What do you think?
Rate this book
How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza
As bombs rained down on Gaza in October 2023, images of mass death and destruction gripped the world, and openly genocidal statements from Israeli leaders foretold the magnitude of horrors to come. But the US media was quick to downplay, obscure, and repackage an emerging campaign of extermination into a slick “war on terror” framework.
How to Sell a Genocide is a thorough indictment of US corporate media's role in enabling—and, at times, directly inciting—one of the most devastating campaigns of mass killing in modern memory. Johnson unpacks how major news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC systematically sanitised Israel's war crimes, hid the US’s central role, and dehumanised the Palestinian people.
Drawing from deep, original data-driven analysis, Johnson dissects the mechanics of propaganda, from the selective empathy, strategic omissions, overt racism and repetition of state-sanctioned falsehoods, to the demonisation of humanitarian workers and dishonest coverage of campus protests. With clarity and moral force, Johnson argues that the genocide could not have been sustained without the active, sustained complicity of the US media.
How to Sell a Genocide is a thorough indictment of US corporate media's role in enabling—and, at times, directly inciting—one of the most devastating campaigns of mass killing in modern memory. Johnson unpacks how major news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC systematically sanitised Israel's war crimes, hid the US’s central role, and dehumanised the Palestinian people.
Drawing from deep, original data-driven analysis, Johnson dissects the mechanics of propaganda, from the selective empathy, strategic omissions, overt racism and repetition of state-sanctioned falsehoods, to the demonisation of humanitarian workers and dishonest coverage of campus protests. With clarity and moral force, Johnson argues that the genocide could not have been sustained without the active, sustained complicity of the US media.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
April 26, 2026
However angry you think you are with the Biden/Harris administration and the liberal pundit class, I can promise you it is not enough. To have witnessed a live-streamed genocide, in HD, for 2+ years, while we are told we must fall in line and reward them with 4 more years of power, has psychological repercussions beyond my own understanding. But what Adam has described in painful detail here is, it was not done in a vacuum. The state and media apparatus, through well-documented and refined methods of dehumanization, distraction, and manipulation, have laundered mass extermination and genocide into a palatable Feel Good narrative that is already being used to rewrite history.
By walking us through the detailed analysis of thousands of articles, news shows, and essays, my rage feels renewed. The campus protests and fake narratives on crises of antisemitism; the silencing of any and all voices critical of israel and its genocidal policies; the orientalist tropes of biologically violent and sadist Arabs who lack cognitive ability - it's all meant to utterly dehumanize the Palestinian people and render their resistance outside the human condition. We must never forget: an occupied people have the absolute right - moral and legal - to resist their occupiers. By any means necessary.
By walking us through the detailed analysis of thousands of articles, news shows, and essays, my rage feels renewed. The campus protests and fake narratives on crises of antisemitism; the silencing of any and all voices critical of israel and its genocidal policies; the orientalist tropes of biologically violent and sadist Arabs who lack cognitive ability - it's all meant to utterly dehumanize the Palestinian people and render their resistance outside the human condition. We must never forget: an occupied people have the absolute right - moral and legal - to resist their occupiers. By any means necessary.
May 5, 2026
It’s almost shameful to admit now, but at the onset of the genocide I was a print subscriber to NYT. Each Sunday, reading through the paper became a ritual of driving myself insane as what was clearly unfolding before my eyes was minimized, obfuscated, or just ignored.
Johnson is an excellent media critic - I would highly recommend his podcast Citations Needed - and he has all the receipts on the first year of the genocide as covered through what is commonly referred to as the liberal media. He has the data to back the feeling I had when reading the NYT’s coverage.
It really should be enough evidence to send some of these editors and ‘journalists’ to The Hague, but as he points out in the conclusion, it’s unlikely any of these people will face any negative consequences because no one has ever faced consequences for parroting the State Department’s line. In fact careers will probably advance further, just like they did for those who helped sell the Iraq War. At least we have books like these to record the crimes committed.
Johnson is an excellent media critic - I would highly recommend his podcast Citations Needed - and he has all the receipts on the first year of the genocide as covered through what is commonly referred to as the liberal media. He has the data to back the feeling I had when reading the NYT’s coverage.
It really should be enough evidence to send some of these editors and ‘journalists’ to The Hague, but as he points out in the conclusion, it’s unlikely any of these people will face any negative consequences because no one has ever faced consequences for parroting the State Department’s line. In fact careers will probably advance further, just like they did for those who helped sell the Iraq War. At least we have books like these to record the crimes committed.
April 28, 2026
Quick read, several fugue states, Hague indictment material
July 2, 2026
in an era of widespread anti-intellectualism and hand-waving “it’s not that deep” “the blue curtain is just blue” rhetoric, it is increasingly important to continue critically examining the power of language, specifically in how ~mainstream media uses language to push certain narratives under the guise of fair and neutral reporting
both well-researched and accessible, how to sell a genocide should be required reading for any U.S. leftists looking to stand in solidarity with palestine
both well-researched and accessible, how to sell a genocide should be required reading for any U.S. leftists looking to stand in solidarity with palestine
May 14, 2026
Very bleak with a particularly bleak ending but a very necessary read. If there was any semblance of justice in this world every single figure in “establishment” media would be tried in The Hague for laundering the coverage required to commit the genocide in Gaza.
June 14, 2026
This book should be required reading for anyone casting a ballot in the U.S. Following Joe Biden announcing that he is a proud Zionist, I thought he mustn't really understand what that is and what they have always stood for. Through exhaustive research and scores of pages of citations, Johnson exposes what the center-left media has done to both promote the cause of Israel and garner support for their campaign of genocide. From the New York Times to the Washington Post, The Atlantic, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, the message that the Israeli government wants people to hear has been promoted through the aforementioned outlets, but there are many more. We all know how the right does this but although they are far more racist and far less intellectual, their message is essentially the same. The information that is provided, the way language is used to soften people's views on Israel, they have distorted, lied about, and failed to cover the story, the whole story.
The book covers American center-left reporting from the Hamas attack on October 11 for the year after. When covering stories about the impact of Israeli actions, young Israelis are called children while young Palestinians are referred to as minors- sometimes in the same sentence. When the lie about the 40 beheaded babies became public, they referred to it long after it had been thoroughly debunked. Hamas are referred to as terrorists while Israeli attacks on Palestinians are characterized as being necessary and done with heavy hearts by the Israeli military. Israel has always presented itself as the only democracy in the Middle East and the underdog but that democracy is extended only to Israeli citizens, not to the Palestinians from whom the land has been stolen.
Journalists are under pressure to present the slanted view in the way they do from publishers and have often adopted a "go along to get along" attitude- oftentimes because they will not be published, on air, or fired if they do not, but that does not justify their actions. Anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses have been characterized as anti-Semitic even when the participants have been Jewish. Many have been expelled, many have even been denied their degrees.
Americans, through their taxes, have financed the genocide. All Biden needed to do during Israel's terrorism was to let Israel know, in no uncertain terms, that all forms of aid to their country would be cut off. That would have ended it. It could end it all now. Congress is filled with people supporting Netanyahoo and his murderous regime- This is perhaps the only bi-partisan activity they engage in.
The book, and others on the subject, have adjusted the way I look at candidates. If they support the Israeli government, that is two strikes against them. Ireland is one of the few countries where people en masse have actively fought against the horror. Between the evil of the Trump regime and the support for Israel, I regret having moved back from Ireland.
