Media Jamming for Gaza in Northampton, Mass

River Valley for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace W MA, and other community organizations in Western Massachusetts have been trying to persuade the editors and publisher of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, headquartered in Northampton, to improve the paper's coverage of the genocide in Gaza and to publish an editorial condemning Israel's targeted killings of hundreds of Gaza's journalists. We have also asked that when the Gazette provides news from Gaza in the form of reprinted articles from media sources such as the Associated Press, they precede each article with an editor's note* containing the caveat that the news piece provided may contain pro-Israeli bias and propaganda. We have not succeeded in persuading the paper to meet our requests.

Two other local papers—the Springfield Republican and the Montague Reporter—recently published strong editorials condemning Israel's systematic murders of Gaza's journalists.

Since we feel that the Gazette is failing its readership vis-a-vis coverage of the Gaza genocide, we have decided to publish an alternative version of the paper—the Alt-Daily Hampshire Gazette—containing material that we wish the editors and publisher WOULD include. We hope Gazette readers find the Alt-Daily Hampshire Gazette, which is being distributed widely in the readership area of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, interesting and helpful as they seek reliable news and opinion about the Gaza genocide, Israel's occupation of Palestine, and campaigns throughout Western Massachusetts to stand with the Palestinian people and all people fighting empire, militarism, colonization, and exploitation.

The first edition of the Alt-Daily Hampshire Gazette, released on September 23, 2025, contains news pieces, a letter to the editor, a piece by a journalist who resigned in protest from Reuters, and relevant photos and cartoons. It also included an editorial, below, that River Valley for Palestine wishes and repeatedly urged the Daily Hampshire Gazette to publish. Periodic editions of the Alt-Daily Hampshire Gazette will be published and disseminated widely by River Valley for Palestine. They will contain news and opinion about Gaza, Occupied Palestine, and the Israel-US genocide written by local activists.

EDITORIAL–WE STAND WITH GAZA’S JOURNALISTS

By Alt-Daily Hampshire Gazette editorial board member Jennifer Scarlott

As the war in Gaza grinds into its 23rd month, passing its 700th day, with incalculable, breathtaking suffering imposed by Israel and the United States on a caged civilian population of more than 2 million, the territory has been turned into an enormous death camp.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette rarely publishes editorials. We feel that the realities in Gaza DEMAND that our editorial voice be heard.

A feature of Israel’s war on Gaza has been its targeting of crucial civilian populations: healthcare workers, civil defense workers, government workers, academics, intellectuals, journalists like ourselves.

We acknowledge that though we are a local paper, we bear responsibility for creating conditions that have contributed to a genocide in Gaza and attacks on our journalist brothers and sisters.

In its killings of Gaza’s extraordinarily hard-working and courageous journalists (more than 270 as of this date, according to Al Jazeera, many of them in targeted assassinations) and its refusal to allow international journalists into Gaza, Israel is killing the messenger. It is targeting the profession of journalism. It is assaulting free speech and freedom of information. It is targeting international law and human rights. It is seeking to normalize censorship, official lies, war propaganda, and murders of journalists. Its enemy is the truth; its perceived enemies are truthtellers: Gaza’s journalists.

Readers of the Daily Hampshire Gazette are hopefully familiar with the most recent assassinations of journalists at Al Shifa Hospital (the entire Al Jazeera team, including Anas Al Sharif, in Gaza City on 8/10/25) and Nasser Hospital (8/25/25). These massacres have received some global attention due to their brazenness and the numbers of journalists targeted. But the frequent, targeted sniping and bombing of individual journalists in Gaza do not.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), “Israel is engaging in the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that CPJ has ever documented. Palestinian journalists are being threatened, directly targeted, and murdered by Israeli forces, and are arbitrarily detained and tortured in retaliation for their work. Israel has systematically destroyed media infrastructure in Gaza, and tightened censorship throughout the West Bank and Israel. By silencing the press, Israel is silencing those who document and bear witness to what human rights groups and academic and international legal experts say is a genocide.”

In an astounding attack on Yemeni civilians on 9/10/25, Israel massacred more than 25 journalists. The Yemeni Journalists Union condemned the direct targeting of the 26 September newspaper and the Al-Yemen newspaper in the capital, Sana’a.

During this time of unprecedented assault on journalists and the First Amendment in our own country, the Daily Hampshire Gazette wishes to be very clear to our readers, to our colleagues in Western media, and to our media colleagues in Gaza: We stand with the Palestinian journalists of Gaza (and with our colleagues everywhere). We condemn their deliberate murder by Israel. These murders are war crimes, as are killings of all civilians. They are flagrant violations of international law under the Geneva Conventions. They must be independently investigated. They must be prosecuted.

Twenty-three months into the war on Gaza, the Daily Hampshire Gazette acknowledges that media “neutrality” is complicity. For the past nearly two years, Western media, through silence or through pro-Israel bias, has been complicit in the Israeli-US genocide in Gaza and in the ongoing assassinations of journalists. We will not be complicit. We acknowledge that though we are a local paper, we bear responsibility for creating conditions that have contributed to a genocide in Gaza and attacks on our journalist brothers and sisters.

In acknowledging that the war in Gaza is a genocide being conducted by the Israeli and US governments, we call for: immediate ceasefire; the immediate, permanent removal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from Gaza; a global arms embargo on Israel; global economic sanctions on Israel; the immediate and permanent opening of Gaza’s borders; the immediate, permanent influx, under the auspices of UNRWA, of humanitarian aid and supplies for the entire Gaza population; and removal of Israel from the United Nations. We call for the immediate assembly of an international protection force in Gaza under the UN General Assembly’s “Uniting for Peace” Resolution.

At this critical moment in world history, with the extermination of an entire people gaining momentum, the Daily Hampshire Gazette will not fail this test: We will defend Palestinian journalists and journalism, and in so doing, defend and stand with the civilian population of Gaza in its desperate hour of need. We understand that if we fail to do so, we fail ourselves, the readers of this newspaper, the people of Gaza, and humanity itself. We call on our colleagues throughout Western media—whether local, regional, or national and whether print, television, radio, or Internet—to do the same.

Lastly, as to news articles about the genocide in Gaza: We make a promise to our readers that if we reprint news articles from outlets such as the Associated Press, we will acknowledge our responsibility for the bias in those articles (the AP and other outlets routinely quote Israeli government and military sources without comment), by preceding them with the following:

*Editors’ Note: The following report may be inaccurate for the following reasons—Israeli government and military statements, frequently cited uncritically by Western media, are war propaganda and should not be taken at face value; many Western media outlets exhibit consistent pro-Israel bias. In addition, be aware that the Israeli regime bars international media from entering and reporting from Gaza or other parts of Palestine, all of which it illegally occupies.

(The above was written as if it were a piece by the editorial board of the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Instead, it was published in the Alt-Daily Hampshire Gazette on 9/23/25 by River Valley for Palestine, a community organization fighting for Palestine’s liberation.)