September 11, 2001: Television News Footage of Gleeful Palestinians Shown out of Context

Men in the Palestiani Shatila refugee camp, Lebanon, celebrating the 9/11 attacks. [Source: Associated Press / Mohamed Zatari]Television news coverage on 9/11 repeatedly shows images of Palestinians rejoicing over the 9/11 attack. According to Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University who investigated the issue, the footage was filmed during the funeral of nine people killed the day before by Israeli authorities. He said, “To show it without explaining the background, and to show it over and over again is to make propaganda for the war machine and is irresponsible.” [Agence France-Presse, 9/18/2001; Australian, 9/27/2001]