The book covers American center-left reporting from the Hamas attack on October 11 for the year after. When covering stories about the impact of Israeli actions, young Israelis are called children while young Palestinians are referred to as minors- sometimes in the same sentence. When the lie about the 40 beheaded babies became public, they referred to it long after it had been thoroughly debunked. Hamas are referred to as terrorists while Israeli attacks on Palestinians are characterized as being necessary and done with heavy hearts by the Israeli military. Israel has always presented itself as the only democracy in the Middle East and the underdog but that democracy is extended only to Israeli citizens, not to the Palestinians from whom the land has been stolen.
Journalists are under pressure to present the slanted view in the way they do from publishers and have often adopted a "go along to get along" attitude- oftentimes because they will not be published, on air, or fired if they do not, but that does not justify their actions. Anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses have been characterized as anti-Semitic even when the participants have been Jewish. Many have been expelled, many have even been denied their degrees.
Americans, through their taxes, have financed the genocide. All Biden needed to do during Israel's terrorism was to let Israel know, in no uncertain terms, that all forms of aid to their country would be cut off. That would have ended it. It could end it all now. Congress is filled with people supporting Netanyahoo and his murderous regime- This is perhaps the only bi-partisan activity they engage in.
The book, and others on the subject, have adjusted the way I look at candidates. If they support the Israeli government, that is two strikes against them. Ireland is one of the few countries where people en masse have actively fought against the horror. Between the evil of the Trump regime and the support for Israel, I regret having moved back from Ireland.
May 2, 2026
“The primary role of our Center-Left media… was not to accurately convey reality but, for want of a better descriptor, to make their readers and viewers feel better… about their country, about their president, their institutions, and themselves. It was to rationalize, negotiate, obscure, and, ultimately, deny the most inconvenient of truths: a genocide carried out, defended, and authored by elite liberals and liberal institutions” (p. 5).
A total red-pill (said ironically). Like Alec Karakatsanis’ “Copaganda” and Michael Parenti’s “Inventing Reality,” a book that exposes the moral and intellectual rot at the core of elite liberal media, and, by association, the Very Serious political circles from which they source their opinions. Found the quantitative analysis especially interesting and important to drive the argument home. Also, I cannot stress this enough: the Editor in Chief of “The Atlantic” was an IDF prison guard during the First Intifada!
Anyways, I’d call it a must-read, especially as someone who consumes news from a handful of the outlets mentioned in this book semi-regularly: reading media criticism makes you an infinetly more discerning reader. Check it out and fuck Jake Tapper, Eliot A. Cohen, David Leonhardt, Graeme Wood, Joe Scarborough, and the many, many other sanctimonious scumbags who ran (and in many cases, continue to run) cover for genocide. Like Johnson, I’m not convinced any of them will pay for it in any real way, but in a just world, they would.
A total red-pill (said ironically). Like Alec Karakatsanis’ “Copaganda” and Michael Parenti’s “Inventing Reality,” a book that exposes the moral and intellectual rot at the core of elite liberal media, and, by association, the Very Serious political circles from which they source their opinions. Found the quantitative analysis especially interesting and important to drive the argument home. Also, I cannot stress this enough: the Editor in Chief of “The Atlantic” was an IDF prison guard during the First Intifada!
Anyways, I’d call it a must-read, especially as someone who consumes news from a handful of the outlets mentioned in this book semi-regularly: reading media criticism makes you an infinetly more discerning reader. Check it out and fuck Jake Tapper, Eliot A. Cohen, David Leonhardt, Graeme Wood, Joe Scarborough, and the many, many other sanctimonious scumbags who ran (and in many cases, continue to run) cover for genocide. Like Johnson, I’m not convinced any of them will pay for it in any real way, but in a just world, they would.
April 25, 2026
Despite having followed the genocide closely, such forensic recap still packs a massive punch. Grim but realistic conclusion which I agree with.
I would just mention The Grayzone as major source of debunking media lies which in this book are ascribed to The Intercept which didn't really do it first. Great read, sobering.
I would just mention The Grayzone as major source of debunking media lies which in this book are ascribed to The Intercept which didn't really do it first. Great read, sobering.
April 25, 2026
I appreciated the thorough methodology and approach taken in the research of this book. The writing is clear and astute, and where subjectivity is applied regarding word choice or phrasing, well thought out justification is provided. Even though the content isn't necessarily revelatory to anyone who has witnessed and paid heed to the flagrant (unsurprising but nevertheless grossly disappointing) media complicity (perpetuation/perpetration) of Israel's genocide on Gaza, it doesn't undermine the importance of this well-documented account. I also appreciated that this book occupies a space where it makes sense for an American author to have written it -- Johnson doesn't stretch beyond what is appropriate for his positionality as a media critic, which is a level of sensitivity and journalistic and academic professionalism not always upheld. Johnson limits his substantiated opinion on future prospects to a very short conclusion, and while it is bleak (and inshallah doesn't play out), is not unrealistic. Free Palestine.
May 6, 2026
A well needed shot of moral clarity in an increasingly obfuscated society in which empty handwringing, blatant dehumanizing propaganda, and a media in servitude to empire have enabled and advanced the horrific destruction of Gaza.
What was it Lenin said about “freedom of the press” amongst capitalists over 100 years ago? What were Nyerere’s thoughts on America’s two party system? Both are integral to an analysis of the conditions that have lead to such a disgrace, and Johnson here thankfully leaves no stone unturned in his excoriation of the neoliberal media’s “coverage” of late 2023 and 2024 in Gaza and the campus protests.
“Who is allowed to be human?” Johnson muses, amongst analyzing hundreds of leading, doubt sowing headlines and fluff articles from the media that blatantly answer: in their eyes, certainly not Palestinians.
Essential reading.
What was it Lenin said about “freedom of the press” amongst capitalists over 100 years ago? What were Nyerere’s thoughts on America’s two party system? Both are integral to an analysis of the conditions that have lead to such a disgrace, and Johnson here thankfully leaves no stone unturned in his excoriation of the neoliberal media’s “coverage” of late 2023 and 2024 in Gaza and the campus protests.
“Who is allowed to be human?” Johnson muses, amongst analyzing hundreds of leading, doubt sowing headlines and fluff articles from the media that blatantly answer: in their eyes, certainly not Palestinians.
Essential reading.
July 9, 2026
Adam, I relived my frustrations with corporate media while also feeling vindicated for my bias against it. This book confirms why independent media is so important. It also explains why nihilism is so rampant among normies. Thank you and your team for pursuing the universal truth.
June 8, 2026
We zijn niet boos genoeg. In plaats van mijn mening hier te delen – ik ben het eens met argumenten in dit werk – wil ik een korte samenvatting geven en een lijstje van nieuwe termen delen. Twee uitspraken galmden in mijn hoofd tijdens mijn lectuur. Zo zei een docent van me ooit: ‘Staat Israël is een spiegel van het Westen.’ En ik geloof dat het Sylvana Simons was die ooit zei (of het was Anja Meulenbelt): ‘Denk je nou echt dat 400 jaar aan kolonialisme geen invloed heeft achtergelaten op ons denken?’
Het begint met een analyse hoe Palestijns verzet (en een vaag idee van Hamas) direct wordt gelijkgesteld met islamitisch fundamentalisme. Het maakt niet uit of deze berichtgeving echt juist is, zolang de juiste woorden in dezelfde combinatie genoemd worden. Zolang het inspeelt op een westers wereldbeeld en genocidaal denken ondersteunt, hoeft het immers niet verder onderzocht te worden. De dubbele standaard is bizar, maar jammer genoeg niet verrassend in een racistisch paradigma.
