Almost a month after the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it would finish its review of how many people on its list of journalists killed in Gaza had ties to terrorist groups, an audit found that more than half of those currently listed have ties to terrorist organizations such as Hamas, The Washington Free Beacon reported on Friday.
The Free Beacon, citing an audit by the media watchdog HonestReporting, stated that at least 120 of the 209 names on the committee’s list had terror ties, and around 56 were “active, violent militants” when they were killed.
“CPJ’s database was one of the chief materials used by news outlets around the world to promulgate the narrative that the Israeli military was deliberately targeting journalists,” HonestReporting told the Free Beacon. “Evidence is increasingly indicating that terrorists were giving themselves press passes so that they could manipulate journalists into manufacturing outrage about the persecution of ostensible colleagues.
“Not only should CPJ apologize for laundering terrorist psychological warfare, news outlets should issue a sweeping wave of corrections and retractions,” the watchdog group said.
The committee told the Free Beacon that it could not comment on the audit while it was still reviewing the list.
