MSNBC Guest Who Slammed Pro-Israel Coverage Doubles Down

‘My frustration comes from my love for journalism and media and my love for unbiased journalists’

MSNBC Guest Who Called Out Israel Coverage Returns for Heated Talk with Chris Hayes (Mediaite)

MSNBC contributor Rula Jebreal said on MSNBC yesterday that the network (as well as the rest of the media) is betraying a pro-Israel bias in its coverage of the Gaza conflict, and tweeted hours later all her future TV appearances were pulled. Fortunately, Chris Hayes brought her on his show tonight for a fierce debate over the media’s “responsibility” in how to cover the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Hayes suggested that certain media outlets, MSNBC included, have been doing a much better job of being fair, even if she’s right about imbalanced coverage. But Jebreal argued it’s not good enough, because the media is still “creating a disservice” by taking a largely pro-Israel side and ignoring the Palestinians living “under siege.”

She said the media is supporting a “destructive” Israeli policy and gives way too much airtime to Israeli officials as opposed to Palestinian ones. Hayes shot back that firstly, it’s been hard for the networks to book Hamas officials in the first place, and secondly, airtime may not be as good a metric to judge with as toughness of the interviews themselves.

Jebreal maintained that they’re not “being interviewed in the same way” and the media’s abdicating its responsibility by essentially taking a side.

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