Daarna focust het op de actieve ontmenselijking van Palestijnen op taalkundig en narratief gebied. Zo wordt er steevast gepraat in hele raciale termen omtrent Palestijns geweld (‘slachten’, ‘barbaars’), terwijl veel grootschaliger zionistisch geweld zachtjes wordt goedgepraat. Het verklaart hoe ook ‘fatsoenlijke’, ‘liberale’, ‘linkse’ en serieuze media helpt om Westerse actoren als zogenaamd hulpeloos te schetsen.
Amerikaanse Democratische archetypen zijn:
- ‘Helpless Biden’ (het Westen kan niets doen aan zionistisch geweld);
- ‘Fuming/Deeply Concerned Biden’ (we vinden het heel erg (punt)) en
- ‘Third Partying’ (als wij stoppen met genocidaal geweld doorzetten, dan doet iemand anders het wel.
Hierna wordt liberaal ‘Oh Dear!-ism’ uiteengezet. Hoe berichtgeving in woordgebruik actief uitgevoerd geweld presenteert als een natuurlijk kwaad. Natuurlijk is fatsoenlijk publiek verdrietig over Gaza, maar daar eindigt het bij. Kritiek op krachten die verdriet veroorzaken dient gecensureerd te worden door deze ‘fatsoenlijke’ kanalen. Dit is het punt waarin de analyse draait van het falen van westerse mediakanalen naar het falen van de westerse rechtsstaat in het algemeen. Denk hierbij aan o.a. racistische bedrijfsvoering in HR-speak tot simpelweg doxxen.
Hierna komt de nadruk te liggen op de dubbele standaarden in de geloofwaardigheid van Israëlische bronnen tegenover alle andere internationale mensenrechtenorganisaties ooit (ongeveer). Denk hierbij aan de gehallucineerde Hamastunnels onder ziekenhuizen. Dat bewezen wordt dat deze verhalen kul zijn, maakt niet uit, een constante stroom aan onkritische berichtgeving geeft het beeld dat iedere Palestijn een terrorist is.
Langzamerhand gaat de analyse zichzelf herhalen, toch ben ik er nog steeds niet overheen hoe diepgeworteld racistische dubbele standaarden werken in berichtgeving en taal. Fatsoenlijke kenniscreatie vervult één functie: onszelf overtuigen dat we onze eigen medeplichtigheid achteraf nicht gewußt haben.
- Ga dit lezen in plaats van het NRC, NOS of al helemaal the New York Times, brr -
Het begint met een analyse hoe Palestijns verzet (en een vaag idee van Hamas) direct wordt gelijkgesteld met islamitisch fundamentalisme. Het maakt niet uit of deze berichtgeving echt juist is, zolang de juiste woorden in dezelfde combinatie genoemd worden. Zolang het inspeelt op een westers wereldbeeld en genocidaal denken ondersteunt, hoeft het immers niet verder onderzocht te worden. De dubbele standaard is bizar, maar jammer genoeg niet verrassend in een racistisch paradigma.
Daarna focust het op de actieve ontmenselijking van Palestijnen op taalkundig en narratief gebied. Zo wordt er steevast gepraat in hele raciale termen omtrent Palestijns geweld (‘slachten’, ‘barbaars’), terwijl veel grootschaliger zionistisch geweld zachtjes wordt goedgepraat. Het verklaart hoe ook ‘fatsoenlijke’, ‘liberale’, ‘linkse’ en serieuze media helpt om Westerse actoren als zogenaamd hulpeloos te schetsen.
Amerikaanse Democratische archetypen zijn:
- ‘Helpless Biden’ (het Westen kan niets doen aan zionistisch geweld);
- ‘Fuming/Deeply Concerned Biden’ (we vinden het heel erg (punt)) en
- ‘Third Partying’ (als wij stoppen met genocidaal geweld doorzetten, dan doet iemand anders het wel.
Hierna wordt liberaal ‘Oh Dear!-ism’ uiteengezet. Hoe berichtgeving in woordgebruik actief uitgevoerd geweld presenteert als een natuurlijk kwaad. Natuurlijk is fatsoenlijk publiek verdrietig over Gaza, maar daar eindigt het bij. Kritiek op krachten die verdriet veroorzaken dient gecensureerd te worden door deze ‘fatsoenlijke’ kanalen. Dit is het punt waarin de analyse draait van het falen van westerse mediakanalen naar het falen van de westerse rechtsstaat in het algemeen. Denk hierbij aan o.a. racistische bedrijfsvoering in HR-speak tot simpelweg doxxen.
Hierna komt de nadruk te liggen op de dubbele standaarden in de geloofwaardigheid van Israëlische bronnen tegenover alle andere internationale mensenrechtenorganisaties ooit (ongeveer). Denk hierbij aan de gehallucineerde Hamastunnels onder ziekenhuizen. Dat bewezen wordt dat deze verhalen kul zijn, maakt niet uit, een constante stroom aan onkritische berichtgeving geeft het beeld dat iedere Palestijn een terrorist is.
Langzamerhand gaat de analyse zichzelf herhalen, toch ben ik er nog steeds niet overheen hoe diepgeworteld racistische dubbele standaarden werken in berichtgeving en taal. Fatsoenlijke kenniscreatie vervult één functie: onszelf overtuigen dat we onze eigen medeplichtigheid achteraf nicht gewußt haben.
- Ga dit lezen in plaats van het NRC, NOS of al helemaal the New York Times, brr -
April 26, 2026
For two and a half years mass media has systematically lied, obscured, deflected, and obliterated journalistic standards in a show of unconditional material support of our government’s false narratives defaming all Palestinians and enabling what all reputable human rights organizations have described as genocide.
This behavior is nothing new. What’s different now is they haven’t been able to freeze out all other media. I recently heard the quote “morality is long term common sense.” Institutional power warps that reality. People begin to believe they can act unilaterally without consequence. By abandoning all moral obligations, mass media has propelled itself full speed into an unreality that will result in generations of harm; not only to innocent peoples all over the world but to itself, our Government, and citizens of the western world made complicit through taxation to pay for their crimes.
To make up for this staggering journalistic malpractice, individuals and organizations have been documenting this inconvenient reality. On paper we are supposed to have a government ‘for and by the people.’ Without adequate information integrity we are robbed of our ability to understand and judge the actions of the government that is supposed to represent us. This has done and continues to do irreparable damage.
In How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, media analyst Adam Johnson has documented in great detail mass media’s many indefensible practices.
As someone who has painstakingly studied this exploitation of the populace perpetrated by our institutions, I have so much gratitude for this book. Above all I hope we can recognize this systemic failure and begin to rectify the unspeakable wrongs being visited upon so much of the world.
This behavior is nothing new. What’s different now is they haven’t been able to freeze out all other media. I recently heard the quote “morality is long term common sense.” Institutional power warps that reality. People begin to believe they can act unilaterally without consequence. By abandoning all moral obligations, mass media has propelled itself full speed into an unreality that will result in generations of harm; not only to innocent peoples all over the world but to itself, our Government, and citizens of the western world made complicit through taxation to pay for their crimes.
