Webinar: Media Bias and the Gaza Genocide

Since October 2023, historian Assal Rad and journalist Sana Saeed have closely tracked media coverage of the genocide in Gaza, highlighting how much of it aligns with the Israeli narrative and distorts key facts — contributing to widespread misinformation and disinformation.

Our speakers will present examples of headlines that obscure the facts, and we will have some time to practice our media literacy skills!

Dr. Assal Rad is a historian of the modern Middle East. She works on research and writing related to U.S. foreign policy issues, the Middle East, contemporary Iran, and Israel/Palestine. Her writing can be seen in Newsweek, The National Interest, The Independent, Foreign Policy and more, and she has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, Al Jazeera, CNN, and NPR. Assal completed a PhD in History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018 and is the author of The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Sana Saeed is an award-winning journalist and media critic known for her sharp analysis of how media shapes public perception. She previously hosted the shows Backspace and The Occupation Style Guide at AJ+ that illuminated the ways mainstream news frames narratives around war, colonialism, and resistance. Since October 2023, she has been at the forefront of critically exposing how U.S. media propaganda is used to justify war crimes and shape public discourse around the genocide in Gaza.