. My faith in journalism collapsed, reduced to rubble alongside the buildings of my homeland.

Now, in the first journalism class of my junior year, I find myself staring at the same words again. Only this time, it doesn’t feel inspirational, it feels empty. 

On August 10th, the Israeli “Defense” Forces, more aptly referred to as the Israeli Occupation Forces, targeted Anas al-Sharif and five of his colleagues, murdering them inside their media tent. Their brutal killings were the newest addition to the death toll of at least 226 journalists and media workers that have been murdered by Israel since October 7th, 2023 (source.) 

But it is imperative to realize that Anas al-Sharif was not merely a nameless statistical marker in a death toll that Israel and every complicit media organization continues to contest, minimize, and erase. Anas al-Sharif was a beacon of hope and steadfastness for Palestinians in Gaza and for those in the diaspora who clung to his reporting as a lifeline. Anas al-Sharif was a loving father to two beautiful children and a devoted husband. Anas al-Sharif was a journalist who embodied integrity more fully than the entire western media apparatus combined. 

Mohamed Qreiqeh was not a number. Ibrahim Zaher was not a number. Mohammed Noufal was not a number. Moamen Aliwa was not a number. Mohamed al-Khaldi was not a number. These were people with lives and families and aspirations that were cut short in Israel’s campaign to silence their greatest enemy: the truth.

Each time a Palestinian journalist is murdered, the myth of ethical and integrity-driven journalism dies with them. 

Israel proudly accepted culpability for these murders, rushing to brand al-Sharif as “the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organization” and alleging that he was “responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops:” fabricated accusations without a shred of evidence. This baseless smear campaign began long before al-Sharif’s murder, as his reporting exposed the extent of Israel’s weaponization of extreme starvation in the perpetuation of complete and total genocide and ethnic cleansing. Humanitarian organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, had already warned of the danger he faced and called for his protection.

Unsurprisingly, this failed to qualify as the headliner that western media craves. After all, how can we truly consider the systemic targeting of journalists in Palestine a priority when Taylor Swift is releasing a new album soon? When a CEO is caught cheating at a Coldplay concert, how does the murder of at least 62,000 innocent Palestinians and the mass starvation of over 2 million seem relevant? 

Instead, pathetic excuses for hard-hitting investigative journalists reported this tragedy simply as the death of journalists who Israel claimed were affiliated with Hamas. In the same breath that they used to flaccidly report the murder of their supposed peers–a killing that is not only a war crime but a direct attempt at silencing the truth and preparing for a further escalation of mass genocide–they gave value to the baseless and entirely untrue claims that were created for the sole reason of minimizing his death. 

Is this journalism? Is this integrity? As a journalist and as a human being, I can guarantee with absolute certainty that the coverage on this genocide is the most unethical and corrupt abuse of power and public trust that I have seen in recent history. I am embarrassed, not only on behalf of my profession but on behalf of humanity itself. 

The only ethical journalism that remains lives within the souls of the journalists of Gaza, who wake up everyday to point a camera, hands shaking with starvation and fear, towards the atrocities that this occupational monster perpetuates in hopes that this world will wake up and do something. The only hope left for journalism exists within the hearts of the journalists of Gaza, who pause their reporting to pull children out of rubble or share the meager meal they’ve been saving for days with their elders. It is precisely this fire, this love, that Israel seeks to extinguish with every journalist that they murder. And it is precisely this fire, this love, that will never die within the hearts of Palestine. 

In his final statement to the world, al-Sharif declared “I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.” It is our duty, regardless of our race or religion or any arbitrary border, to unify in a fight for liberation. Palestine has never been solely a Muslim issue, an Arab issue, a socialist issue, a Gen-Z issue, or a movement defined by any qualifying factors that serve as borders to restrain us. Palestine is a human issue, and at this moment, humanity is failing. We cannot continue to rely on journalism, rife with corruption and dishonor, to save us. We cannot rely on our world leaders, without backbones or commitment to humanity, to save us. We must heed al-Sharif’s call and fight before it’s too late.