To make up for this staggering journalistic malpractice, individuals and organizations have been documenting this inconvenient reality. On paper we are supposed to have a government ‘for and by the people.’ Without adequate information integrity we are robbed of our ability to understand and judge the actions of the government that is supposed to represent us. This has done and continues to do irreparable damage.
In How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, media analyst Adam Johnson has documented in great detail mass media’s many indefensible practices.
As someone who has painstakingly studied this exploitation of the populace perpetrated by our institutions, I have so much gratitude for this book. Above all I hope we can recognize this systemic failure and begin to rectify the unspeakable wrongs being visited upon so much of the world.
June 2, 2026
An important and comprehensive work outlining media bias and complicity when it comes to covering Gaza.
It's clear our mainstream media are beholden to an embarrassingly amateurish hardcore pro-Israel bias and have been for several decades. Johnson's timely and important book proves it all and then some.
Get this : A directive from CNN management in the days after October 7, first reported by Boguslaw, required that “all copy on all platforms that’s connected in any way to the Israeli or Palestinian stories” must “be approved in advance by the Jerusalem bureau.”
Of the 208 hours the Sunday shows were on-air, only one of these shows, CBS’s Face the Nation, featured a single Palestinian guest—Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, who appeared in a seven-minute Face the Nation interview on November 5, 2023.
By contrast, the Sunday shows featured Israeli guests 20 times— either government officials or families of Israeli hostages. Netanyahu alone made five appearances—once on each of the three network shows, and twice on CNN’s State of the Union.
None of the shows featured any Palestinian academics, activists, or spokespeople for human rights groups.
The word “massacre” was used on the Sunday shows to describe violence against Israelis 33 times and only twice for Palestinians. The word “slaughter” was used 33 times to describe violence against Israelis and only three times for Palestinians. The word “brutal” was used 79 times for acts targeting Israelis and four for those affecting Palestinians.
The glaring example is the behavior of the 'left-wing' NYT: outrageously influenced by Israel.
Is this simply being biased, or is the Israel lobby so ubiquitous?
It's clear our mainstream media are beholden to an embarrassingly amateurish hardcore pro-Israel bias and have been for several decades. Johnson's timely and important book proves it all and then some.
Get this : A directive from CNN management in the days after October 7, first reported by Boguslaw, required that “all copy on all platforms that’s connected in any way to the Israeli or Palestinian stories” must “be approved in advance by the Jerusalem bureau.”
Of the 208 hours the Sunday shows were on-air, only one of these shows, CBS’s Face the Nation, featured a single Palestinian guest—Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, who appeared in a seven-minute Face the Nation interview on November 5, 2023.
By contrast, the Sunday shows featured Israeli guests 20 times— either government officials or families of Israeli hostages. Netanyahu alone made five appearances—once on each of the three network shows, and twice on CNN’s State of the Union.
None of the shows featured any Palestinian academics, activists, or spokespeople for human rights groups.
The word “massacre” was used on the Sunday shows to describe violence against Israelis 33 times and only twice for Palestinians. The word “slaughter” was used 33 times to describe violence against Israelis and only three times for Palestinians. The word “brutal” was used 79 times for acts targeting Israelis and four for those affecting Palestinians.
The glaring example is the behavior of the 'left-wing' NYT: outrageously influenced by Israel.
Is this simply being biased, or is the Israel lobby so ubiquitous?
June 23, 2026
A book that is as fast-paced as it is wince-inducing. A data-driven media analysis that takes the US’ Liberal Legacy Media as its subject, highlighting its insidious mechanisms of support and apologism for American policy in Israel and Gaza.
As Johnson states in his sobering conclusion, this book, at least within our current political context, exists only as a document for posterity, which is likely to be ignored (intentionally excluded) from future Right/liberal discourse regarding the Gaza genocide. It should be the duty of anyone who still believes in the rights of Palestinians, the oppressed and all peoples, to elevate the status of this book to being one that buttresses a successful political and legal case against those who perpetrated, aided and abetted a genocide.
As Johnson states in his sobering conclusion, this book, at least within our current political context, exists only as a document for posterity, which is likely to be ignored (intentionally excluded) from future Right/liberal discourse regarding the Gaza genocide. It should be the duty of anyone who still believes in the rights of Palestinians, the oppressed and all peoples, to elevate the status of this book to being one that buttresses a successful political and legal case against those who perpetrated, aided and abetted a genocide.
May 14, 2026
Great read. An honest analysis of a dishonest media landscape. Would not recommend for those who like to feel warm and fuzzy, or those who have their heads firmly dug into the sand when it comes to world events.
May 11, 2026
Masterwork
June 3, 2026
Accessible media criticism if youre familiar with the substance of the ongoing genocide. The case studies are well laid out. The inclusion of inside sources within the media organizations give an extra layer of validation to what we already suspected: that the coverup and normalization was actively pushed by editors and writers within media.
April 22, 2026
A superb book that explains, with examples and data, how zionists have weaponised 'antisemetism', especially in the US media (social & legacy), Universities, companies, legal and government. How anti Israeli opinions are closely controlled and, if needed, shutdown. The manipulation of news stories to shift the negative from Jews to Arabs. This is not new but, via social media has hugely increased. The biase in reporting of 7-Oct-2023 and subsequent Gaza genocide is reviewed in detail. Very clear writing and explanations throughout.
Read
May 25, 2026Hard to rate this one. It feels like a graduation thesis, in a good way — the author gives examples, analyses them, and proves a point. The comparisons of hypocritical headlines and word choices by major liberal media outlets were especially eye-opening. A reminder that words are never neutral.
It also made me think about my sad, old journalism diploma - buried somewhere in the deepest depths of a drawer for a reason.
It also made me think about my sad, old journalism diploma - buried somewhere in the deepest depths of a drawer for a reason.
June 30, 2026
As the author says, they can’t do much about their nation’s foreign policy but that can document media complicity. This follows in a long line of essential criticism that stems from the like of Philo and Miller’s Bad News From Israel and More Bad News From Israel. Essential.
May 22, 2026
A clear, direct, meticulously researched and powerful thesis of the western, left leaning media's role in perpetuating the atrocities against Palestinians. Incredibly informative and so well analysed that I fail to see how his argument could be disputed. Required reading.
June 12, 2026
Harrowing and meticulous recounting focused on 'center-lib' institutions (NYT, CNN, The Atlantic, Joseph Biden to name the heavy hitters) and how they manufactured consent for the US-backed genocide in Gaza by laundering propaganda, trafficking in racist assumptions, ignoring the most basic journalistic practices, and lending legitimacy to evidence-free lies. At it's core the book argues that specifically the post-Oct 7th genocide in Gaza would never have been possible without these media outlets running water for it, all the while painting US and Israeli officials in the best light possible, as 'reluctant' warriors whose trigger-fingers were being pulled by some comically sadistic death cult called Hamas. This isn't to say those same institutions haven't been carrying water for the occupation prior. This book simply focuses on the first year of the current genocide, running over media headlines, dogwhistles that didn't rest, and conspicuous areas of focus at critical junctures with a fine-toothed comb.
I did have two points of contention with the narration. First, the author named anti-genocide protesters saying 'go back to Poland' as a purely antisemitic phrase, because it does not consider the reason for Jewish people leaving Poland. However, this phrase is said by many Palestinians and their allies to name the European nature of the settler-colonial project which occupies and subjugates them. The implication that the occupied people need deeply consider the human reasons why their occupiers might have fled their previous place of residence ignores two realities:
1. Palestinians have indeed studied Europe's antisemitism in an attempt to understand their occupiers. The flagship of their scholarship occurred at the Palestine Research Center in Beirut, which Israel made sure to bomb during the course of it's various atrocities in Lebanon. Thankfully, the fruit of PRC's director Sabri Jiryis efforts titled The Foundations of Zionism has survived to be translated into English. His wife, however, was murdered in said bombing. May she rest. Jonathan Marc Gribetz's Reading Herzl in Beirut: The PLO Effort to Know the Enemy covers this topic in much more detail.
2. However pithy they may seem, slogans and so forth are workshopped so as to succinctly present a truth or contradiction. Naming the country of origin within one generation of many Israelis (i.e. Benjamin Netanyahu's father was born in Poland) specifically resists the move to Indigenization which Zionism relies on to justify itself - by exaggerating the Jewish history/stewardship of the region in order to name a nonexistent continuity, which masks the occupation in language of "the Promised Land", "the Jewish State", etc. I'm not denying that sometimes this phrase is probably just said to hurt someone's feeling or even is technically misapplied to some Black or Yemeni Zionist who inhabits/yearns for the privilege of being the overclass in the Zionist supremacist state. I simply think that to police the language of Palestinians in resisting their oppressors gives the words of the oppressed the same weight of the oppressor's violence, sidestepping the actual violence occurring, and should not be done with such flimsy glibness. Ground conceded is rarely gained back, and is often the pretext for the next forced round of apologies/concessions.
My second point of contention is how the Jewish participants and leaders of student encampments are valorized in a borderline philosemitic manner. Jewish comrades were comrades as all others, helping one another and lending their voices to the same cause in equal measure as all others present. They were not especially brave or loud by virtue of being Jewish, and their reasons for joining the movements were not uniquely noble. Similarly, Jewish organizations such as JVP and INN were elements like all others in the pro-Palestine movement: leveraging their unique privileges and memberships to plan actions with the largest possible intended impact. To stress their Jewish identity as legitimizing the entire camp is ridiculous - if not one single Jewish person had been present at any encampment, the flurry media attacks on the character of the students involved would not be any degree more justified. Indeed, the students who suffered the most as a result of their political organizing (i.e. being targeted for/detained pending deportation) are generally Palestinian, Arab, and/or visibly Muslim.
Anyway, in general this is a painstaking account and a difficult read. The conclusion I could take or leave but I appreciated the stark truths presented prior.
I did have two points of contention with the narration. First, the author named anti-genocide protesters saying 'go back to Poland' as a purely antisemitic phrase, because it does not consider the reason for Jewish people leaving Poland. However, this phrase is said by many Palestinians and their allies to name the European nature of the settler-colonial project which occupies and subjugates them. The implication that the occupied people need deeply consider the human reasons why their occupiers might have fled their previous place of residence ignores two realities:
1. Palestinians have indeed studied Europe's antisemitism in an attempt to understand their occupiers. The flagship of their scholarship occurred at the Palestine Research Center in Beirut, which Israel made sure to bomb during the course of it's various atrocities in Lebanon. Thankfully, the fruit of PRC's director Sabri Jiryis efforts titled The Foundations of Zionism has survived to be translated into English. His wife, however, was murdered in said bombing. May she rest. Jonathan Marc Gribetz's Reading Herzl in Beirut: The PLO Effort to Know the Enemy covers this topic in much more detail.
2. However pithy they may seem, slogans and so forth are workshopped so as to succinctly present a truth or contradiction. Naming the country of origin within one generation of many Israelis (i.e. Benjamin Netanyahu's father was born in Poland) specifically resists the move to Indigenization which Zionism relies on to justify itself - by exaggerating the Jewish history/stewardship of the region in order to name a nonexistent continuity, which masks the occupation in language of "the Promised Land", "the Jewish State", etc. I'm not denying that sometimes this phrase is probably just said to hurt someone's feeling or even is technically misapplied to some Black or Yemeni Zionist who inhabits/yearns for the privilege of being the overclass in the Zionist supremacist state. I simply think that to police the language of Palestinians in resisting their oppressors gives the words of the oppressed the same weight of the oppressor's violence, sidestepping the actual violence occurring, and should not be done with such flimsy glibness. Ground conceded is rarely gained back, and is often the pretext for the next forced round of apologies/concessions.
My second point of contention is how the Jewish participants and leaders of student encampments are valorized in a borderline philosemitic manner. Jewish comrades were comrades as all others, helping one another and lending their voices to the same cause in equal measure as all others present. They were not especially brave or loud by virtue of being Jewish, and their reasons for joining the movements were not uniquely noble. Similarly, Jewish organizations such as JVP and INN were elements like all others in the pro-Palestine movement: leveraging their unique privileges and memberships to plan actions with the largest possible intended impact. To stress their Jewish identity as legitimizing the entire camp is ridiculous - if not one single Jewish person had been present at any encampment, the flurry media attacks on the character of the students involved would not be any degree more justified. Indeed, the students who suffered the most as a result of their political organizing (i.e. being targeted for/detained pending deportation) are generally Palestinian, Arab, and/or visibly Muslim.
Anyway, in general this is a painstaking account and a difficult read. The conclusion I could take or leave but I appreciated the stark truths presented prior.
June 21, 2026
". . . we will always come back to the actual humans who actually died, who suffered, who lost arms, loved ones, homes, family heirlooms, and whole worlds. They existed and exist, they are real, they lived and had joy and hopes. And, as I will show, there's a direct line between their subjugation and slow deaths buried under rubble, and American media's decision to incite against them, dehumanize them, ignore them, strip them of their history and their narratives, and prioritize domestic political convenience and crude chauvinist narratives over doing what news media's job ostensibly is: to tell the truth."
On the stated goal - that the point of the book is for posterity, to demonstrate the truth for its own sake - Johnson clearly hits it out of the ballpark. After reading Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky (you motherfucker) and Edward Herman, I was desperate for a modern day application of their concepts that would help illustrate their point better, since I wasn't around when we were funding the Contras against the Sandinistas. I was first pointed to Matt Taibbi's Hate, Inc. (2019), which in comparison to this work is lazy and anecdotal (one point he made was that #Russiagate was this generations WMD). I think this is the true continuation of Manufacturing Consent, though I understand not wanting to attach oneself to Chomsky going forward (you motherfucker). And originally I was going to say that the media's enabling of the Gaza genocide is the unique, logical conclusion to corporate ownership of media, but Manufacturing Consent covers both the Maya genocide and the genocide of East Timor and the similarities are striking. Endless double standards and an astounding lack of consideration for the lives of those the United States destroys or cuts short; these and many other stratagems would be employed in the media's last dying breath of legitimacy that Johnson cuts through with his prosecutorial slant.
I would've liked it to be a little longer, maybe 50-100 pages including some exposition on Israel's Operation Protective Edge in 2014 to provide further comparison in addition to media's coverage of Ukraine, or addressing some generalities about the media's corporate structure viz. Manufacturing Consent. I also think the conclusion could've been extended to be a chapter long, to speak about the movement away from cable news and mainstream media towards more decentralized and therefore, harder to control narratives with the rise of independent outlets and efforts to stifle them. Or the breakage of liberalism into the coming conflict of socialism vs. fascism that, in the posterity this was written for, will know its catalyst to be the Gaza genocide. Johnson is right to end the book on a dour note; that the genocide happened, will be lied about or forgotten, and that it may be replicated within our lifetimes unless we do something about it.
Listen to Citations Needed, it's embedded capitalizing improper nouns into my vocabulary permanently and I can't undo it. My favorite so far is "Netanyahu is presented as a Simple Talmudic Country Scholar. . ."
On the stated goal - that the point of the book is for posterity, to demonstrate the truth for its own sake - Johnson clearly hits it out of the ballpark. After reading Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky (you motherfucker) and Edward Herman, I was desperate for a modern day application of their concepts that would help illustrate their point better, since I wasn't around when we were funding the Contras against the Sandinistas. I was first pointed to Matt Taibbi's Hate, Inc. (2019), which in comparison to this work is lazy and anecdotal (one point he made was that #Russiagate was this generations WMD). I think this is the true continuation of Manufacturing Consent, though I understand not wanting to attach oneself to Chomsky going forward (you motherfucker). And originally I was going to say that the media's enabling of the Gaza genocide is the unique, logical conclusion to corporate ownership of media, but Manufacturing Consent covers both the Maya genocide and the genocide of East Timor and the similarities are striking. Endless double standards and an astounding lack of consideration for the lives of those the United States destroys or cuts short; these and many other stratagems would be employed in the media's last dying breath of legitimacy that Johnson cuts through with his prosecutorial slant.
I would've liked it to be a little longer, maybe 50-100 pages including some exposition on Israel's Operation Protective Edge in 2014 to provide further comparison in addition to media's coverage of Ukraine, or addressing some generalities about the media's corporate structure viz. Manufacturing Consent. I also think the conclusion could've been extended to be a chapter long, to speak about the movement away from cable news and mainstream media towards more decentralized and therefore, harder to control narratives with the rise of independent outlets and efforts to stifle them. Or the breakage of liberalism into the coming conflict of socialism vs. fascism that, in the posterity this was written for, will know its catalyst to be the Gaza genocide. Johnson is right to end the book on a dour note; that the genocide happened, will be lied about or forgotten, and that it may be replicated within our lifetimes unless we do something about it.
Listen to Citations Needed, it's embedded capitalizing improper nouns into my vocabulary permanently and I can't undo it. My favorite so far is "Netanyahu is presented as a Simple Talmudic Country Scholar. . ."
June 25, 2026
5 + ⭐️
Finished reading ... How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza / Adam H. Johnson ... 25 June, 2026
ISBN: 9780745351650 .... 204 pp. + Foreword + Notes (28 pp.)
NOTE: The Notes are in fact citations. You can skip looking at them unless you want to read/view the cited quote in its original context.
I keep heaping praise on the books I read about Palestine, every one a "must read". And that is so – they've all had different angles. This one is no exception.
Where Complicit is British focussed, this is the US. It is also about the lies, bias, racism, etc by the numbers. It's not just how things are said, eg “Palestinians 'die', they're not 'killed by the IDF'” (my Complicit review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) but the number of times they are said is compared. Needless to say, in all such comparisons, detailed in words, numbers and graphs throughout the book, Israeli actions are whitewashed and Hamas is worse than anything imaginable. As is also pointed out, this is the opposite to what daily feeds on our phones show.
The point of reading this in its entirety is to show the reader, and many are unaware and that is the point, that what they read in mainstream media is simply not the truth. The words are meant to convince us that what we see isn't really happening. There is another (untrue, fabricated) explanation. And we believe it because “our” country “wouldn't do that”. But it does.
Here in this book, unlike Complicit, are the stats to back up that claim.
Depressingly, in his conclusion, the author says our/Western history will gloss over this whole genocide, sweep it under the carpet and move on, that “one day everyone will have been against this” (also the title of a book I read and reviewed https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) simply won't happen. We will continue to deceive ourselves. Or most of us will.
This book surveys only the first year after 7 October, 2023. In the conclusion the author refers to the genocide continuing as he prepares his manuscript for publication “and, depending on when you are reading this, may well still be.” Heading to the third anniversary of 7 October 2023, it's definitely still continuing, getting unbelievably worse by the day.
Again I say, if you're only getting your news from mainstream sources, read alternative media to find out what's really happening. And you need to understand that any news from Israeli government or “official sources” is invariable untrue, in whole or in part.
Another must read …. and at this stage I'd say if you're only going to read one book on what's happening in Gaza, Palestine and now Lebanon and beyond, make it this one. Because you need to know where you're not getting the truth told to you.
Finished reading ... How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza / Adam H. Johnson ... 25 June, 2026
ISBN: 9780745351650 .... 204 pp. + Foreword + Notes (28 pp.)
NOTE: The Notes are in fact citations. You can skip looking at them unless you want to read/view the cited quote in its original context.
I keep heaping praise on the books I read about Palestine, every one a "must read". And that is so – they've all had different angles. This one is no exception.
Where Complicit is British focussed, this is the US. It is also about the lies, bias, racism, etc by the numbers. It's not just how things are said, eg “Palestinians 'die', they're not 'killed by the IDF'” (my Complicit review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) but the number of times they are said is compared. Needless to say, in all such comparisons, detailed in words, numbers and graphs throughout the book, Israeli actions are whitewashed and Hamas is worse than anything imaginable. As is also pointed out, this is the opposite to what daily feeds on our phones show.
The point of reading this in its entirety is to show the reader, and many are unaware and that is the point, that what they read in mainstream media is simply not the truth. The words are meant to convince us that what we see isn't really happening. There is another (untrue, fabricated) explanation. And we believe it because “our” country “wouldn't do that”. But it does.
Here in this book, unlike Complicit, are the stats to back up that claim.
Depressingly, in his conclusion, the author says our/Western history will gloss over this whole genocide, sweep it under the carpet and move on, that “one day everyone will have been against this” (also the title of a book I read and reviewed https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) simply won't happen. We will continue to deceive ourselves. Or most of us will.
This book surveys only the first year after 7 October, 2023. In the conclusion the author refers to the genocide continuing as he prepares his manuscript for publication “and, depending on when you are reading this, may well still be.” Heading to the third anniversary of 7 October 2023, it's definitely still continuing, getting unbelievably worse by the day.
Again I say, if you're only getting your news from mainstream sources, read alternative media to find out what's really happening. And you need to understand that any news from Israeli government or “official sources” is invariable untrue, in whole or in part.
Another must read …. and at this stage I'd say if you're only going to read one book on what's happening in Gaza, Palestine and now Lebanon and beyond, make it this one. Because you need to know where you're not getting the truth told to you.
June 14, 2026
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: As bombs rained down on Gaza in October 2023, images of mass death and destruction gripped the world, and openly genocidal statements from Israeli leaders foretold the magnitude of horrors to come. But the US media was quick to downplay, obscure, and repackage an emerging campaign of extermination into a slick “war on terror” framework.
How to Sell a Genocide is a thorough indictment of US corporate media's role in enabling—and, at times, directly inciting—one of the most devastating campaigns of mass killing in modern memory. Johnson unpacks how major news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC systematically sanitised Israel's war crimes, hid the US’s central role, and dehumanised the Palestinian people.
Drawing from deep, original data-driven analysis, Johnson dissects the mechanics of propaganda, from the selective empathy, strategic omissions, overt racism and repetition of state-sanctioned falsehoods, to the demonisation of humanitarian workers and dishonest coverage of campus protests. With clarity and moral force, Johnson argues that the genocide could not have been sustained without the active, sustained complicity of the US media.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: When I read "deep, original data-driven analysis" in the book's synopsis, I realized the read was going to be tendentious, probably ill-sourced, and reflective of the need to marshal supporters of anti-war, pro-Palestine leanings into willingness to take action. That's exactly what I got.
Since I am all those things I find it hard to fault this read for being what it's supposed to be. If you are not all those things, or are anti-all those things, you'll be very unpset by this read. I myownself think you might should read it anyway.
War crimes are committed when there are wars. Both sides commit them. But do not lose sight of the fact that one side started this war. They're looking for you to believe they didn't start it, the other side did by doing something terrible. That terrible something did not suddenly occur in an otherwise peaceful and ordinary world, though. And that terrible something did not involve bombing runs by sophisticated jet aircraft, advanced anti-personnel drone attacks, destruction of thousands of homes, missile attacks on hospitals...in other words, we're being fed false equivalences to disguise a long-term and intentional act of ethnic cleansing, perhaps rising to the standard of genocide set after the Holocaust. I'm not a lawyer so I can't speak authoritatively on that. I'll say that my reading of the bloviations from each side of the conflict leads me to think there is a case to answer and a darn compelling body of evidence to compel the case to be brought in the court of public opinion.
That's why this book exists. It's a highly emotional read. It's a highly emotional subject. It's part of an effort to break through the saturation-bombing of the pro-Israel lobby's PR firms.
Are there angels in this conflict, the pure and unsullied victims of hateful demonic criminals?
No.
There are only ordinary human beings who need, but don't have, the basics you and I walk outside our intact homes to access: streets we can use easily, food stores with the planet's abundance piled up for us to choose from, water pipes to quench our thirst, sewer pipes to take our waste away to keep us healthy, hospitals to care for frail bodies' failure points, living parents and children and loved ones who, when they leave our sight, are statistically likely return to us alive and as well as they left.
War is wrong. Always and eternally wrong. It is war that created this oongoing crisis. War is a decision, a set of decisions, made by people who want *something* so much they're willing to trade your life for it. Never theirs, or the wars would be short.
I don't think for a single second that Humankind will ever be free of war. If reading words could stop war there wouldn't still be any of them.
Reading words is a slow process, thinking about them slower still. Changing minds, firing up action in people who don't like doing hard things, that kind of thing that words *can* do, all has to start somewhere.
I ask you, please, for the sake of people you have never met and will never meet: Start the process in yourself now. Pay it forward, to the best of your ability, and know from the beginning that you won't "win" or "succeed" or "finish the job" because the work is never, can never be, complete as long as there are human beings.
But let's make sure the greatest possible number of people live out their "one wild and precious life" as poet Mary Oliver taught us to think of it.
The Publisher Says: As bombs rained down on Gaza in October 2023, images of mass death and destruction gripped the world, and openly genocidal statements from Israeli leaders foretold the magnitude of horrors to come. But the US media was quick to downplay, obscure, and repackage an emerging campaign of extermination into a slick “war on terror” framework.
How to Sell a Genocide is a thorough indictment of US corporate media's role in enabling—and, at times, directly inciting—one of the most devastating campaigns of mass killing in modern memory. Johnson unpacks how major news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC systematically sanitised Israel's war crimes, hid the US’s central role, and dehumanised the Palestinian people.
Drawing from deep, original data-driven analysis, Johnson dissects the mechanics of propaganda, from the selective empathy, strategic omissions, overt racism and repetition of state-sanctioned falsehoods, to the demonisation of humanitarian workers and dishonest coverage of campus protests. With clarity and moral force, Johnson argues that the genocide could not have been sustained without the active, sustained complicity of the US media.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: When I read "deep, original data-driven analysis" in the book's synopsis, I realized the read was going to be tendentious, probably ill-sourced, and reflective of the need to marshal supporters of anti-war, pro-Palestine leanings into willingness to take action. That's exactly what I got.
Since I am all those things I find it hard to fault this read for being what it's supposed to be. If you are not all those things, or are anti-all those things, you'll be very unpset by this read. I myownself think you might should read it anyway.
War crimes are committed when there are wars. Both sides commit them. But do not lose sight of the fact that one side started this war. They're looking for you to believe they didn't start it, the other side did by doing something terrible. That terrible something did not suddenly occur in an otherwise peaceful and ordinary world, though. And that terrible something did not involve bombing runs by sophisticated jet aircraft, advanced anti-personnel drone attacks, destruction of thousands of homes, missile attacks on hospitals...in other words, we're being fed false equivalences to disguise a long-term and intentional act of ethnic cleansing, perhaps rising to the standard of genocide set after the Holocaust. I'm not a lawyer so I can't speak authoritatively on that. I'll say that my reading of the bloviations from each side of the conflict leads me to think there is a case to answer and a darn compelling body of evidence to compel the case to be brought in the court of public opinion.
That's why this book exists. It's a highly emotional read. It's a highly emotional subject. It's part of an effort to break through the saturation-bombing of the pro-Israel lobby's PR firms.
Are there angels in this conflict, the pure and unsullied victims of hateful demonic criminals?
No.
There are only ordinary human beings who need, but don't have, the basics you and I walk outside our intact homes to access: streets we can use easily, food stores with the planet's abundance piled up for us to choose from, water pipes to quench our thirst, sewer pipes to take our waste away to keep us healthy, hospitals to care for frail bodies' failure points, living parents and children and loved ones who, when they leave our sight, are statistically likely return to us alive and as well as they left.
War is wrong. Always and eternally wrong. It is war that created this oongoing crisis. War is a decision, a set of decisions, made by people who want *something* so much they're willing to trade your life for it. Never theirs, or the wars would be short.
I don't think for a single second that Humankind will ever be free of war. If reading words could stop war there wouldn't still be any of them.
Reading words is a slow process, thinking about them slower still. Changing minds, firing up action in people who don't like doing hard things, that kind of thing that words *can* do, all has to start somewhere.
I ask you, please, for the sake of people you have never met and will never meet: Start the process in yourself now. Pay it forward, to the best of your ability, and know from the beginning that you won't "win" or "succeed" or "finish the job" because the work is never, can never be, complete as long as there are human beings.
But let's make sure the greatest possible number of people live out their "one wild and precious life" as poet Mary Oliver taught us to think of it.
June 20, 2026
I picked up this book after hearing it recommended as a part of a cogent defense of the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel. Unfortunately, this book is an example of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. Johnson can find little to no error in the actions of Palestinians. They have no agency and merely react to external forces in the same way that anyone would.
The most glaring weakness of the book Johnson's bending over backwards to avoid describing October 7th, the catalyst of renewed hot conflict, in detail. He of course does not believe it was an act of terrorism and seems to see it as justified, inevitable, and, at the end of the day, Israel’s fault for wearing such a short skirt anyway. October 7th is treated as a mere pretext for Israel's overreaction.
Johnson takes Hamas's numbers at face value, but ignores their goals, both avowed and demonstrated, as though their stated aim to eradicate Jews from the region and actions to bring that about do not reflect on what is in their hearts. In contrast, he treats any statements in support of Israel, be it from the country's government or third parties, to be utter fabrications only intended to obscure the motives that he has divined. This rhetorical framework is so extreme that it treats any media coverage falling short of total condemnation of Israel as complicity in mass murder, rendering balanced reporting completely impossible.
While I appreciate Johnson's thorough citation of sources, his pre-determined thesis that Israel is the truly evil actor in the conflict shows through in his treating every news source left of center, including the New York Time, CNN, and MSNBC as being the same sort of shrill, knee-jerk supporters of Israel. While that might be a reasonable assertion against Fox News, Johnson paints the New York Times' coverage with the same brush, ignoring the fact that NYT has held a middling-to-dim view of Israel for much of this century, and deliberately bypasses the broader conservative media ecosystem entirely.
The most glaring weakness of the book Johnson's bending over backwards to avoid describing October 7th, the catalyst of renewed hot conflict, in detail. He of course does not believe it was an act of terrorism and seems to see it as justified, inevitable, and, at the end of the day, Israel’s fault for wearing such a short skirt anyway. October 7th is treated as a mere pretext for Israel's overreaction.
Johnson takes Hamas's numbers at face value, but ignores their goals, both avowed and demonstrated, as though their stated aim to eradicate Jews from the region and actions to bring that about do not reflect on what is in their hearts. In contrast, he treats any statements in support of Israel, be it from the country's government or third parties, to be utter fabrications only intended to obscure the motives that he has divined. This rhetorical framework is so extreme that it treats any media coverage falling short of total condemnation of Israel as complicity in mass murder, rendering balanced reporting completely impossible.
While I appreciate Johnson's thorough citation of sources, his pre-determined thesis that Israel is the truly evil actor in the conflict shows through in his treating every news source left of center, including the New York Time, CNN, and MSNBC as being the same sort of shrill, knee-jerk supporters of Israel. While that might be a reasonable assertion against Fox News, Johnson paints the New York Times' coverage with the same brush, ignoring the fact that NYT has held a middling-to-dim view of Israel for much of this century, and deliberately bypasses the broader conservative media ecosystem entirely.
June 28, 2026
How do I make this required reading??? I read the audiobook (which was great), but I know this is going to be a physical re-read for me because I stopped trying to take notes so this review is more vibes and I'll update it after my re-read.
This book is scathing, literally naming names, but not the "obvious" targets like One America News. This book called out how "left leaning" news organizations like The New York Times and The Atlantic were complicit in the Palestinian Genocide. Johnson's accusations were backed with facts that were compelling while being easy for me as a lay person to understand. For example, in the first year of the War on Gaza, he lays out how many times the same news organization used the word massacre was used when discussing what was happening in Israel vs Palestine. Or how the same news organization would use the word children for Israelis under the age of 18, while Palestinians under 18 were referred to as minors.
Outside of the raw data, this book also helped me understand why so many people (people who I never thought would fall for obvious propaganda and manipulation) seemed to ignore the clear genocide and hypocritical news coverage. Unfortunately, media manipulation like what is documented in this book is not going away and I feel like this book gave me more tools to help illustrate/communicate the media manipulation even from news sources that used to be trustworthy.
One last vibe thing I wanted to mention - Johnson is straightforward and sometimes even sassy throughout the book, so while this topic is obviously incredibly heavy and depressing, their writing style made it as digestible as possible.
Final Score: 4.5
This book is scathing, literally naming names, but not the "obvious" targets like One America News. This book called out how "left leaning" news organizations like The New York Times and The Atlantic were complicit in the Palestinian Genocide. Johnson's accusations were backed with facts that were compelling while being easy for me as a lay person to understand. For example, in the first year of the War on Gaza, he lays out how many times the same news organization used the word massacre was used when discussing what was happening in Israel vs Palestine. Or how the same news organization would use the word children for Israelis under the age of 18, while Palestinians under 18 were referred to as minors.
Outside of the raw data, this book also helped me understand why so many people (people who I never thought would fall for obvious propaganda and manipulation) seemed to ignore the clear genocide and hypocritical news coverage. Unfortunately, media manipulation like what is documented in this book is not going away and I feel like this book gave me more tools to help illustrate/communicate the media manipulation even from news sources that used to be trustworthy.
One last vibe thing I wanted to mention - Johnson is straightforward and sometimes even sassy throughout the book, so while this topic is obviously incredibly heavy and depressing, their writing style made it as digestible as possible.
Final Score: 4.5
June 27, 2026
How can I give a book this important and informative anything less than five stars? This book painstakingly unravels the many layers of American propaganda for the joint U.S. and Israeli genocide of Palestinians in the 2020s, focusing on the role of corporate American media in dehumanizing Palestinians, absolving the Biden administration of responsibility for the genocide, conflating anti-Israel sentiment with antisemitism, and generally allowing the gears of the war machine to continue turning as the genocide became progressively more brutal and obvious.
As a regular listener to the author's podcast (with cohost Nima Shirazi) Citations Needed, there was not a great deal of new information in this book. It covers many of the same topics that Citations Needed covered over many episodes focusing on the Palestinian genocide, but in more detail and with more statistical analysis of media coverage and bias. The tone is also similar: scathing, but also sharp-witted and often funny in its takedowns of incredibly poor journalism and outrageous bullshitting.
I think that the book's main weakness is that it sometimes jumps to a conclusion too quickly without pulling the reader along through the full amount of context and background to get there with the author. In doing so, I feel that it may be less effective in convincing someone who is not fully on board with its ideological points of view or understanding of reality. The other issue is that reading the book is just signing up to sit down and get angry for an extended period of time!
As a regular listener to the author's podcast (with cohost Nima Shirazi) Citations Needed, there was not a great deal of new information in this book. It covers many of the same topics that Citations Needed covered over many episodes focusing on the Palestinian genocide, but in more detail and with more statistical analysis of media coverage and bias. The tone is also similar: scathing, but also sharp-witted and often funny in its takedowns of incredibly poor journalism and outrageous bullshitting.
I think that the book's main weakness is that it sometimes jumps to a conclusion too quickly without pulling the reader along through the full amount of context and background to get there with the author. In doing so, I feel that it may be less effective in convincing someone who is not fully on board with its ideological points of view or understanding of reality. The other issue is that reading the book is just signing up to sit down and get angry for an extended period of time!
June 23, 2026
A very data-driven account of media culpability in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
"The primary role of our Center-Left media. . . was not to accurately convey reality but, for want of a better descriptor, to make their readers and views feel better. . . To make them feel better about their country, their president, their party, their institutions, and themselves."
"The Biden administration was not a powerless NGO standing on the sidelines with a clipboard. They were an active participant in the conflict—providing arms, military support, troops and diplomatic support for the starvation campaign in question. But Americans, namely liberal Americans consuming mainstream US news from February 2024 to the end of Biden’s tenure, would hardly know this. Reading coverage of the 'ceasefire talks' and reports of a perpetually frustrated, angry and thwarted Biden, they would have the distinct impression the White House was a bumbling, uninvolved humanitarian third party overwhelmed by forces outside of their control."
"The primary role of our Center-Left media. . . was not to accurately convey reality but, for want of a better descriptor, to make their readers and views feel better. . . To make them feel better about their country, their president, their party, their institutions, and themselves."
"The Biden administration was not a powerless NGO standing on the sidelines with a clipboard. They were an active participant in the conflict—providing arms, military support, troops and diplomatic support for the starvation campaign in question. But Americans, namely liberal Americans consuming mainstream US news from February 2024 to the end of Biden’s tenure, would hardly know this. Reading coverage of the 'ceasefire talks' and reports of a perpetually frustrated, angry and thwarted Biden, they would have the distinct impression the White House was a bumbling, uninvolved humanitarian third party overwhelmed by forces outside of their control."
Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews